Relating employees' psychological contracts to their personality

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to increase one's understanding of psychological contracts by proposing and testing relationships between employees' personalities and their psychological contracts and to consider the influence of gender on psychological contracts.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 163 employees in ten organizations. Regression analysis was used to explore the relationships between each of nine psychological contract dimensions plus gender and the Big Five personality dimensions.

Findings

It was found that personality is related to five of the nine psychological contract dimensions and that each personality dimension is related to one or more of the psychological contract dimensions. It was also found that gender had a significant impact on our results. Women held stronger obligation attitudes than did men. The personality of men related to varying obligation attitudes, whereas, women's attitudes did not vary significantly within personality dimensions. The study suggests that employees' psychological contracts may be more emotionally based than cognitively based.

Research limitations/implications

The self selection of participants limits the generalizability of the results. The data is cross‐sectional precluding inference of causality. The paper assumed a linear career model for participants and did not consider alternate models

Practical implications

Personality would appear to be an important factor in our understanding of psychological contracts, particularly in men. Personality provides a basis for psychological contracts being idiosyncratic. The interaction of personality and gender complicates the psychological contract management process.

Originality/value

Despite 17 years of research, the factors underlying employees' idiosyncratic psychological contracts remain to be adequately explored through empirical research. This is the first study that connects employees' personality to their beliefs about employee and organizational obligations. Gender appears to play a role in the development of psychological contracts.

Citation

Tallman, R.R.J. and Bruning, N.S. (2008), "Relating employees' psychological contracts to their personality", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 23 No. 6, pp. 688-712. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940810894756