The Psychological Contract: A Critical Review

By Niall Cullinane, T. Dundon. 2006

425 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Literature on the psychological contract has blossomed progressively over the last ten years to the extent that it is now firmly located within the lexicon of the Human Resource Management (HRM) discipline. Yet as this review indicates, the theoretical assumptions that seem to pervade the psychological contract literature are not without major deficiencies, which in turn pose serious questions around the continued sustainability of the construct as currently constituted. This paper addresses some of the central problems presently confronting the theoretical side of the psychological contract literature. In seeking to advance knowledge and understanding, this review calls for an alternative approach to studying the psychological contract on the basis of a more critical and discursive literature analysis. From this, the authors unpick the construct of the psychological contract as portrayed in much of the extant literature and argue that, in its present form, it symbolizes an ideologically biased formula designed for a particular managerialist interpretation of contemporary work and employment.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b2b3fec602d6f3a1d5a763ead084fbae0f9727b7

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In General Health Professions

1. L. Cohen
2. M. Clarke
3. P. Thompson
4. Juan M. Madera
5. C. Freese
6. P. M. Bal
7. R. Blomme
8. J. Arnold

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

1. P. M. Bal
2. X. Lub
3. R. Blomme
4. M. Clarke
5. René Schalk
6. L. Cohen
7. P. Thompson
8. Juan M. Madera

In Sociology and Political Science

1. P. M. Bal
2. X. Lub
3. R. Blomme
4. René Schalk
5. L. Cohen
6. M. Clarke
7. P. Thompson
8. Juan M. Madera

Citations in the corpus

• The organizational career: not dead but in need of redefinition (2013, background): “Organizational careers are generally associated with the ‘old’ psychological contract (Cullinane and Dundon 2006 ).”
• Using social networking websites as a selection tool: The role of selection process fairness and job pursuit intentions (2012, background): “Second, employees form psychological contracts, or employees’ erception that their employers have their best interests at heart, hich can be violated when employees perceive their employers re invading their privacy (Cullinane and Dundon, 2006).”
• Financialization and the workplace: extending and applying the disconnected capitalism thesis (2013, background): “Even when not applying the thesis, a range of studies have referenced it in broad support of the argument that financialization in the economy has led to divergent work and employment demands and weakened capacity to sustain collaborative, progressive practices (e.g. Reed 2005; Ellis and Taylor 2006”
• The mediating roles of organizational justice on the relationships between HR practices and workplace outcomes: an investigation in China (2009, background): “…high degree of employee empowerment (Ergeneli, Ari and Metin 2007; Spreitzer 2007), enhancing organizational communication (Clampitt and Downs 1993; Malmelin 2007), and fulfilling psychological contracts with employees (Turnley, Bolina, Lester and Bloodgood 2003; Cullinane and Dundon 2006).”
• The Psychology of Careers in Industrial - Organizational Settings: A Critical but Appreciative Analysis (2008, background): “Cullinane and Dundon (2006), in a review of the psychological contract literature, describe our tendency to portray the past as stable, secure and understandable, in contrast to the turbulent and complex present.”
• One job, one deal…or not: do generations respond differently to psychological contract fulfillment? (2016, background): “However, the psychological contract literature has thus far largely ignored the impact of these societal developments on the formation of and reactions to the psychological contract (Anderson and Schalk 1998; Cullinane and Dundon 2006).”
• Human resource practices, employee attitudes and small firm performance (2017, neutral): “…field of industrial relations (IR) and pluralist theories of the employment relationship, and the mainstream HRM literature has also increasingly adopted a social exchange framework in the development of concepts such as the psychological contract (Blyton et.al, 2008; Cullinane and Dundon, 2006).”
• The impact of organizational changes on psychological contracts: A longitudinal study (2011, background): “Although the language of the literature is firmly rooted in “that much favored rhetorical device of management of the all changing world” (Cullinane and Dundon, 2006), empirical research on the effects of changes in organizations on psychological contracts is scarce.”
• Different or alike?: Exploring the psychological contract and commitment of different generations of hospitality workers (2012, background): “The psychological contract literature has however thus far largely ignored societal dimensions of social relationships (Cullinane and Dundon, 2006).”