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The purpose of this paper is to examine how the quality of change information influences employees’ attitude toward organizational change and turnover intention. Additionally, the role of engagement, psychological contract fulfillment and trust in the relationship between change information and attitude toward change is assessed.

In a technology services organization that was implementing a “new way of working,” questionnaire data of 669 employees were gathered. The organizational change in question sought to increase employees’ autonomy by increasing management support and improving IT support to facilitate working at other locations (e.g. at home) or at hours outside of regular working hours (e.g. in evening).

The results showed that change information was positively related to psychological contract fulfillment and attitude toward change. Engagement and psychological contract fulfillment were positively related to attitude toward change and negatively related to turnover intention. Contrary to what was expected, trust did not influence attitude toward change but was negatively related to turnover intention.

The study presents a model that can help management to foster positive affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses to change, as well as to reduce employee turnover. Fulfilling employees’ psychological contracts and cultivating engagement is important in this respect, as well as continuously considering whether information about the organizational change is received in good time, is useful, is adequate and satisfies employees’ questions about the change.

As one of the first studies in its field, attitude toward change was conceptualized and operationalized as a multidimensional construct, comprising an affective, a behavioral and a cognitive dimension.

This study aims to examine how organizational change and attitude towards change affects the fulfillment of the psychological contract. The influence of type of change, impact of change, former change experiences and frequency of change on fulfillment of the psychological contract is assessed, as well as the influence on the employee's attitude towards change.

Regression analyses were carried out to test the effects of the change antecedents and the attitude towards change on the fulfillment of the psychological contract and to test the effects of the change determinants on the attitude towards change. The data used in this study are from 161 respondents working for different organizations who completed an online questionnaire.

The results show that type of change, impact and former experience with organizational change influence attitude towards change. With respect to the fulfillment of the psychological contract, only frequency, former experiences and the attitude towards change had an impact.

A limitation is the cross-sectional design of the study. A recommendation for future research is to further explore the results by using case studies or longitudinal research.

This study contributes to managers', HR professionals' and change professionals' understanding of the change factors that have the highest impact for employees.

This study highlights the effects of organizational changes on the psychological contract and includes the role of attitude towards change. Empirical research in this area is scarce.

In this study the relationship between perceived change implementation in an organization is related to employee self‐rated behaviour. The change implementation processes measured were communication, support and participation. The relationship between these processes and employee behaviour was examined by testing a theoretical model, in which two mediating concepts are used: the psychological contract and employee job attitudes. The research was carried out in two main divisions of a large telecommunications firm on a sample of 220 employees. The theoretical model (perceived change implementation influencing the psychological contract, influencing employee attitudes, influencing employee behaviour) had a better fit with the data, compared to alternative models.

The purpose of this study is to add to the existing literature on the impact of organizational changes on psychological contracts by examining the exchange between employer and employee obligations and organizational commitment and intention to turnover in a causal model.

Psychological contracts of 450 health care workers were assessed in a three‐wave longitudinal design, covering a one‐year period. The Tilburg Psychological Contract Questionnaire measures perceived obligations with respect to Job Content, Career Development, Social Atmosphere, Organizational Policies and Rewards (perceived organizational obligations) and In‐role and Extra‐role Obligations (perceived employee obligations). Linear structural equation modeling was used to test the changes in psychological contracts and outcome variables over time, and also to investigate the changes in the relationships between the dependent and independent variables over time.

The results show that organizational changes negatively affect the fulfilment and violation of perceived organizational obligations. However, perceived employee obligations are not affected. The perceived fulfilment of Organizational Policies and violations of the psychological contract in general are most strongly affected.

Empirical longitudinal field research on the effects of organizational changes on psychological contracts is virtually non‐existent. This study is a valuable contribution to psychological contract research, because of the longitudinal nature of the study and the linear structural equation models that are used.

Workers have different motives to be employed at specialist contract work agencies, such as career development aspirations, or a desire for freedom and independence. The purpose of this paper is to study how these different motives relate to the appreciation of HR practices applied by agencies and consequently to employee retention at the agency.

Data were collected in a contract work agency for financial professionals. Management was interviewed about the HR practices used for employee retention. In addition, 291 agency employees filled out a questionnaire about their motives to be employed at the agency, their appreciation of the HR practices of the contract agency and their turnover intentions.

Regression analysis showed that career development motivation was related to retention at the agency, but that this relation became weaker when tenure with the agency increased. HR practices (like training, supervisory support, career development support, information sharing and employee participation) proved to be related to lower turnover intentions of flex workers with a career development motivation. For flex workers with a freedom motivation the HR practices had no relationship with retention.

Data collection in one agency may limit generalization. Additional research needs to zoom in on alternative HR retention practices that align with freedom motivation.

Specialist contract work agencies typically experience difficulties with employee retention. Agencies may retain their workers if they apply HR practices that are aligned with the motivation of people engaging in contract work.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model on how business managers perceive that an employee’s psychological contract influences his or her attitude toward an organizational change. More specifically, it aims to provide insight into the managerial views on: first, the affective, behavioral and cognitive responses of employees toward organizational change; second, the pre-change and change antecedents of these responses; and third, the role of the psychological contract as a pre-change antecedent.

Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 39 human resource directors, change managers and management consultants in eight European countries. Based on detailed grounded theory-driven analyses of the qualitative data, a conceptual model was developed.

Based on the grounded theory analysis, a model emerged that positions the individual change perception and individual answer to the “what’s in it for me?” question as central determinants of an employee’s attitude toward change. Moreover, the model distinguishes between “influencing” variables that shape the employees’ change perception, and “overruling” variables that can potentially reverse the change perceptions.

A strong emphasis on managing the employment relationship by fulfilling mutual obligations and by creating trust will yield more constructive responses to organizational change than focussing on managing an organizational change as an independent event.

As one of the first in its field, this study provides insight in the sense-making processes during organizational change, while adopting a managerial perspective. A grounded theory approach by means of interviewing, serves as a first step toward better understanding of the development of employees’ affective, behavioral and cognitive responses to organizational change.