Psychological contracts, careerism, and goal orientations

Psychological contracts are subjective perceptions about exchange agreements between employees and employers. Through surveys of 256 graduating college seniors with recently accepted job offers, beliefs regarding employment obligations were investigated. Consistent with findings by Rousseau (1990), new hires’ perceptions of employee and employer obligations were interrelated and consistent with either transactional or relational contracts. Further, while expected tenure with the first employer was related to relational contracts, “careerism” was negatively related to new hires’ beliefs in a relational contract and positively related to a transactional contract with an employer. The results also revealed that goal orientations moderate the relationship between relational contracts and careerism. Specifically, the results indicate that the relationship was more strongly negative in individuals with high mastery orientation. The findings in this study therefore indicate that new hires' attitudes are shaped by both explicit and implicit promises and by individual characteristics such as goal orientations.