The relationship between the psychological contract, trust and organisational commitment in retrenchment survivors.

[摘要] The aim of this research was to, firstly, explore the relationship between psychologicalcontract breach and organisational commitment, and to examine the extent to which trustmediates this relationship. Secondly, the research aimed to develop and validate a scale tomeasure psychological contract breach.Data was collected from a large organisation that had completed nation-wideretrenchments. The quantitative sample population consisted of 84 employees in theorganisation, while 10 members of the organisation were interviewed to obtain qualitativeinformation. A cross-sectional design was used and data was collected by means ofquestionnaires and interviews. The process of triangulation was used to provide a deeperunderstanding of the relationship being assessed.The psychological contract breach scale was analysed by means of a factor analysis andwas found to be valid, and the reliability was found to be satisfactory. The results of thestudy showed that there is a negative relationship between psychological contract breachand organisational commitment and that trust does not appear to mediate this relationship.Explanations for the findings are offered, and the theoretical and practical implications ofthe findings are discussed. Finally, limitations of this study and directions for futureresearch are presented.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand