IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/49809.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Employee agency: challenges and opportunities for psychological contract theory

Author

Listed:
  • Seeck, Hannele
  • Parzefall, Marjo-Riitta

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine what employee agency entails for psychological contract theory. The paper aims to explore how employee agency manifests itself, how it is reflected in employees' perceptions of their psychological contract obligations, and what it implies for psychological contract theory. Design/methodology/approach – The study draws on a qualitative interview study of employees from the mobile phone content production industry in Finland. The analysis is based on 15 semi-structured employee interviews, which were supported by a discussion of the interviewees' weekly agendas. Findings – This study reveals that employee agency manifests itself as self-actualisation, action, influence and creativity, all of which have implications for employees' psychological contracts. Employees emerge as active parties to the psychological contract, consciously modifying and constructing it instead of simply reacting to employer behaviour, as is assumed in current research. Originality/value – This study contributes to psychological contract theory by providing one of the few empirical attempts to demonstrate how employees actively manage the exchange relationship captured by the psychological contract. It highlights the importance of acknowledging employee agency in future psychological contract research.

Suggested Citation

  • Seeck, Hannele & Parzefall, Marjo-Riitta, 2008. "Employee agency: challenges and opportunities for psychological contract theory," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 49809, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:49809
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/49809/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jackie Coyle‐Shapiro & Ian Kessler, 2000. "Consequences Of The Psychological Contract For The Employment Relationship: A Large Scale Survey," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(7), pages 903-930, November.
    2. Maxine Robertson & Jacky Swan, 2003. "‘Control – What Control?’ Culture and Ambiguity Within a Knowledge Intensive Firm," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 831-858, June.
    3. Susanna Lo & Samuel Aryee, 2003. "Psychological Contract Breach in a Chinese Context: An Integrative Approach," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 1005-1020, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Seeck, Hannele & Parzefall, Marjo-Riitta, 2010. "From HRM to psychological contracting - the case of Finnish mobile content producing companies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 49811, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Lam, Alice & de Campos, Andre, 2014. "'Content to be sad' or 'runaway apprentice'? The psychological contract and career agency of young scientists in the entrepreneurial university," MPRA Paper 61412, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Wiechers, Hermien E. & Coyle-Shapiro, Jacqueline A.M. & Lub, Xander D. & ten Have, Steven, 2022. "The tremors of interconnected triggers over time: how psychological contract breach can erupt," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115315, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simon Lloyd D. Restubog & Matthew J. Hornsey & Prashant Bordia & Sarah R. Esposo, 2008. "Effects of Psychological Contract Breach on Organizational Citizenship Behaviour: Insights from the Group Value Model," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(8), pages 1377-1400, December.
    2. repec:iim:iimawp:13106 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Protsiuk Olga, 2019. "The Relationships Between Psychological Contract Expectations and Counterproductive Work Behaviors: Employer Perception," Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe, Sciendo, vol. 27(3), pages 85-106, September.
    4. Carlos Martin-Rios, 2016. "Innovative management control systems in knowledge work: a middle manager perspective," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 181-204, May.
    5. Chih-Ting Shih & Cheng-Chen Lin, 2014. "From good friends to good soldiers: A psychological contract perspective," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 309-326, March.
    6. Sally Sambrook & Delia Wainwright, 2010. "The Psychological Contract: Who's Contracting with Whom? Towards a Conceptual Model," Working Papers 10013, Bangor Business School, Prifysgol Bangor University (Cymru / Wales).
    7. Kenneth De Roeck & Nicolas Raineri & David A. Jones & Sabrina Scheidler, 2023. "Giving the benefit of the doubt: Investigating the insurance-like effect of CSR in mitigating negative employee reactions to psychological contract breach," Post-Print hal-04238140, HAL.
    8. Heffernan Margaret & Rochford Eoin, 2017. "Psychological contract breach and turnover intention: the moderating effects of social status and local ties," The Irish Journal of Management, Sciendo, vol. 36(2), pages 99-115.
    9. Bellou, Victoria, 2008. "Exploring civic virtue and turnover intention during organizational changes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(7), pages 778-789, July.
    10. David C. Thomas & Elizabeth C. Ravlin & Yuan Liao & Daniel L. Morrell & Kevin Au, 2016. "Collectivist Values, Exchange Ideology and Psychological Contract Preference," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 255-281, April.
    11. Gong, Baiyun & Sims, Randi L., 2023. "Psychological contract breach during the pandemic: How an abrupt transition to a work from home schedule impacted the employment relationship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    12. Julie Rayner & Alan Lawton & Helen Williams, 2012. "Organizational Citizenship Behavior and the Public Service Ethos: Whither the Organization?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(2), pages 117-130, March.
    13. Michael White & Alex Bryson, 2019. "The Impact of High-Performance Work Systems on Employees: A Sectoral Comparison," DoQSS Working Papers 19-04, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    14. Lucie Noury & Sébastien Gand & Jean-Claude Sardas, 2012. "Exploring the dark side of consultancies' organisation of excellence: Individual strategies to manage contradictory expectations," Post-Print hal-00780522, HAL.
    15. Anna-Maija Nisula & Heidi Olander & Kaisa Henttonen, 2017. "Entrepreneurial Motivations As Drivers Of Expert Creativity," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(05), pages 1-19, June.
    16. Susanna Gallani & Ranjani Krishnan & Eric J. Marinich & Michael D. Shields, 2019. "Budgeting, Psychological Contracts, and Budgetary Misreporting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2924-2945, June.
    17. Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte & Henri Isaac, 2013. "Technologies de l’information, contrôle et panoptique: pour une approche deleuzienne," Post-Print hal-01635800, HAL.
    18. Christelle Tornikoski, 2011. "The role of perceived employer obligations in the interpretation of and reaction to expatriate compensation practices," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) hal-00675160, HAL.
    19. Cam Caldwell & Larry Floyd & Ryan Atkins & Russell Holzgrefe, 2012. "Ethical Duties of Organizational Citizens: Obligations Owed by Highly Committed Employees," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 110(3), pages 285-299, October.
    20. Violet T. Ho & Laurie L. Levesque, 2005. "With a Little Help from My Friends (and Substitutes): Social Referents and Influence in Psychological Contract Fulfillment," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(3), pages 275-289, June.
    21. Heywood, John S. & Siebert, W. Stanley & Wei, Xiangdong, 2005. "High Performance Workplaces and Family Friendly Practices: Promises Made and Promises Kept," IZA Discussion Papers 1812, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    employee agency; psychological contract; employment relationship; mobile content industry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:49809. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.