As demands on school-based administrators continue to increase, so do their responsibilities. Historically the roles and responsibilities of school principals have been clearly delineated in both the legislation governing in-school administrators and also in principals' job descriptions. Principals typically know the expectations of their leadership roles, however, the same cannot be said for all vice-principals (VPs). The pattern that emerges is one that shows the VP as being a jack-of-all-trades. Typically, Saskatchewan rural VPs do not have clearly delineated expectations formally or informally in either legislation or job description. Most often VPs positions are advertised as containing a teaching component and "other duties as assigned." The 2001 Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation (STF) recommendations for improving in-school administration positions have led to little change (p. 3). The conceptual framework focused on the relationship between geographical location (distance), gender and rural Saskatchewan VP perceptions of employee-made and employer-made workplace obligations. VPs are a critical yet often overlooked component of school effectiveness. This emphasized the need for advancing our understanding of VPs' employment relationship and connecting this to the "VP role restructured" blueprint found in the literature. The purpose of this study was to investigate, explore and describe the pattern of the psychological contract among Saskatchewan rural VP's and facilitate better utilization of their skills and leadership. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this study. The quantitative data was derived from Rousseau's (2000) Psychological Contract Inventory (PCI) survey questionnaire. This survey was used to determine the extent of employee-made and employer-made workplace obligations from the VP perception. The sample consisted of 42 VPs employed in rural Saskatchewan schools. The qualitative data were generated from participant responses to the open-ended questions attached to the end of the PCI. The responses to the survey and the open-ended questions were analyzed according to the research questions, emerging themes and recurring themes. After the data were analyzed, relationships were revealed between geographical location, gender, and rural VPs' perceptions of workplace obligations. The findings in this study revealed VPs were generally in agreement that relationships between distance, gender and perceptions of workplace obligations were slight at best. It was also revealed that VPs' perceptions of employee-made and employer-made workplace obligations were characterized as well-being items representative of loyalty and security features of a relational psychological contract. VPs indicated a willingness to commit to the organization regardless of distance or gender. Participants almost unanimously expressed their aspirations for the inclusion of professional growth, skill enhancement and increased leadership responsibilities in their assigned, expected and assumed role behaviors. Participant responses were generally consistent with the literature. Derived from participants' qualitative responses, VPs lead busy work lives. As revealed in the findings, VPs indicated they had aspirations for enhanced leadership opportunities. This study generated many implications for practice, policy and research.

Abstract While Psychological contract has actively been studying in Europe and America, our scholars in Taiwan still pay less attention to this area. For an objective view and study on the response of the Psychological contract that has been violated, a particular selected group of Physicians, who are not readily affected by the threat of unemployment like others¡¦ occupation, are set to be this research object; this could truly represent when an employee believes that the organization has failed to fulfill one or more of those obligations and the feeling of degree of practice. This article is based on the viewpoint of an employee to study the violation of the Psychological contract. It discovers that the organizational justice would affect the degree of violation in the Psychological contract, and this research has been applied different ways of study on motivations such as financial, non-financial, salary and promotion. Research discloses that the financial motivation emphasizes on distributive justice, non-financial motivation focuses more on the procedural justice. The higher recognition of the salary distributive and procedural justice, the less violation of the Psychological contract; the higher recognition of the promotion distributive and procedural justice, the less violation of the Psychological contract. Research study is divided into two methodologies: qualitative and quantitative. The former study is to infer the theory of western justice and to see if Taiwan is appropriate for evidence and the relationship between the developing of the affirmative research variables; the first step is to proceed with qualitative research by doing literature collection and interviewing with 8 different cases where the chosen objects are complied with the basis of this research. The latter study is to apply the well-established quantitative chart edited according to this research demand and the objects¡¦ characteristics, and it also proceeds further with the professional effectiveness analysis. From the literature survey and personal interviews, it is discovered that the appearance of the self-esteem within the characteristics of personality would influence the degree of the violation in the Psychological contract. Hence, during the proof of quantitative way, the self-esteem is set to be the interference of violation degree variable in the Psychological contract. Research result indicates that the interaction between the self-esteem and the promotion distributive justice will affect the violation of promotion Psychological contract. During the period of the quantitative survey which coincided with the widespread of SARS, Taiwan was first encountered the serious impact of SARS incidents and the surveyed physicians were positioned themselves at the frontline and their stress and the additional workloads were never happened before. This incident was unexpected whatsoever in this research plan and it was certainly an obstacle and caused extreme difficulty during all the samples collection. Keywords: psychological contract violation, salary, promotion, organizational justice.

This thesis aims to investigate the relation between ¡§the school psychological contract¡¨ and the ¡§job satisfaction of the teachers¡¨.This thesis builds the theory,the study structure,and the basis of designing the study instrument by the reviewing and the surveying the literature.Subjects were sampled from twenty-eight secondary schools in Kaohsiung county.Four hundred and seventy-three copies of formal questionnaires were delivered to the subjects and there were four hundred and eighteen valid copies.The collected data were analyzed by using the statistical methods of descriptive,statics,independent-samples T-test,one-way ANOVA,Pearson product-moment correlation and multiple regression¡]step-wise-regression procedure¡^. According to the result of the data analysis,the main findings are the following: 1. The whole performance of ¡§the school psychological contract¡¨is middle-high level.Among the sectional scores,the dimension of ¡§being identified oneself with the school¡¨was the highest. 2. The whole performance of ¡§the job satisfaction of the teachers¡¨is middle-high level.Among the sectional scores,the dimension of ¡§ the relationships between colleagues¡¨ was the highest. 3. The male teachers in secondary school have a higher sense of ¡§being considerate and caring about colleagues,and more willing¡¨,¡¨ providing a supportive environment¡¨. 4. The elder teachers and the chiefs of the departments in secondary school have a higher sense of ¡§school psychological contract ¡¨. 5. The elder,the senior teachers and the chiefs of departments in secondary school sense more about the ¡§job satisfaction of the teachers¡¨. 6. The better ¡§school psychological contract¡¨ will be, the more ¡§job satisfaction of the teachers¡¨will be. 7. The ¡§school psychological contract¡¨can predict the ¡§job satisfaction of the teachers¡¨,and the dimension of¡¨ providing a supportive environment¡¨is the primary predictable variable.

As teachers begin their careers they develop a psychological contract with their organization (Rousseau, 1995); beginning teachers have expectations about what supports will be available and what they will give the organization in return. To ensure that the most effective teachers are working in classrooms it is important to identify and provide the necessary induction supports that beginning teachers need to reach their potential and ensure that they are flourishing in our schools. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among rural Saskatchewan beginning teachers’ perceptions of their psychological contract with their organizations, the induction supports received, and beginning teacher flourishing in schools. The main objective of this research was to answer the following research questions: 1) How do rural beginning teachers describe the actual induction supports they are receiving from their organizations? 2) How do rural beginning teachers perceive and understand the reciprocal elements of the psychological contract with their organizations? 3) How do rural beginning teachers perceive their flourishing in schools? 4) What relationship exists among beginning teachers’ perceptions of their psychological contract, induction support provided and beginning teacher flourishing in schools? A mixed methods approach was used. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 110 beginning teachers in 21 rural Saskatchewan schools divisions using the Supporting the Psychological Contract toward Flourishing (SPCF) survey. Rural Saskatchewan beginning teachers acknowledged receiving positive induction support in the areas of: administrative support, procedures and protocols, consultation with experienced teachers, support with collegiality and belonging, resources, and professional development. They required more support with mentorship, levels of extra-curricular involvement, classroom management, and first year meetings. Beginning teachers perceived that they were strongly committed to their organization and that their employer was generally fulfilling their obligations to them as employees. Beginning teachers in elementary schools, and in some cases K-12 schools, felt better support than those in middle/ high schools. Beginning teachers perceived a low degree of flourishing as they began their careers; however, after one year, they experienced growth. Finally, relationships were noted among beginning teachers’ psychological contract and induction, their psychological contract and flourishing, and between induction and flourishing. Implications for theory and practice are presented regarding beginning teacher induction constructs, gender and type of school influences, and the relationship among induction, psychological contract, and flourishing. Future research is required in the areas of beginning teacher induction, psychological contract, flourishing and the relationship among all three concepts.

In today’s business environment, cost-cutting practices such as downsizing and layoffs remains a widespread phenomenon. Although, the understanding of the effects that these practices has on the remaining individuals, defined as the survivors, is poor. The focus in this paper is therefore to examine how survivors of layoffs can be affected on an individual level, and by what causes. The study was conducted using open-ended, qualitative interviews with three individuals with different experiences of layoffs. The empirical data was analyzed by extracting quotations from the interviews. The study found that layoffs affected the morale and attitude towards management of the individual, and that perceived justice and uncertainty are two causes of negative effects from layoffs.

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / The phenomenon of change has been the subject of debate for decades. Whether the change was planned or as the result of a catastrophic event, change affects nations, people, businesses, the economy and the environment. Typical changes in businesses are mergers, restructuring, transformations and retrenchments. Consequently, to this contentious phenomenon, change has been the subject of research by social scientists, behavioural theorists and analysts. Their collective endeavours have provided the world with a wealth of scientific knowledge. The Metro District Health Services in the Western Cape have undergone major restructuring and transformation. It is with this premise the question is posed, are change agents, leaders, and employees sufficiently empowered to mitigate the challenges and appease the expectations associated with restructuring, transformation and change?Supporting and contextualizing the study to the existing body of knowledge, previous research is reflected upon in an attempt to add value to future change initiatives. The reflections include different perspectives of change management, the multifaceted and evolutionary nature of change. The theoretical framework underpinnings of organisational development and transformation were also explored. One point of departure was to establish what is needed to ensure organisational success and describes activities, action plans and strategies, which modifies the organisational structures. The suggested methodologies, dimensions, variables influencing or enabling transformation formed the baseline for this study, with the emphasis placed on models of change, communication, theories of success formulae for organisational change, competencies of change agents, behaviour and attitudes of all stakeholders. Circumventing the purpose and contextualizing the baseline for this research, the survivor syndrome was explored and the dimensions of different change elements offered value to this study. The intent of the restructuring and transformation initiative, was to strengthen the Metro District Health Services by decentralizing Primary Health Care Services. Selected employees were tasked as change agents to facilitate the process and were simultaneously directly impacted by the process. The objective of this study is to explore and understand the effects of change on selected employees functioning at different levels within the Metro District Health Services during restructuring and transformation of the provisioning of healthcare services. In determining the effects the variables explored were their attitude towards change, their commitment to the organisation, the barriers and challenges encountered with the implementation of the process.The selected participants were part of an intensive restructuring and transformation process. The sample chosen from the population of 350 employees at the regional office of the Metro District Health Service and was representative of the greater population. The sample includes selected managers and employees at different hierarchal levels ranging from salary levels five to fourteen. Ensuring representativeness the different departments were used as strata and within each department a random sampling method was used to select respondents. Support was provided to explain that stratified sampling is a procedure of selecting a probability sample where a heterogeneous population is first divided into subgroups (known as strata) on the sampling frame, and simple random samples are drawn from each stratum. The research methodology was a combination of qualitative and quantitative research design. A questionnaire was distributed consisting of three sections, Section A Biographical Information, Section B Structured Interview (10 participants), Senior Managers were approached to conduct the structured face to face interviews asking open ended questions and Section C Survey Questionnaire was completed by the rest of the sample group by indicating on a likert scale their agreement or disagreement with the statements. The questionnaires have been demonstrated to be psychometrically sound in that their reliability and validity have been reported on and supported in previous studies. The analysis of the raw data involved statistical computations using Statistical Package for Social Science called Moonstats© and Thematic Content Analysis for the interpretation of the qualitative data. The limitations of the study are discussed as well as recommendations for future change initiatives and future research projects on the subject.

The purpose of this research study was to measure and understand if there was a change in the psychological contract post-acquisition and if so, did this change have a positive, negative or no effect on employee performance. Previous research and literature has suggested that identity was a critical measure of post-acquisition success (2011, p. 26; Weber&Drori, 2011, p. 76) leaving employee performance unmeasured. Rouzies (2011) further suggested that a merger or acquisition can lead to a drop in psychological attachment, identification and commitment to the acquired organisation (2011, p. 25). In addition, Chambers (2008) also made mention of personnel and culture integration being underestimated (p. 16). Therefore, this research has measured psychological contract (identity, culture and communication) in terms of employee performance (potential turnover, job satisfaction and productivity) in the context of post-acquisition integration.The results showed that changes in the psychological contract affect employee performance positively. Equally, if not more, important is maintaining the psychological contract in the post-acquisition integration process and thereby avoiding a drop in employee and acquisition performance.Identity and culture are strong influences of employee performance. The data collected suggested that identity positively impacts employee performance. More specifically, there was a slight positive impact on potential turnover and a more positive impact on job satisfaction and productivity. Culture also positively impacted employee performance. When measured against potential turnover, this impact was slightly positive while job satisfaction and productivity were more positively impacted.Communication was found to be important in reducing potential turnover. From data collected, communication does not impact job satisfaction and productivity. However, the data suggests that communication was adequately handled in the post-acquisition integration process.Recommendations were made dealing with principles to be considered preacquisition, on the importance of minimising disruption and maintaining continuity during post-acquisition. Based on the findings in this research, the psychological contract needs to be maintained in terms of identity, culture and communication. This will in turn ensure that employee performance is maintained post-acquisition. This implies that in addition to financial due-diligence being performed prior to a merger or acquisition, organisations need to be aware of employees’ feelings and attitudes towards the impending change.Future research may look at measuring psychological contract and employee performance in post-acquisition integration across different industries and countries or the same variables could also be measured pre-acquisition. Alternatively, additional variables such as extra-role behaviour and affective commitment could be added to the assessment tool to measure employee performance more closely. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This research stems from the need by organisations to retain their key talent in the context of the change in the psychological contract manifesting in the emergence of boundaryless careers. Employees have ceased to be loyal to one organisation and this has marginalised employers as they still need to retain their key talent as a source of competitive advantage. Most organisations have segmented their workforce to develop talent pools of high potential employees to meet the organisation’s current and future critical skills needs. Hence, this study investigates the impact of inclusion in the talent pool on the psychological contract. Various instruments in the literature study were used to measure the psychological contract of employees in the talent pools in comparison to those not in talent pools. These include the transactional and relational psychological contract instrument by Millward and Hopkins (1998), organisational citizenship behaviour by Coyle-Shapiro (2002), trust by Robinson and Rousseau (1994) and turnover intention by Blomme et al. (2010). The study presents findings from 195 employees from three different organisations, about 50% of whom were in talent pools. The study shows that both groups of employees in and outside talent pools consider their psychological contract with their employers as less transactional. Although being part of the talent pool has a positive impact on the relational psychological contract and organisational commitment, it does not necessarily translate into trust and the intention to stay with organisations. Employees in talent pools are not different to those not in talent pools with regard to trust and the turnover intention. The report offers insights aimed at managers to understand the psychological contracts of their employees within the talent pools to avoid unnecessary violations and to explore new value propositions that are aligned to those contracts. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

While the transition back to work following maternity leave is a stage of a woman’s career that can have significant impact on the rest of her working life, this remains an under-researched topic. The current study examines mothers’ return to work experiences, with a specific focus on the downgrading to their jobs they encounter, perceived as demotions, which no previous study has pursued. Drawing from research investigating mothers’ psychological contracts and their turnover intentions, the current study examines the relationship between demotions, psychological contract violation and employment outcomes. Also of interest was whether psychological contract violation initiated a process of grieving, as mothers struggled to separate from their identities as valued employees. In-depth interviews were conducted with eight mothers. Mothers who perceived their restructured jobs as demotions experienced psychological contract violations in response, and also described emotions consistent with a process of grieving. However, not all mothers who experienced psychological contract breach or violation quit their jobs. Implications for working mothers and for future research are discussed. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Globally competitive industries need to keep up with the rigorous technical innovations to ensure that they reach their targets in terms of customer satisfaction. In order to do this, businesses need to ensure that they have the correct skills and capabilities in order to meet their demands. Organisations encounter difficulties as they constantly need to replace lost skills, and once these skills have been replaced, they need to spend additional money to train and equip new employees adequately to perform the jobs that they are employed to do. These days, many companies find themselves in financial turmoil which emerges from large turnover rates. There has been a severe exodus of skilled employees in the utility industry. During the past twelve months, this industry has lost 1 479 critical skills. Scarce skills are expensive to retain and it is important that employee well-being take top priority to keep up with changing labour demographics. This upkeep relates to huge emphasis being placed on customer satisfaction. In order to keep customers happy, companies first need to keep their employees happy. Efforts made by the organisation to improve situational circumstances for its employees, will promote positive individual and organisational outcomes. Two dimensions contribute greatly to a positive employment relationship which is conducive towards promoting positive individual and organisational outcomes, namely a fulfilled psychological contract and fairness in allocating monetary rewards. Money should not be used as a Band-Aid; not everything can be remedied with money. However, money is important, although it is not the most important factor. Fulfilment of the different dimensions of the psychological contract, including, but not limited to opportunities for personal growth and career advancement, and a management-supportive work environment are vital towards establishing and maintaining a positive employment relationship. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of psychological contract breach, job satisfaction and turnover intention in the utility industry and to determine the outcomes thereof. A mixed method approach was used to gather data. In the qualitative study, managers and staff (N = 15) were interviewed and a thematic content analysis was performed. In the second phase of the study, the quantitative part, questionnaires were distributed to employees (N = 251) across all levels of the organisation. The measuring instruments used were the Psychological Contract Inventory, Job Satisfaction Scale and Turnover Intention Scale. The results of Article 1 (Chapter 2) showed that a total of 60% of participants made reference to the importance of money. Emphasis was also placed on other aspects, where 53% of participants made mention of leadership being an important driver of job satisfaction. Other themes also regarded as important toward curbing skills loss were the importance of personal excellence and the need for effective communication as drivers of job satisfaction. Article 2 (Chapter 3) found that a fulfilled balanced psychological contract displayed a strong, positive relationship with job satisfaction and that job satisfaction had a negative impact on turnover intention. These findings support the negative impact of psychological contract breach on job satisfaction and, in relation to this, job dissatisfaction positively impacted turnover intention. It was further found that psychological contract breach of the balanced contract had an indirect positive impact on turnover intent via job satisfaction. Recommendations for future studies were made. / MCom (Labour Relations Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014