Psychological contracts and organizational correlates: the impact of work orientations

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of work orientations on the selection and/or anticipation of psychological contracts. It was hypothesized that people holding a job, career, or calling orientation would tend to seek and/or anticipate transactional, balanced or relational contracts respectively, and favorable outcomes would be observed when they would indeed see them realized. The empirical part of the study was designed as a longitudinal research, and respondents’ work orientations were assessed along with obligations they perceived being promised at time 1, and realized at time 2. Then, the impact of the fit between obligations realized and promised was assessed with respect to outcome variables of job satisfaction, intent to leave, in-role performance, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), for each work orientation separately. The results showed that the fit between obligations realized and promised did not have much significant impact on the outcomes. An alternative model was developed, which suggested that a more accurate way of conceptualizing the expected impact could be the interaction between the obligations promised and realized, rather than fit. Indeed, the interaction terms did yield significant results, especially for OCB of career-oriented and calling-oriented individuals. However, the largest significant effect came from obligations realized, especially for job satisfaction of each work orientation. Intent to leave and in-role performance were observed to display differential relationships. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed, along with contributions and limitations of the study.