The formation and evaluation of newcomers' psychological contracts : a longitudinal study

There has been a plethora of research in psychological contracts in the last 15 years. Psychological contracts consist of individuals' beliefs regarding terms and conditions of the exchange agreement between themselves and their organization. They refer to the way the employment contract is interpreted, understood and enacted by employees at the interface between themselves and their employing organization. Existing work on the psychological contract has mainly focused on the consequences of psychological contract breach - that is, employee's perception that the organization has failed to honor the psychological contract between them - on employee's work-related attitudes and behaviors, with limited attention to the antecedents of the formation and the evaluation of the psychological contract. Using a quantitative methodology, this thesis drew upon a three-wave longitudinal research with 159 newcomers from three large organizations to pursue three aims: 1) to examine the role of the organization and the personality in shaping newcomers' formation of their psychological contract; 2) to investigate the potential of organizational and individual factors to influence newcomers' evaluation of their psychological contract; and 3) to extend existing knowledge of the impact of psychological contract breach on work-related outcomes by examining the role of interpretation process taking place after a breach has occurred, as well as the context in which the breach has occurred. Findings indicated that both situational and dispositional variables were capable of predicting the formation of newcomers' psychological contract in the context of socialization. With regard to the antecedents of the evaluation of the psychological contract, organizational factors, newcomers' personality and proactive behaviors predicted their subsequent evaluation of how well each party of the employment relationship (i.e., the newcomer and his or her organization) had fulfilled its obligations toward the other. When looking at the impact of perceived breach on work outcomes, psychological contract breach was found to have detrimental effects on both attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Concerning the interpretation process taking place after a perception of breach, feelings of violation mediated the relationships between perceived breach and attitudinal outcomes. With regard to the context in which the breach occurs, the quality of exchange relationship with one's organization was found to moderate the relationship between perceived breach and feelings of violation. Contributions of the thesis, major research and practical implications, and future research directions are discussed.Doctorat en sciences de gestion (IAG 3)--UCL, 200