Psychological contract
The term psychological contract (also: psychological employment contract ) describes mutual expectations and offers from the employee and employer as part of the working relationship. These are “more or less implicit expectations and offers” that go beyond the (written) employment contract .
The term psychological work contract was coined in 1960 by the American administrative scientist Chris Argyris . Argyris used the term in the sense of a "tacit agreement" between workers and foremen.
Components and characteristics of psychological contracts
Possible components of a psychological contract from the employee's point of view include, for example, ideas about working conditions, one's own ability to influence the organization, support from the employer (e.g. with regard to personnel development), protection against excessive and insufficient demands and the predictability of employer behavior.
According to the traditional view, the employee in a company receives a kind of employment guarantee in return for his loyalty .
According to a new, on employability ( employability oriented) view of employee loyalty is in readiness problems in the company through a willingness to lifelong learning to solve. This means that the employee remains attractive on the labor market in the long term. The entrepreneur benefits from the problem-solving skills of the employees. The employment risk is transferred from the company to the employee. The company suffers a loss if employees are poached that it has trained over the long term.
In connection with the concept of employability, there is talk of a change in the psychological contract. As a result of globalization , higher dynamics in the markets and constantly changing structures in companies, the traditional psychological contract is being called into question by entrepreneurs and employees and is losing its credibility . In the course of the flexibilization, there is a change in the psychological contract, a change from the expectation of an attitude for life to the expectation of an increase in employability.
Breaking the psychological contract
Possible consequences of changes are perceived by the employee as a break in the psychological contract. This means the "decision to leave the organization, the attempt to ensure compliance with implicit promises retrospectively, or a withdrawal of loyalty and commitment up to and including internal termination on the part of the employees".
literature
- Edgar H. Schein: Organizational Psychology . Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1965.
- Rainer Marr , Alexander Fliaster : Beyond the “Ich AG”. The new psychological contract for managers in German companies . Rainer Hampp Verlag , Munich, Mering 2003, ISBN 3-87988-754-3 .
- Zofia Lasicová: The psychological employment contract. Relational and transactional elements of the psychological employment contract for women and men in retail . VDM , 2009, ISBN 978-3-639-16381-0 .
- Sabine Raeder, Gudela Grote : The psychological contract (= practice of personal psychology . Volume 26 ). 1st edition. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8017-2009-4 .
- Astrid Biele Mefebue: The social construction of the implicit employment contract. Development and Socio-Economic Conditions . 1st edition. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-86395-126-9 ( gwdg.de [PDF; 2.9 MB ; accessed on September 12, 2018]).
- Stefan Huf: The psychological contract. Personnel management as expectation management . In: Personnel Management . No. 3 , 2011, p. 28–35 ( dgfp.de [PDF; 1.1 MB ; accessed on September 12, 2018]).
- Carsten Morgenroth: The psychological employment contract and its legal significance for the public service . In: DÖD - The Public Service. Human resource management and law . No. 9 , 2017, ISSN 0029-8565 , p. 217-221 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Schein, 1970, quoted from: Simone Kirpal u. a .: »I have a secure job, but no job.« Change of psychological employment contracts under the condition of labor market flexibilization and organizational transformation. (PDF; 300 kB) (No longer available online.) In: ITB Research Reports 25/2007. March 2007, archived from the original on June 9, 2007 ; Retrieved December 13, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Schein, 1970, quoted from: Gudela Grothe et al.: Psychological contracts and work flexibility. About the organizational and individual handling of uncertainty. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved December 13, 2008 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Chris Argyris: Understanding Organizational Behavior . Dorsey Press, Homewood, Illinois, USA 1960, pp. 96 (English).
- ↑ Ralf D. Brinkmann, Kurt H. Stapf, 2005, quoted from: Sven Max Litzcke, Horst Schuh: Stress, Mobbing and Burn-out at Work. 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-46849-3 , p. 162.
- ↑ Simone Kirpal et al. a .: »I have a secure job, but no job.« Change of psychological employment contracts under the condition of labor market flexibilization and organizational transformation. (PDF; 300 kB) (No longer available online.) In: ITB Research Reports 25/2007. March 2007, p. 24 , archived from the original on June 9, 2007 ; Retrieved December 13, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
