Psychological Contract Breach, Perceived Discrimination, and Ethnic Identification in Hispanic Business Professionals

Abstract

Rousseau (1995) defines the psychological contract as the individual's beliefs about mutual obligations in the context of the relationship between employee and employer.The psychological contract focuses less on traditional compensation issues and more on the entire relationship between an employee and employer (Rousseau, 1995).The terms of the psychological contract are obligations specifically based on perceived promises by the other party (Rousseau, 1989;Robinson, 1996).Whether implicit or explicit, the perceived promises create obligations that must be fulfilled for the contract to be upheld (Rousseau, 2001).For example, the organization or manager utilizing a relational psychological contract is obligated to treat the individual justly, provide safe working conditions, allow employees reasonable vacation time, and provide proper resources to complete their tasks.On the other hand, the employee is obligated to complete requested tasks, demonstrate a good attitude, promote the image of the company, and obey corporate policy.The maintenance of the relational psychological contract is paramount to a healthy and enduring work relationship.What sets a relational psychological contract apart from other psychological contracts (i.e., balanced, transactional, transitional) is the long-term focus that requires mutual satisfaction in both socio-emotional and economic relations rather than certain performance-reward contingencies (Hui et al., 2004).Over the past two decades a changing business environment (e.g., globalization, downsizing) has required