Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2004
Abstract
The nature of the employee/employer relationship continues to evolve as firms respond to competition\, globalization\, shifts in technology and other changes in the business environment (Cavanaugh & Noe 1999; Hallier & James 1997; Handy 1990). Employees are increasingly assumed to be responsible for their own career progression and ultimately their own employability (Cavanaugh & Noe 1999). These changes in employee's expectations and obligations to the firm have important implications for individual and organizational outcomes. One way to examine the evolution of the employee/employer relationship is through psychological contract theory. The psychological contract has been defined as an "individual's beliefs regarding reciprocal obligations" (Rousseau 1990: p.390). Although early work focused primarily on employee expectations (Robinson & Rousseau 1994; Robinson\, Kraatz & Rousseau 1994; Rousseau 1990) psychological contract theory has increasingly emphasized the dyadic nature of the employee/manager relationship (Tekeleab & Taylor 2003; Turnley\, Bolino et al. 2003; Uhl-Bien & Maslyn 2003; Lester\, Turnley et al. 2002). We add to a growing body of prior work on psychological contracts that suggests that it is the degree to which the employee beliefs about the contract do not match\, or are incongruent with\, the contract beliefs of the employer that impact performance outcomes. The studies of employer and employee disagreement on global measures of psychological contracts\, termed incongruence in the literature (Morrison & Robinson 1997) have found that disagreement leads to lower performance outcomes (Turnley\, Bolino et al. 2003; Lester\, Turnley et al. 2002). However\, little work has been done to date on the impact of disagreement on the specific terms of psychological contracts. We depart from the incongruence literature by suggesting that employee/manager disagreement with respect to different types of psychological contracts produce different performance outcomes. Although we agree that global or overall disagreement leads to lower performance outcomes we hypothesize that disagreement with respect to the terms of different types of contracts produce different effects on overall incongruence. Few studies have examined this issue and the one study that has appears to lend support to this hypothesis. In that study disagreement on relational terms of the contract (non-economic\, socio-emotional obligations) was associated with lower performance outcomes while disagreement on the transactional terms of the contract (economic obligations) had no relationship to these outcomes (Turnley\, Bolino et al. 2003). This study provides support for the proposition that the type of contractual disagreement occurring between a manager and an employee is important and different types of overall incongruence lead to different performance outcomes. We study the effect of incongruence in psychological contract terms on important individual and organizational outcomes\, such as in role and extra role performance\, opportunistic behavior\, and creative performance. Prior work suggests these are important outcomes for organizations\, and more specifically that these are outcomes are positively related to employee/manager congruence on psychological contracts (Tekeleab & Taylor 2003; Turnley\, Bolino et al. 2003; Uhl-Bien & Maslyn 2003; Lester\, Turnley et al. 2002). We argue that the direct effect of contract incongruence on these outcomes will be mediated by trust and commitment\, constructs that have been shown to be highly relevant in the literature (Robinson 1996; Hunt & Morgan 1994; Morgan & Hunt 1994; Konovsky & Pugh 1994). We proceed by discussing psychological contracts in more depth\, focusing on how the mismatch in contract perceptions between employees and managers is of particular relevance to understanding work behavior and performance in the organization. Secondly\, we focus on the role of trust and commitment\, which are hypothesized as key mediating variables in our study (Morgan & Hunt 1994). We then examine performance outcomes\, which may be either organizationally desired (in role and extra role behaviors and creative performance) or not (increased opportunistic behavior).,Doctorate of Management Programs
Keywords
Management.
Rights
© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Rivera, Efrain, "Commitment, Trust and manager and employee disagreement on the terms of the employment relationship" (2004). Student Scholarship. 621.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/621