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Does one size fit all? A study of the psychological contract in the UK working population

Carol Atkinson (Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Manchester, UK)
Peter Cuthbert (Manchester Metropolitan University – Cheshire, Crewe, UK)

International Journal of Manpower

ISSN: 0143-7720

Article publication date: 1 October 2006

3848

Abstract

Purpose

This paper sets out to investigate the effect of position in the organisational hierarchy on an employee's psychological contract.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents a statistical analysis of secondary data taken from the Working in Britain 2000 (WIB) dataset, an ESRC/CIPD funded study, to investigate the perspectives on the content of the psychological contract of different employee groups, namely managers, supervisors and “shop floor” employees.

Findings

The results show that differences do emerge between different groups of employee, managers having a generally more relational contract. These differences are not, however, as large as may be expected and, for some aspects of the psychological contract, there are also considerable similarities between all the groups.

Research limitations/implications

Analysis is limited by the data present in the dataset, meaning that certain aspects of the psychological contract, for example, trust, are not as fully explored as is desirable.

Practical implications

The research has implications for how to appropriately manage the employment relationships of differing employee groups.

Originality/value

Most existing empirical data assume that there is “a” psychological contract within an organisation and the findings from this research demonstrate that the position is, in fact, more complex.

Keywords

Citation

Atkinson, C. and Cuthbert, P. (2006), "Does one size fit all? A study of the psychological contract in the UK working population", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 27 No. 7, pp. 647-665. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437720610708266

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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