De relatie tussen gepercipieerde HR-praktijken en gedane beloftes door midden-managers: het effect van leiderschap op de vertaling van HR-praktijken naar het psychologisch contract

This thesis investigates the relationship between perceived HR-practices by managers and the level of promises made based on these perceived HR-practices. Also, the influence of the four leadership roles: communicator, authorizer, sense giver and innovator, on this relationship will be analyzed. Reason for examining these relationships is the paper of McDermott, Conway, Rousseau and Flood (2013). McDermott et al. pose that the unclear relationship between HR-practices and performance of organizations can be explained by the psychological contract (individual expectations of employer and employee based on the perception that a promise has been made, (Rousseau and Tijoriwala, 1998: 679)) and by leadership behavior. To investigate the abovementioned relationships a longitudinal diary study was performed on a sample of 73 middle managers from several organizations. During five weeks these middle managers weekly filled in a questionnaire about perceived HR-practices and the extent of promises made. Also, employees of these managers filled in a questionnaire about the leadership roles of their manager. The results, utilizing a multilevel analysis, show a significant positive relationship between perceived HR-practices and the level of promises made by managers. In other words: the more HR-practices perceived by the manager the higher the level of promises made by this manager. Two of the four leadership roles could not be measured reliably. Therefore, only the effect of the leadership roles communicator and pioneer (variant of innovator) could be examined. Both, the role of communicator as well as the role of pioneer, do not have a significant effect on the relationship between perceived HR-practices and the level of promises made. These results are not in line with the theory of McDermott et al. that leadership roles are, together with the psychological contract, the explaining element between HR-practices and organizational performance. On the other hand, this survey shows a positive relationship between the perceived HR-practices and the level of promises made. Consequently: if a manager perceives more HR-practices the psychological contract will become more concrete. Future research could investigate the effect of the leadership roles sense giver and authorizer on the relationship between perceived HR-practices and the level of promises made. To do this properly it is necessary to develop new answering formats for the questionnaire. Also it is recommendable to focus future research at the process of making promises. Ideally this would be done by observing behavior within organizations in combination with conducting interviews with managers and employees. Such a survey should give insights of the perception of both parties regarding promising. Finally, further investigation is required to explain the relationship between HR-practices and organizational performance