Samantha D. Montes

Disentangling the effects of promised and delivered inducements: relational and transactional contract elements and the mediating role of trust.

Psychological contracts contain both relational and transactional elements, each of which is associated with unique characteristics. In the present research, the authors drew on these distinct qualities to develop and test hypotheses regarding differential employee reactions to underfulfillment, fulfillment, and overfulfillment of relational and transactional promises. Further, the authors extended their test of the theoretical distinctions between relational and transactional contracts by assessing the relevance of trust as a key underlying mechanism of relational and transactional psychological contract breach effects. Participants in this 3-wave longitudinal study included 342 full-time temporary employees. In support of existing theoretical distinctions, results indicated that employees reacted differently to varying levels of fulfillment of their relational and transactional contracts and that trust is a more central mechanism of relational, as opposed to transactional, psychological contract breach effects. These findings underscore L.S. Lambert, J. R. Edwards, and D. M. Cables (2003) recent recommendation that the traditional conceptualization and study of psychological contract breach requires expansion.

Special issue on expatriates and psychological contracts

It has been 25 years since the publication of Rousseau (1989) seminal article outlining the concept of the psychological contract (PC) which marked the beginning of a period of sustained academic interest in the concept and its application as ameans to better understand the employee–employer relationship. Although a large body of theoretical and empirical literature dealing with the PC in domestic business environments has been published in the intervening time, much less attention has been paid to the development and application of PC theory specifically in relation to expatriate management (Pate & Scullion, 2009). The year 2014 marks the 20th year since the first article (Guzzo, Noonan, & Elron, 1994) was published which dealt specifically with the development and application of PC theory for the management of expatriate employees. However, research interest in the expatriate PC since that time has, at best, been only sporadic, and the extant literature does not form a coherent thematic body of research upon which international human resource management (IHRM) researchers and management practitioners can draw to improve their understanding of how the expatriate experience (pre-, during and post-) can be fully maximized for the benefit of both the individual and the organization. An increasing body of literature within the field of IHRM has noted the changing nature of expatriation, with suggestions that there may be greater reluctance for individuals to accept international assignments for a mix of reasons, including dual career couples, concerns about security and career implications. Notable changes include a shift to shorter assignments and commuter assignments (see Collings, Scullion, & Morley, 2007), a growing number of self-initiated expatriates whose career capital may be differentiated from organizationally assigned expatriates (Jokinen, Brewster, & Suutari, 2008) and a changing expatriate profile with more women being represented (see Brookfield Global Relocation Services, 2013). It has also been argued that there is need to consider more fully the expatriation of people from developing countries and expatriates working in the not-for-profit sector (Hutchings & Michailova, 2014). The constantly challenging and changing contemporary environment within which expatriation occurs necessitates that researchers and management practitioners address the plethora of issues