The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices on the psychological contracts of employees who have been negatively impacted by the widespread psychological recession. The psychological contract that exists between employees and organisations is brittle due to the psychological recession, which is defined as an emotional state in which employees feel extremely vulnerable to economic hardship. This contributes to a negative and cynical view of the present and an even bleaker view of the future. Breach of the psychological contract has severe negative consequences for employees and organisations. These include reduced employee well-being, trust levels, various organisational citizenship behaviours, increased cynical attitudes toward the organisation, and stronger intention to quit. The target population for the present study consisted of all permanent support staff working at an organisation that has recently went through a large-scale retrenchment exercise (n=52). A self-administered questionnaire was distributed amongst employees. The findings suggest that when the harsh effects of the psychological recession increase, employees are more likely to engage in various destructive behaviours at work due to breach and violation of their psychological contracts. Furthermore, the results indicated that an increase in the number of progressive HRM practices correlated with a decrease in breach and violation of the psychological contract. It was further revealed that the widespread psychological recession may make the employment relationship brittle and prone to breach and violation. The findings suggest that through the effective development and application of many explicit HRM practices, employees’ psychological contracts may become less fragile to breach and violation during a psychological recession.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8772 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Theron, Anthonie Van Straaten |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MTech |
| Format | xv, 155 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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