Employee Relations Flashcards
Social Exchange Theory
Blau (1964)
People are reward seeking and help each other when the benefits outweigh the costs.
Social exchanges regulated by perceptions of fairness, reciprocity and justice.
People will want to stay in a relationship and help an organisation when they perceive they are getting something out of it too and are not being exploited.
Affective commitment
Emotional attachment towards organisation.
Develops from work experiences, personality and organisation characteristics.
Continuance commitment
Stays due to high cost of leaving.
Develops from alternatives and interests
Normative commitment
Obligated loyalty despite personal dissatisfaction
Develops from socialisation and investments of organisation
Three component conceptualisation of organisational commitment
Meyer and Allen (2001)
Commitment to an organisation (staying in a workplace) is a psychological state with three separate components of commitment:
A desire (affective) A need (continuance) An obligation (normative)
Each component develops from other factors and all lead to turnover, absenteeism and performance.
Psychological Contract idea
Individuals enter employment with a set of beliefs, expectations and obligations, which they anticipate being met by their employer.
The employer holds a reciprocal set of beliefs, expectations and obligations.
Leads to a binding but unspoken contract.
Key components of psych contracts
Key components:
Mutuality Promises Reciprocity Development from beliefs to schema
Unilateral perspective of psych contracts
An individual’s beliefs, shaped by the organisation, regarding the terms of their exchange agreement with their organisation
Bilateral perspective of psych contracts
Both the employee and the organisation hold a psychological contract
Reciprocal obligations and levels of agreement of the terms of the exchange
Employment contract features
Written, definitive, long term, inflexible and legislative with infrequent violation
Psych contract features
Unwritten, loose, changing, flexible and interpretive with frequent violations
Three aspects of implicit employment relationships
Form
Content
Process
Breaches have serious consequences.
Form
The way in which an employee interfaces with the organisation.
Depends on how contracts are managed (are they equal, just etc).
Either transactional or relational.
Form - Transactional nature
Short term Money based Low emotional attachment Direct exchange Identifiable competencies
Form - Relational nature
Long term
Emotional attachment
Support, training opportunities
Increased benefits
Problems with transactional and relational distinction (form)
Takes a traditional career perspective (modern careers differ).
Some items may fall within both types depending on context.
Transactional and relational distinction research (form)
Relational contracts negatively associated with intentions to leave organisation (O Leary-Kelly, 2000)
Longer term eimployment relations positively associated with affective commitment (Sels et al., 2004)
Content
Content of exchanges from organisation and individual.
What is actually on offer?
The terms and conditions.
Content - what do the employees offer
Traditionally: Loyalty Conformity Commitment to goals Trust in employer
HOWEVER modern day it means longer hours, more skills, tolerance of change and taking on responsibility.
Content - what does the organisation offer
Traditionally: Employment security Promotion Training Development
Modern day it looks like:
High pay, rewards, a job
Process
The product of the contractual process as perceived by the individual.
Captured in form and content.
Predicts effort, motivation, productivity and intention to stay (Dabos and Rousseau, 2004)
Intra-Individual Processes
Cognitive and emotional processes involved in contract formation and change.
Perceived trust
Perceived equity and justice
Cultural values
Contract states - Fulfilled
A perception that the terms, or promises, made within the contract have been appropriately met.
A match between what was expected and what actually occurred
Contract states - exceeded
A perception that your organisation have gone beyond the terms made within the contract.
Have fulfilled the contract beyond what you had expected
