PDF Not available 141Kb

Despite their increasing relevance, employees' psychological contracts have attracted little research attention in Australia. The present paper presents two studies, which examined the psychological contracts of specific cohorts of professional employees and those in a managerial career track. The first study was an in-depth qualitative investigation of research scientists in an Australian public sector research organisation. They were found to have a strong professional affiliation and had developed psychological contracts that were best understood by reference to the 'ideological currency' of the scientific community. The second study was a quantitative examination of 156 MBA students at an Australian university, and how their psychological contracts could be related to perceptions of the contextual variables of organisational justice, perceived organisational support and external employability. Organisational justice and perceived organisational support were found to be related to the nature of the psychological contracts measured, but perceptions of external employability were not.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Psychological contracts; professional employees; organisational context; organisational justice; perceived organisational support
Research Division:	Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Research Group:	Human resources and industrial relations
Research Field:	Human resources management
Objective Division:	Economic Framework
Objective Group:	Management and productivity
Objective Field:	Management
UTAS Author:	O'Donohue, W (Dr Wayne O'Donohue)
UTAS Author:	Grimmer, MR (Professor Martin Grimmer)
ID Code:	48959
Year Published:	2007
Deposited By:	Management
Deposited On:	2007-08-01
Last Modified:	2010-05-28
Downloads:	3 View Download Statistics