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Kevin McRider, the COO of a fledging research facility, needed to foster an environment where scientists explored the boundaries of the metals, chemicals, polymers and tools used to create innovating medical devices. The freshly-minted PhDs he hired were enthusiastic to design and conduct research projects that bridged their scientific disciplines, in a collaborative workplace, with time allocated to individual projects as well. Effectively managed, their research would help the parent corporation leapfrog over existing or near-future technology.

The problem for McRider was how to get Lintell to realize his vision of a collaborative organizational culture that promoted revolutionary scientific discoveries. His challenges included managerial behaviors that prohibited critical interaction and information sharing, as well as disruptive organizational dynamics he himself had set in motion including pressures to focus only on certain research goals and projects at the expense of creative exploration, and the violation of the psychological contracts McRider himself had created with the scientists during recruitment.

The purpose of this paper is to apply psychological contract theory to the study of faculty‐doctoral student collaborations.

Through a survey of 170 doctoral students, four types of psychological contracts were investigated and reliable measures of relationship quality were developed.

The results showed that the quality of collaborations differ significantly across the four contract types. In addition, quality of collaboration varied significantly across collaborations using different research methods (e.g. laboratory work, theory building) and disciplinary paradigms (i.e. high and low consensus). Several other factors conducive to enhanced evaluation of relationship quality were also identified, including similarity in research philosophy, perceived motives for being in the research collaboration, meeting frequency, and conflict resolution.

The present study is somewhat limited in its sample, which is drawn from one university from the student perspective using self‐report measures. Future research might benefit from matching student and faculty assessments of particular collaborations.

Insights from the analyses suggest that greater awareness of the contract‐making mechanisms that operate in graduate education can help improve the quality of student experiences in research collaborations.

The framework of psychological contracts offers a novel perspective in understanding the dynamics of faculty‐student relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the scientific standing of the concept of free will and its role and functioning in social and psychological contracts.

This is a conceptual paper.

Social structures that support the exercise of free will are central to the functioning of both social and psychological contracts.

The paper contributes to the debate in the natural and social sciences regarding the existence and functioning of free will in everyday life.

Office automation has arrived. Traditional office functions such as dispersal of mail and typing have become electronic mail and word processing. Automation of these functions is typically undertaken to reduce labor costs and to improve quality in communication and text preparation. Not only have traditional office functions been computerized, but automation is creating new tasks for the office; for example, strategic human resource planning via human resource information systems and materials requirement planning for just‐in‐time inventory systems. Office technology has changed, and with it, office functions.

Multi-level research provides a better understanding of trust and distrust, and better-specified theory, when attending to processes one-level up and one-level down from the behavior it seeks to explain. Looking to the cross-level dynamics immediately surrounding the level on which a study of trust and of distrust would focus, advantages are identified when middle-range models are tested to capture trust and distrust in particular contexts, such as families, organizations, or communities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify challenges of talent management (TM) of transition economies, based on a study of employee and employer obligations as elements of anticipatory psychological contracts (APC) among young entrants to labor market. The authors aim to analyze how APC differ between transitional and non-transitional countries and also if there are differences between transitional countries.

The authors used a quantitative research design and conducted a survey using the PC inventory among business students in Poland and Slovenia and the UK (as a control group).

The authors found that APC in transitional countries differ significantly from the control group, with Polish and Slovenian APCs being more transactional and less relational than in the UK. Also, there are several differences between Poland and Slovenia, suggesting that Central and Eastern Europe transitional countries cannot be considered a single region in this respect.

The authors identified challenges related to TM in transitional countries based on APC characteristics and proposed several ways in which employers and educators could help to build more realistic expectations and thus helping young talents with their transition from education to labor market. By increasing the understanding of APC employers can improve their TM practices for the young talents.

The study offers unique insights into APC of the young entrants to labor market in transitional countries, with regard to both employee and employer obligations. The three types of APC were studied along with particular dimensions of APC. The authors linked TM to the APC characteristics. Based on the results, the authors propose that socio-economic context as well as national culture should be considered as antecedents of APC formation and given more attention in both psychological contract and TM research.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.