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The psychological contract describes the employer-employee relationship as an individualised exchange between organisations and their members. This exchange clearly goes beyond what is usually agreed upon in a written work contract and extends into the area of values such as accountability and fairness. News coverage shows us many examples of how management by objectives and pay for performance are not effective in binding managers and employees to the interests of their employers. This is why psychological contracts are such a relevant issue these days. While existing research shows a positive relationship between unbroken psyc- logical contracts and motivation as well as in-role and extra-role behaviours, there has been little interest in the concept from the perspective of strategic human resource management or leadership research. The research presented by Maida Petersitzke focuses on these issues and thereby makes an important and very valuable contribution. After presenting a well-structured and clearly-written overview of existing research and the theoretical basis of psychological contracts - which has rarely been described in detail - the present research focuses on the following two issues: Maida Petersitzke presents a conceptual framework which affords the description of an organisational exchange offer that is sustainable and tied to the human resource strategy. She also provides an empirical study of leadership behaviours that facilitate a positive perception of the psychological contract by employees and thereby generate employee behaviours in the interest of the organisation.
List of contents
A.- Definitions and Related Concepts.- Dimensions, Processes and Outcomes.- Theoretical Basis of Psychological Contracts.- B.- An Organisational Perspective on Psychological Contracts.- Managing Psychological Contracts through Human Resource Practices.- Supervisor Psychological Contract Management.- Summary of Literature Review.- C.- Aims and Hypotheses of the Empirical Study.- Method of the Empirical Study.- Results.- Discussion.- D.- Conclusions.
About the author
Dr. Maida Petersitzke promovierte bei Prof. Dr. Michel E. Domsch am Lehrstuhl für Personalwesen und Internationales Management der Helmut-Schmidt-Universität/Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg. Sie ist als Personalreferentin im Bereich Strategische Personalentwicklung bei der Techniker Krankenkasse tätig.
Summary
The interest of organisations in the concept of psychological contracts is often limited. This is mainly due to the fact that research on this concept has been presented as highly complex and has not featured any tangible instruments for its application.
Maida Petersitzke provides an overview of the literature on psychological contracts. She presents a four-tier framework that details how organisations can systematically manage the psychological contracts of their employees. Based on an empirical study of line managers and their subordinates, she also identifies ways in which individual line managers can foster positive psychological contracts that are associated with higher degrees of organisational citizenship behaviours and affective commitment towards the organisation.
