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To explore the implications for all employees' psychological contracts of a forced change from permanent to temporary employment status for some employees within an organisation.

A random sample of 30 employees, stratified by employment status was selected. Each employee undertook a structured card sort of possible emotional responses to change followed by an in‐depth interview to explore and explain their categorisation of these responses.

The nature of psychological contracts and organisational attachments for both permanent employees and forced temporary workers is complex. Permanent employees generally continue to exhibit relational forms of attachment to the organisation. These, they believe, are reciprocated by the organisation. Reactions from forced temporary workers are more varied. After a period of denial, some develop a more calculative approach to their interactions. Others maintain aspects of their previously developed relational attachments. Only some temporary workers appear to recognise that their future direction is no longer a concern of the organisation.

Although only based upon one organisation, the findings suggest that the process of psychological contract adjustment is likely to emerge through gradual re‐interpretation, rather than through re‐negotiation.

Management actions need to be recognised as important in re‐defining the nature of psychological contracts. The transitional nature of this process may be prolonged where management imposes transactional contracts and where communication and negotiation to create clear expectations is lacking.

The findings provide new insights into the implications of forcing employees from permanent to temporary contracts for their, and remaining permanent employees', psychological contracts.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how temporary agency workers’ job attitudes are influenced by the fulfilment of the psychological contract; a set of employees’ expectations, formed with the temporary work agency and its client: the host organisation.

The paper estimated moderated regressions with data collected through an online survey of 352 temporary agency workers employed by a large temporary work agency in Switzerland.

Results suggest that temporary agency workers’ job satisfaction, commitment towards the host organisation, and intentions to stay with the temporary work agency relate positively to the fulfilment of the psychological contract by both organisations. Additionally, reported spill-over-effects imply that the fulfilment of the psychological contract by one organisation moderates job attitudes towards the other organisations.

Results of the explorative study reveal that future research should consider the interrelated nature of psychological contracts in working arrangements when multiple employers are involved. However, for more generalisable results, a greater international sample, including different temporary work agencies, would be favourable.

Findings will help temporary work agencies to better understand how they rely on host organisations to fulfil the temporary agency workers’ psychological contract to attract and retain temporary agency workers.

This paper contributes to the literature in the understudied field of non-traditional work arrangements as one of the few to examine these spill-over-effects both empirically and theoretically.

The aim of this article is to test the assumption that both management and co‐workers constitute multiple contract constituencies, as advocated for in recent research on psychological contracts. It also aims to test the theory of cognitive schemas as predictors of psychological contract development. Finally, it aims to examine the validity of the relational subscale of psychological contracts.

Data were collected through three survey studies in different workplaces, areas and settings and were analyzed through Fisher's exact test, principal component analysis and hierarchical regression analysis.

The results supported the notion of multiple contract constituencies. Partial support was found for the theory of cognitive schemas and their influence on psychological contract development. The study also revealed new sub‐dimensions of the psychological contract, here called “Fellowship” and “Challenge/Development”. These new sub‐dimensions respond differently to predictors that, according to psychological contract theory, are supposed to generate similar effects.

Since the findings of this study call into question some of the earlier research: it would be desirable to study psychological contracts, using a multiple foci approach, with a greater, random, sample.

The results indicate a need to draw further attention to the role of the co‐workers in the integration of agency staff in client companies.

Since no previous study has tested the notion of co‐workers as constituencies of the psychological contract, these empirical results will challenge much previous research on the concept of psychological contracts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between both job insecurity and fairness and employees' attitudes (job satisfaction, organisational commitment and turnover intention). Moreover, of even greater interest, it aims to test whether fairness mitigates the negative correlates associated with job insecurity.

The aproach takes the form of a cross‐sectional study based on self‐reported data. The sample was composed of 697 employees from a Spanish public organisation.

The findings showed that job insecurity is detrimental to employees' attitudes, whereas fairness is beneficial. Moreover, the results showed the negative correlates of job insecurity to be less strong in the presence of fairness.

First, this is a cross‐sectional study, and therefore no causal relationships can be assumed. Second, the study is based on self‐reported data, which could lead to common variance source and method problems.

Job insecurity is a widespread concern in contemporary societies. Thus, research on how to palliate its negative correlates is valued. This study suggests fairness judgements might buffer the negative correlates associated with job insecurity.

Previous research has shown job insecurity to be detrimental to both individuals and organisations (e.g. job satisfaction, organisational commitment and turnover intention). Nonetheless, differences observed across studies in the strength of these relationships suggest the presence of moderating factors. The study provides evidence on the moderating role of fairness judgements.

The purpose of this paper is to set out to analyze the supervisor psychological contract as a new psychological contract focus. Furthermore, the relationship between this psychological contract and the organizational psychological contract is compared in the prediction of job satisfaction and organizational affective commitment among a sample of traditional (in-house) and temporary agency workers.

The hypotheses were tested with multiple group analyses in a sample of 444 Portuguese call center workers: 215 were in-house and 229 were temporary agency workers.

Results confirmed that workers, regardless of their status, distinguished these two foci of psychological contract. However, for temporary workers, the supervisor psychological contract partially mediated the relationship between the organizational psychological contract and attitudes; while for in-house workers the organizational psychological contract was relevant to explain job satisfaction and the two foci of the psychological contract related independently to workers’ affective commitment toward the organization.

The study is limited due to the nature of the sample (call center sector where temporary agency and in-house workers received similar opportunities and treatment) and the lack of a longitudinal design.

An important implication of this research is that employers should assume the relevance of the supervisor for temporary agency workers. The social exchange between them and the host organization occurs in part through his/her actions.

Although supervisor psychological contract has been acknowledged, as far as the authors know there are no empirical studies that support its existence or analyzes its relevance in worker-organization relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of psychological contract breach on the relationship between job insecurity and counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB) and the moderating effect of employment status in this relationship.

Data were collected from 212 supervisor–subordinate dyads in a large Chinese state-owned air transportation group. AMOS 17.0 software was used to examine the hypothesized predictions and the theoretical model.

The results showed that psychological contract breach partially mediates the effect of job insecurity on CWB, including organizational counterproductive workplace behavior and interpersonal counterproductive workplace behavior. In addition, the relationships between job insecurity, psychological contract breach and CWB differ significantly between permanent workers and contract workers.

The present study provides a new insight into explaining the linkage between job insecurity and negative work behaviors as well as suggestions to managers on minimizing the harmful effects of job insecurity.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of training to explain affective commitment and exhaustion of temporary agency workers (TAW). There is a general assumption that training relates with a social exchange relationship where employees exchange positive outcomes, not only with inducements received by training but also with the expectation of prospective inducements that will emerge from the fulfilment of promises made by the organization.

The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 393 Portuguese blue‐collar TAW using structural equation modeling.

The hypotheses were supported. Training was positively related to workers' affective commitment and negatively to workers' exhaustion. Psychological contract fulfilment partially mediated these relationships.

The study is limited due to the nature of the sample (TAW in industrial sector with similar training opportunities as permanent workers) and the lack of longitudinal design. Neither does it provide implications for other types of commitment that may be relevant for TAW (continuance commitment, for example).

An important implication of this research is that employers should not assume that training is an investment without return from TAW. Developmental opportunities, while important to all employees, were positively related to TAW' affective commitment towards the organization and negatively to TAW' exhaustion.

The findings highlighted the importance of training in developing positive employment relationships with TAW and the role of psychological contract fulfilment as a mechanism that contributes to explain such relationship.

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the main propositions of the job demands-resources (JDR) model are moderated by type of contract (i.e. temporary contract vs permanent contract).

Survey data were collected in a large, heterogeneous sample from different countries, sectors, and jobs (n=3,845). Hypotheses were tested by means of multilevel analyses.

Results showed moderate support for the main effects of job demands (job insecurity and time pressure) and job resources (autonomy and social support) and weak support for the buffer effect of job resources in the prediction of job satisfaction and general health. The impact of contract type on the main propositions of the JDR model appeared to be weak. Yet, the evidence that was found suggests that temporary workers may be more tolerant to job insecurity and more likely to benefit from the buffering role of autonomy than permanent workers.

This is the first study to investigate whether the relation between job demands and job resources and employee health and well-being differs for permanent workers and temporary workers.

The employee-organization relationship (EOR) has increasingly become a focal point for researchers in organizational behavior, human resource management, and industrial relations. Literature on the EOR has developed at both the individual – (e.g. psychological contracts) and the group and organizational-levels of analysis (e.g. employment relationships). Both sets of literatures are reviewed, and we argue for the need to integrate these literatures as a means for improving understanding of the EOR. Mechanisms for integrating these literatures are suggested. A subsequent discussion of contextual effects on the EOR follows in which we suggest that researchers develop models that explicitly incorporate context. We then examine a number of theoretical lenses to explain various attributes of the EOR such as the dynamism and fairness of the exchange, and new ways of understanding the exchange including positive functional relationships and integrative negotiations. The article concludes with a discussion of future research needed on the EOR.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between perceived investments in employees’ development (PIED) on work engagement and the moderating effects of psychological capital on this relationship for liquid knowledge workers, employed in the Indian cutting and polishing of diamond industry (CPD).

A questionnaire composed of established scales was administered to 134 liquid knowledge workers. Having established convergent and discriminant validity using structural equation modelling, the model was further analysed using the Process macro to check for direct and moderating effects.

The research findings suggest that the perceived investment in employee development and psychological contract enhancement (relational and transactional) made by CPD units for liquid knowledge workers positively influenced their work engagement level. The study also finds that relational contract (not transactional contract) positively moderates the relationship between perceived investment in employee development and work engagement.

This is a cross-sectional single source study; future studies could look at longitudinal and multisource perspective.

The study presents a “star matrix of engagement” that guides the application of the two strategies of perceived employee development and psychological contract enhancement for liquid knowledge workers. This has implications for design and implementation of human resource management practices and policies for employee management.

The study makes significant contributions to existing literature on antecedents of work engagement of liquid knowledge workers by examining the direct and moderating influences.