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Weekly UpdatesIn a related stream of research, children's perceptions of their parents' work beliefs and attitudes have been shown to influence their own work beliefs (Barling et al., 1998; Kelloway and Watts, 1994). However, the strength of these relationships may be dependent on a number of factors. For instance, Barling et at. (1998) found that the relationship between children's perceptions of parental job insecurity and their own work beliefs was moderated by the degree to which the child identified with his or her parents. Another potential moderator may be the extent to which younger generations perceive more work-related opportunities than their predecessors.
Examining this issue from an organizational development perspective, Lewin's (1951) three-step model of the change process provides insight. It is possible that young employees who have witnessed their parents experience dramatic work place changes have unfrozen their perceptions of employer obligations and shifted (and subsequently refrozen) their expectations to more closely align with the psychological contract of today. Consequently, it may be reasonable to expect the younger generation to have a different perception of today's contract than older or retired employees. A poll conducted by International Survey Research in Britain (Hiltrop, 1995) found that young employees look for different rewards from work (e.g., involvement, flexibility, quality of life) than older employees (e.g., hard work is valued, loyalty). The second purpose of this study was to examine whether or not generational differences exist in perceptions of the relational component of the psychological contract. Specifically, this study tests the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis #2: There will be an interaction of time and generation on perceptions of the psychological contract. Older generations will perceive greater decreases in the relational component of the contract during the past five decades than will younger generations.
Finally, this study investigated the relationship between employment status and employee perceptions of the psychological contract. Subjects in previous research studies have been limited to full-time employees (e.g., Robinson, 1996; Robinson and Rousseau, 1994). Consequently, there is very little information regarding the perceptions of the psychological contract among part-time employees. The number of part-time and temporary workers has increased markedly during recent years to compose approximately 25% of the work force (Reynolds et al., 1998). Several authors have recommended that more research attention be given to the needs of these employees (Feldman, 1990; Feldman and Doerpinghaus, 1990, 1992).
It is reasonable to believe that part-time workers would possess different expectations for the employment setting than full-time employees (Bergmann et al., 1986; Larwood et al., 1998). For example, university students who are working may focus on the flexible nature of part-time employment because it permits them to concentrate on educational demands (Feldman and Doerpinghaus, 1990). Part-time workers also may have a different view of the present psychological contract because of their focus on flexibility and the transitory nature of their current work environment. It seems logical that individuals who derive less identity from work would have less extreme responses to unmet expectations in the workplace (Buchancan, 1974). Therefore, part-time employees may perceive the work environment differently, since they probably derive their sense of worth from many sources (e.g., family, leisure, continuous education). In contrast, full-time employees likely are more concerned with relational elements such as trus t, respect, and support which are associated with a long-term employee/employer relationship (Noer, 1997). Those workers may lament the loss of stability and security associated with yesteryear's workplace and experience a loss of identity when their contract is altered.
McLean Parks et al. (1998) provide a theoretical framework for understanding how perceptions of the psychological contract may differ according to employment status. They propose that focus (emphasis placed on relational versus transactional components) and time frame (anticipated length of employment relationship) are two relevant dimensions that may differ by employee classification. They posit that part-time employees (contingency workers) who have a more tenuous relationship with the organization will focus less on relational elements than their full-time counterparts (core employees). McLean Parks et al. (1998) contend that part-time employees plan on working for a given organization for a shorter, more finite time frame; whereas, full-time employees expect to have a longer, more indefinite relationship with the organization. Consequently, the third hypothesis tests the following:
Hypothesis #3: There will be an interaction of time and employment status on perceptions of the psychological contract. Full-time employees will perceive greater decreases in the relational component of the psychological contract during the past five decades than will part-time employees.
Method
Sample
In total, 204 individuals across three different generations participated in the study. Sixty-eight (68) college students, one of each of their parents, and one of each of their grandparents completed a survey designed to measure their perceptions of the psychological contract. It was believed that soliciting opinions from matched triads would accurately measure across-generation differences by reducing the confounding effect of family values and socialization on the data. Demographic results indicate that 88% of the students surveyed were under the age of 25, 93% of the parents were between the ages of 41-60, and 99% of the grandparents were over the age of 60. The majority of students (75%) and parents (94%) were currently employed, and nearly all of the grandparents were retired (89%). Of those subjects who were employed, 44% were part-time workers. Fifty-six percent of all participants were female.
Procedures
All participants responded to a short list of biographical questions and then completed the 24-item Psychological Contract Survey. Participants were asked to provide their perceptions of the relational component of the psychological contract over four different time periods during the past 50 years. Initially, participants were asked to evaluate the contract as they perceived it Today in the 1990s. It was believed that this assessment would provide a referent point by which to ground the participants' perception of the psychological contract and how it may have changed over time. Following this rating, they were asked their perception of what the contract was like in the 1950s and 1960s. Subsequently, they rated the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, they were asked to project what the contract would be like in the Year 2000 and Beyond.
A retrospective methodology was used in the study. This data collection procedure has been used to measure a variety of individual perceptions and employee attitudes, such as workload judgments and task perceptions (Alliger and Williams, 1993; Tsang and Vidulich, 1994). Researchers in organization theory and strategic management frequently have relied on individuals' retrospective accounts as a means of reconstructing the past (Boeker, 1989; Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven, 1990). Perception is the process of interpreting our senses to provide order and meaning to the environment. Individuals often base their actions on the interpretation of reality that their cognitive structure provides, rather than on the reality itself. In this study, students did not personally work during the 1950s or 1960s. Nevertheless, they have formed perceptions of the workplace reality of this period through listening to stories told by their friends and relatives and reading books or viewing movies about that era. Likewise, grandpare nts may have retired and have no direct experience with today's workplace but have developed perceptions of it based on similar environmental cues. Their perceptions of tomorrow's workplace are a composite of past experiences and current perceptions of the employment relationship (Waller et al., 1995).
Instrument Development
As mentioned previously, the focus of this study is on the relational component of the psychological contract. Consequently, the Psychological Contract Survey was constructed to look exclusively at this component. The items on the survey were generated from a search of the relevant literature examining the relationship between employees and employers. The intention of the survey was to measure the broad, socio-emotional relationship. For example, respondents rated the amount of "mutual trust," "mutual respect," "loyalty to each other," and "willingness to invest in each other's future growth." A five-point Likert-type scale was used to assess the degree to which relational elements were present. The rating scale ranged from 1 = "factor is/was not present at all" to 5 = "factor is/was present in very large amounts." In other words, a high score indicates that the employee/employer relationship was based on a high degree of trust, respect, and support; a low score indicates a relationship based on low levels o f trust, respect, and willingness to invest in each other's future growth.
Because the Psychological Contract Survey was a new instrument and contained a large number of items, a number of steps were taken to examine its validity. An inspection of how each individual item contributed to the original 24-item scale revealed that seven of the items had correlations of less than 0.40 with the scale for each of the four time periods. Thus, these items were dropped from the scale (Cronbach, 1951). The revised 17-item scale (see Appendix) demonstrated excellent internal consistency. The coefficient alpha was 0.93 for the 1950s and 1960s, 0.93 for the 1970s and 1980s, 0.91 for the 1990s, and 0.93 for the Year 2000 and Beyond. Principal component and factor analyses were conducted to further test the unidimensionality of the scale. First, a principal components analysis was run for each of the time periods. Scree plots showed that the eigenvalues for the second principal component were considerably lower than those for the first principal component at each of the four time periods (down fro m 7.86 to 1.21 for the 1950s and 1960s, from 8.16 to 1.01 for the 1970s and 1980s, from 6.74 to 1.28 for the 1990s, and from 8.13 to 1.14 for the Year 2000 and Beyond). An iterative principal axis factor analysis with oblique rotation also strongly suggested that a one-factor solution was the most appropriate. At each time period, all 17 items had a factor loading of 0.45 or higher on the initial factor. The above results are available upon request.
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