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The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediation effect of employee engagement on the relationship between employer obligations, employee obligations and state of the psychological contract and employee discretionary behaviours.

The empirical data were collected using self-administered questionnaires with 278 participants from 11 commissions and three agencies in the public service in Uganda. The authors used hierarchical regression analysis to investigate the hypotheses.

The results indicate that employer obligations, employee obligations and state of the psychological contract were positively related to employee discretionary behaviours. In addition, employee engagement was found to be a partial mediator between employee obligations, employer obligations and state of the psychological contract and discretionary behaviours among for both subordinate and supervisory staffs.

Since little is known about the process by which public service commissions and agencies in Uganda promote employer obligations, employee obligations and state of the psychological contract on discretionary behaviours, this paper contributes to the literature by examining human resource management practices in a developing country context.

Investigating employee responses to relational fulfilment of the psychological contract and work‐life benefits of a telecommuting program, this study aims to contribute to the literature on social exchange in employment.

The setting of the study was the German public administration. Survey data from 947 Civil Servants were analyzed in structural equation models. Analysis of mean structure was used to compare telecommuting participants (n=601) and regular workers (n=346).

Trust and affective commitment consecutively mediated between relational fulfilment of the psychological contract and organizational citizenship behavior. Members of the telecommuting program had more positive representations of social exchange, reporting higher levels of fulfilment, trust, and commitment than their peers.

Reliance on cross‐sectional self‐report data poses a limitation. Selection effects in the quasi‐experimental design for comparing telecommuters and regular employees cannot be ruled out. Generalizability to more transactional or short‐term employment is debatable.

The study adds to a more integrated understanding of the psychological processes that reinforce and strengthen employee trust and commitment, thus forming the basis of the motivation to go above and beyond specified duties and reward‐contingent behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between congruence between employee and employer psychological contract fulfillment and commitment. The authors further studied how the relationship is moderated by distributive justice.

The authors conducted polynomial regression analyses with response surface methodology on two Korean samples.

Congruence between employee and employer psychological contract fulfillment was positively related to affective commitment and occupational commitment. Distributive justice moderated these relationships.

The main limitation was common method bias as a result of the cross-sectional nature of the study designs.

Employers must be vigilant not only with regard to fulfilling employees’ psychological contracts but also to doing this fairly.

The authors studied the interaction effect of distributive justice on the relationship between psychological contract congruence and commitment in Korea.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of human resource management (HRM) systems (expressed by content, process and climate) on organizational performance through the mediating role of psychological contracts (expressed by employer and employee promises fulfilment).

The study examines theoretical relationships in the Greek context, based on structural equation modelling (SEM) estimation, using a sample of employees from both private and public sector organizations.

The study finds that the impact of HRM content on organizational performance is less strong compared to its impact through HRM process. Additionally, the study finds that psychological contract partially and positively mediates the HRM – performance relationship, where the impact of HRM on organizational performance through employee promises fulfilment is stronger than that through employer promises fulfilment.

The study does not allow for appropriately investigating dynamic causal inferences due to the cross-sectional nature of data. Additionally, considering that Greece is experiencing a severe economic and financial crisis, the findings from this unique context may not generalize across borders.

For improving organizational performance, managers and decision makers should make their HRM systems more visible, understandable, legitimate and relevant. At the same time they should make HRM systems more instrumental, valid and consistent of HR messages.

Investigations into the relationship between HRM systems and organizational performance have become increasingly common. Nevertheless, empirical studies that measure the influence of HRM systems, which integrate both content and process, on organizational performance are still rare. This paper partially fills this gap.

The psychological contract is the construct through which one attempts to explain the quality of the employment relationship from the point of view of each of the contract party with regards to obligations and inducements and can be employed to explain organizational change dynamics. Failing to provide promised obligations is termed as violation. This study examined the occurrence of contract violation amongst 132 Maltese public service employees at a time when radical changes in practices were being proposed. Violation was conceptualised in two ways: under‐fulfilled employer obligations and over‐fulfilled employee obligations. Results show that whereas employees were likely to report that their employer violated obligations, they themselves were more likely to over‐fulfil their obligations towards their employer. In addition, contract term violations were related to important work outcomes and generally in a different way for the two forms of violation. Results are discussed and future research suggestions highlighted.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationships between elements of the psychological contract (i.e. type and fulfilment) and an employee's intention to leave (ITL) their current organisation. The role of careerism as a potential mediating and moderating variable is also to be explored.

In total, 202 allied health professionals (AHPs) completed a questionnaire containing measures of the psychological contract, careerism and ITL.

As predicted, path analyses conducted via structural equation modelling demonstrated that careerism partially mediates the relationship between contract types and ITL. These findings suggest that employees with transactional contracts are more careerist, resulting in higher ITL, while employees with relational contracts are less careerist, resulting in lower ITL. Contrary to expectation, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that careerism failed to moderate the relationship between perceived contract fulfillment and ITL. However, a strong positive association between contract fulfillment and ITL was found.

The data were collected cross‐sectionally, which limits the ability to make causal inferences.

Results were consistent with the proposition that contract type and fulfillment explain employee ITL. It appears that employees with relational contracts are more likely to remain with their organization on a longer‐term basis, compared to employees with transactional contracts, due to differences in career motives. Organizational awareness and understanding of employee psychological contracts and career motives is needed.

This paper provides new theoretical and practical insights on how psychological contracts and careerism can influence ITL among AHPs.

This paper aims to investigate the Chinese employment relationship under the framework of psychological contracts. The authors explored the effects of firm ownership (in terms of state-owned and private enterprises) and employment type (in terms of permanent and temporary employees) on employee perceptions of psychological contract. In addition, the associations between fulfilled psychological contract and various dimensions of employee attitudes were examined.

The authors adopted a questionnaire as the primary instrument to investigate the impact of firm ownership and employment type on psychological contract perceptions and outcomes. The analysis was based on a Chinese sample of a size of 363 employees.

The results indicate that state-owned employees overall reported fewer promises (employer under-obligation promised psychological contract), while private employees tended to have more promises (mutual high obligation, employer over-obligation and quasi-spot obligation promise-based psychological contract). Permanent employees reported high fulfillment (employer over-obligation, mutual high obligation and employer under-obligation fulfilled psychological contract). In contrast, temporary employees presented many promises (mutual high obligation promised psychological contract) and low fulfillment (quasi-spot fulfilled psychological contract). In general, firm ownership had weak effects on permanent and temporary employees’ perceptions of promise-based psychological contract, but no significant influence on fulfillment-based psychological contract. Moreover, psychological contract fulfillment was positively related to employees’ fairness perception and job satisfaction, while negatively related to the intention to quit. The authors failed to find comprehensive statistical support for the moderating effects of firm ownership or employment type.

The study contributes to the literature through a number of ways. First, instead of psychological contract breach, the authors use psychological contract fulfillment as a direct measure to examine the relationship between psychological contract and employees’ attitudes. Second, they investigate the effects of firm ownership on employment relationship under the psychological contract framework, enriching the institutional lens of the issue. Third, while majority of psychological contract studies concerning employment type concentrate on either permanent or temporary employees, the authors take both types into account. Fourth, they integrate perspectives of firm ownership and employment type. Finally, the authors perform the study in the Chinese context, which offers extra evidence to the body of psychological contract literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between employer psychological contract (PC) fulfillment and employee attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intention to leave the organization) by using employees’ perceptions of PC violation and organizational justice as serial mediators.

Data from 44 managers and 880 employees from 44 Spanish organizations were analyzed through multilevel structural equation modeling.

Results showed that employees’ feelings of PC violation and justice perceptions mediated the relationships between the employers’ PC fulfillment assessed by managers and job satisfaction and organizational commitment assessed by employees. The mediation effect was not significant for employees’ intention to leave the organization.

This study contributes to understand the process through which PC influences work outcomes, outlining the relevance of organizational justice as social exchange theory and PC theory (Guest, 2004) stated. In addition, present results extend the influence of PC on work outcomes from the individual to the organizational level.

Using social influence theory, this study examines the relationship between self-initiated expatriates' (SIE) political skill, as a measure of their social effectiveness, and cross-cultural adjustment (CCA). It also tests whether the host employer's psychological contract (PC) fulfillment mediates this relationship.

Partial least square structural equation modeling (covariance-based SEM) technique is employed to analyze a sample of 209 SIEs.

The study finds SIEs' political skill positively and significantly associated with SIEs' work-related adjustment. The relationship with interactional adjustment is only marginally significant. It also finds that SIEs' PC fulfillment mediates the relationship between SIEs' political skill and work-related adjustment. The mediation is marginally significant for the relationship between SIEs' political skill and general living adjustment.

The study adds to the literature on expatriates' skills and CCA by theorizing and testing the hitherto unexplored role of SIEs' political skill in their work and non-work CCA. It also theorizes and examines the host employer's PC fulfillment as a mediating mechanism, through which SIEs' political skill facilitates their CCA. Finally, it advances the literature on political skill by testing the construct's application in the cross-cultural and non-work domain.

The purpose of this paper is to explore HR managers' and employees' views on the factors affecting employee retention using the perspective of the psychological contract.

Two studies were conducted. First, a sample of HR managers gave their view on the factors affecting employee retention and turnover and described their retention practices. Second, a large sample of employees reported on the importance attached to five types of employer inducements commonly regarded as retention factors, on their evaluation of these inducements and on their loyalty. Regression analysis was used to examine the impact of the delivery of employer inducements on retention.

The HR managers survey indicates that retention practices focus more on the factors believed to cause employee turnover (career opportunities and financial rewards) than on those believed to affect employee retention (social atmosphere, job content, work‐life balance). The focus on career opportunities is supported by the employee survey. The delivery of career opportunities had the strongest impact on employee loyalty while the impact of the delivery of financial rewards was much smaller.

It is useful to distinguish between different content dimensions of the psychological contract when studying its impact on employee outcomes. The psychological contract provides a relevant framework for studying employee retention.

This paper offers HR professionals' insights into the effectiveness of retention practices.

The paper shows how the psychological contract can be applied in retention management and examines impact of different content dimensions of the psychological contract on employee outcomes.