心理契约的信任和违背

Trust and Breach of the Psychological Contract
 In light of trends toward globalization, restructuring, and downsizing, psychological contracts are playing an increasingly important role in contemporary employment relationships. Organizations, under pressure to make rapid and constant changes, have had to alter employment relationships and the psychological contracts that underlie them. Psychological contracts refer to employees' perceptions of what they owe to their employers and what their employers owe to them. In this climate of change, the traditional contract of long-term job security in return for hard work and loyalty may no longer be valid (Sims, 1994), and employees and employers alike are now reconsidering their mutual obligations. More importantly, these changes have increased the likelihood of psychological contract breach. Organizations must now repeatedly manage, renegotiate, and alter the terms of the employment agreement continually to fit changing circumstances (Tichy, 1983; Altman and Post, 1996) and thus may be less willing or less able to fulfill all of their promises. In addition, constant contract change means increased opportunities for employees and employers to misunderstand the agreement and to perceive a contract breach even when an actual breach did not occur. It should not be surprising, therefore, that the majority of employees currently believe their employer has breached some aspect of their employment agreement (Robinson and Rousseau, 1994).