Aren't there two parties in an employment relationship? Antecedents and consequences of organization–employee agreement on contract obligations and violations

✍ Scribed by Amanuel G. Tekleab; M. Susan Taylor

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 208 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0894-3796
• DOI: 10.1002/job.204

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Past studies have paid little attention to an organization's perspective on reciprocal obligations in the employment relationship, despite its importance to overall satisfaction and the survival of the relationship. This study assesses parties' levels of agreement on the reciprocal obligations of the psychological contract, and their consequences on parties' perceptions of contract violations. Furthermore, the study examines subsequent reactions of both parties to perceived violations. Results indicate that managers and employees tend to disagree on the employee's obligations and violations of the contract but not on the organization's obligations and violations. More importantly, results from multivariate regression analyses indicate that employee tenure with the manager and leader–member exchange (LMX) as reported by the manager were positively related to agreement on employees' obligations. Agreement on employees' obligations was related to perceptions of violation by the manager, but in a direction opposite to that hypothesized. Both managers' perceptions of employee violations and employees' perceptions of organization violations were related to employee outcomes assessed by the managers and the employees. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.