Antecedents and outcomes of psychological contract fulfillment: an empirical study conducted in India

Kutaula, Smirti 2014. Antecedents and outcomes of psychological contract fulfillment: an empirical study conducted in India. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Although human resources have been positioned as a key enabler for gaining and maintaining competitive advantage for organisations, the processes through which such advantage is achieved are poorly understood. As the psychological contract is considered a central construct in studying the employee-organisation relationship, this thesis proposes that it is likely to be an important mechanism explaining the relationship between HRM practices and employee outcomes. A framework in which psychological contract fulfillment acts as a mediator of the relationship between both human and structural agents (HRM practices, frontline management leadership behaviour and co-worker support) and employee outcomes (affective commitment, job satisfaction, intention to quit and absenteeism) is proposed and empirically tested. Theories of social exchange, organisational support, signalling and social information processing are used to explain these relationships. Data were collected through a staff survey based on 1,051 frontline employees employed in 35 private-sector work units in India. The proposed model was tested using PLS-SEM. A unique methodological contribution of this thesis is the treatment of high performance work systems and psychological contract fulfilment (facet) as formative constructs. The results largely support the proposed theoretical framework. Specifically, HRM practices, frontline management leadership behaviour and co-worker support had significant positive relationships with psychological contract fulfillment. In turn, psychological contract fulfillment was found to be positively linked to affective commitment and job satisfaction and negatively related to intention to quit and absenteeism. Moreover, the results provide substantial support for the partial mediation hypotheses, thus psychological contract fulfillment is an important conduit of the relationships between the three antecedents and employee outcomes. This thesis also considered two-way and three-way interactive associations among HRM practices, frontline management leadership behaviour and co-worker support while predicting psychological contract fulfillment. A significant positive interaction effect was observed for HRM practices and co-worker support, and a negative interaction effect between frontline management leadership behaviour and co-worker support. Thus, where co-worker support was high, the effects of HRM practices on psychological contract fulfillment was stronger. Whereas, co-worker support reduced the effects of frontline management leadership behaviour on psychological contract fulfillment, thus acted as a substitute. Keywords: Psychological contract fulfillment, HRM practices, Frontline management leadership behaviour, Co-worker support, Employee Outcomes, PLS-SEM, India

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
Funders:	CARBS Scholarship (3 years)
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	06 Oct 2023 14:53
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/70304

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