Psychological contracts are subjective perceptions about exchange agreements between employees and employers. Through surveys of 256 graduating college seniors with recently accepted job offers, beliefs regarding employment obligations were investigated. Consistent with findings by Rousseau (1990), new hires' perceptions of employee and employer obligations were interrelated and consistent with either transactional or relational contracts. Further, while expected tenure with the first employer was related to relational contracts, "careerism" was negatively related to new hires' beliefs in a relational contract and positively related to a transactional contract with an employer. The results also revealed that goal orientations moderate the relationship between relational contracts and careerism. Specifically, the results indicate that the relationship was more strongly negative in individuals with high mastery orientation. The findings in this study therefore indicate that new hires' attitudes are shaped by both explicit and implicit promises and by individual characteristics such as goal orientations.
Few empirical studies of psychological contracts have examined the role of unions and unfulfilled psychological contracts. This study has developed and tested a model proposing that union instrumentality moderates the relationship between psychological contract breach (PCB) and psychological contract violations (PCVs), and has investigated the mediating effects of such violations on the relationships between PCB and union commitment and trust in management (n = 215). Moderated regression analyses revealed that there was a significant interaction between PCB and union instrumentality in predicting PCVs. Specifically, the positive relationship between PCB and PCVs was weakened among employees endorsing high union instrumentality. Further, PCVs were associated with increased union commitment and decreased trust in management. Analyses also revealed that PCVs partially mediated the relationships between PCB and union commitment and trust in management. The importance of the findings is discussed and recommendations for future research are provided.
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