Handbook of Research on the Psychological Contract at Work

The psychological contract is considered a critical construct in organizational behavior literature because it informs employee emotions, attitudes, and behaviors in the workplace. Although the psychological contract has been explored extensively over the last 50 years, numerous theoretical, conceptual, empirical, methodological, and analytical changes have pushed the field forward. As such, it is time to take stock and move forward. The contributors to this Handbook explore in detail this important component of modern management thinking.

This volume’s objective is to challenge and refine the way scholars think about the psychological contract in the workplace by evaluating current assumptions embedded in psychological contract research, proposing new conceptual and theoretical developments, introducing dynamic psychological contract processes and offering new methodological and analytical developments. It concludes with a chapter, by leading researchers, outlining a proposed research agenda to further our understanding going forward.

Academic audiences – faculty, graduate students – and others working in organizational behaviour and industrial and organizational psychology will value the theoretical aspects of this study as well as the new and exciting methodological propositions and elaborations. And evidence-based management practitioners will find interest in the chapters dealing with psychological contract breach and overcoming the aftermath of breach perceptions as they may inform policy and interventions.