Foci-specific Psychological Contracts: Target-similarity effects on foci-specific OCB and Job satisfaction

Abstract

Psychological contracts provide a framework for understanding the employment relationship. The literature on psychological contracts has focused on the relationship of a focal-employee with a 'unitary employer'. This thesis employees the target-similarity model, proposed by Lavelle, Rupp, and Brockner (2007), to extend the psychological contract framework to include the foci-specific psychological contracts s a focal-person establishes with his/her organisation, supervisor, and peers. Three independent studies were carried out for this thesis. The first two studies concurrently tested the effects of foci-specific psychological contracts breach on work-related outcomes. The first study investigated the effect of foci-specific psychological contracts s breach on OCBs directed at the specific foci. The results from this study indicate that foci-specific psychological contract breach had a target-similarity effect on the OCBs directed at the foci breaching the psychological contracts. Results from this study also indicate that the psychological contract breach by the supervisor has a spill-over effect on the OCBs directed at the organisation and the peers. The results from the second study also confirmed that the foci-specific psychological contract breach had a target-similarity effect on the focal-person's satisfaction with the foci breaching the psychological contracts. Results from this study also confirmed that foci-specific psychological contract breach had spillover effect on the focal-person's satisfaction with the various organisational foci. Study three was designed to empirically test the effects of peer-to-peer psychological contract breach on a focal-person's satisfaction with his/her peers. The results from this study included the identification of the content of the peer-to-peer psychological contract, and confirmed the negative relationship between the breach of peer-to-peer psychological contracts s and satisfaction with peers. Implications for the psychological contract theory, future research, and practice are discussed at the end of the thesis.