This paper takes a process perspective in exploring the influence of social interaction on the dynamics of psychological contracting throughout organizational change. Although social interaction is a key focus in social exchange theory, this aspect is largely overlooked in the current psychological contract literature. In this qualitative study, we adopt a retrospective design, asking change recipients to recollect events over time in the context of digital transformation in Dutch travel organizations. Our data reveal a sequence of different kinds of social interactions over the course of a change process, from collective-focused interactions (i.e., kindness and sharing) in stable contracts to transactional interactions (i.e., “what is in it for me”) following psychological contract disruption, to relational interactions (i.e., vigilance about equity in social exchange) in psychological contract repair, and to a final return to resonance and alignment with others and a return to psychological contract maintenance. Our results suggest that social interactions play a more potent role in the dynamics of psychological contracting than is currently recognized in the literature. Finally, we discuss a number of implications for dynamic models of psychological contracting.
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Purpose. Psychological contracts (PC) capture employees’ mental schema of the exchange agreement between themselves and their organizations, through which they make sense of their daily work environment (Rousseau, 2001). PCs are not only influenced by (large) organizational changes (Freese et al., 2011), but also by small day-to-day occurrences which indicate change (Conway & Briner, 2002). This makes the PC an ongoing, dynamic process (Conway & Briner, 2005). To capture this dynamism, Rousseau and colleagues (2018) developed a phase-based model in which a disruption (i.e., a deviation from what was originally promised) generates a transition from the status quo to either the renegotiation or repair phase with the objective of restoring the balance in the exchange agreement. Although disruption is placed at the heart of their model, the model does not explain how small day-to-day occurrences can lead up to this transition. However greater knowledge about the process underlying disruptions would offer alternative tools to manage the early warning signals of employee-employer relationships potentially spiraling out of control, and minimize the negative attitudinal and behavioral consequences of said disruptions (see Zhao et al., 2007). The aim of our study is to unpack the black box of “disruptions”. In doing so, we extend ex-ante propositions that PC should be investigated as a dynamic process by demonstrating the pivotal role that interconnectedness of triggers (selected stimuli prompting attention to the PC terms; Wiechers et al., 2019) plays as an idiosyncratic driver of contract dynamics. We do this by highlighting the critical role of social comparison in this process and by capturing the duration of the effect of triggers. Theoretical Background. Recent work has theorized the processual nature of the cognition of PC breach. From employees’ perspective, interconnected triggers impact the PC and build up pressure in the employment relationship (Wiechers et al., 2019). To understand how triggers influence each other and alter perceptions of the degree to which an organization has fulfilled its obligations, we adopt appraisal (Moors et al., 2013) and sensemaking (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015) theories as conceptual frameworks. First, a trigger will activate mental schema and perceived connectedness with previous triggers will lead to negative emotions. Following this, because an individual’s PC is created through interactions with multiple actors (Coyle-Shapiro & Conway, 2004), a trigger will direct attention to the situation of referent others and any unfavorable social comparison results in negative emotions (Weiss et al., 1999), and also leads to self- or other-attributions (Costa & Neves, 2017). Therefore, we hypothesized that the relationship between initial triggers and their impact on PC to be mediated by: connectedness of triggers, self- and other attributions, negative emotions, and expected recurrence of triggers. Design. Hypotheses were tested among a sample of 117 university lecturers in a quantitative daily diary study over six weeks (response rate = 76.21%; n=2172). Results. The findings delineate the micro-processes that precede the perceived impact on PC, shaped by appraisals of multiple triggers in comparison to referent others, attributions, and most importantly, appraisal of the interconnectedness of these triggers. Moreover, the lingering effects of the impact of triggers on the PC seems to last for approximately 11 days. A duration that is much longer than the specific isolated moment in which a trigger is sensed. This provides evidence that disruptions can build up over a long period of time, supporting the notion that interconnected triggers strain the employment relationship, exacerbate the impact of each new trigger on the PC, causing the shift to either the renegotiation or repair phase. Limitations. Although our time-based daily diary studies capture triggers fairly quickly, fixed once-per-day assessments may still involve a kind of retrospective ratings of situations that happened during the day. Therefore, future research studies may use a direct report at the moment the trigger is delivered—at unpredictable times—which moreover avoids an expectancy effects that may occur where participants know the timing of the fixed scheduled reports (Conner & Lehman, 2012). Research/Practical Implications. Our findings indicate that (1) interconnectedness of past triggers causes employees to experience more negative emotions, which in turn heightens their sensitivity to future triggers, and (2) PC breach develops over time because triggers are “sticky” (readily perceivable as interconnected cause of the lingering effect). These insights allow managers to actively build and repair a PC with their employees, even in turbulent changing contexts. Because PC breach is a consequence of the escalation of connected (negative) triggers, managers must be aware of such issues and use strategies to deescalate the cumulative effect.
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Paper on the changing role of psychological contracts of tour operating employees in organizational change.
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This chapter contributes to existing literature on psychological contracts by adopting a process-oriented lens to understand how psychological contract breach occurs. Drawing on neuroscientific insights, the authors extend and complement recently developed work on psychological contract dynamism by examining the intra-individual processes that precede the cognition of psychological contract breach. They argue that breach is affected by direct, indirect, and slow triggers that elicit conscious attention to the psychological contract terms and demand a shift from automatic processing to conscious attention. Moreover, stimuli matching with the (preconsciously buffered) memories of past triggers—connected triggers—will effortlessly activate the psychological contract. This results in an idiosyncratic chain of connected triggers processed in a cumulative manner, building up the pressure in the employment relationship and exacerbating the impact of breach. A better knowledge and understanding of these processes will offer employers alternative modes for handling and managing perceptions of psychological contract breach.
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Adopting an intra-individual process, we explore the dynamics that underlie the emergence of a psychological contract breach. Thirty-seven unique storylines expose how selected stimuli shake employees' psychological contracts to attention and give rise to perceptions of breach as a result of an iterative process of disrupting (introducing triggers that prompt a shift from automatic processing to conscious attention of psychological contract terms), appraisal (revealing elements—goals, attribution, fairness, and resources—playing a role in appraising and making sense of triggers), and (problem-focused and emotion-focused) coping. We discuss the implications of accounting for breach in the absence of a discrete event and draw on selective attention theory to differentiate when stimuli become triggers with the capacity to activate the psychological contract. We extend existing research by revealing the unique role that triggers, and their interconnectedness play in the cognition of contract breach, building up pressure until a threshold has been surpassed and breach is perceived. Our study highlights the need for managers to use strategies to deescalate the accumulation of triggers.
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The security of online assessments is a major concern due to widespread cheating. One common form of cheating is impersonation, where students invite unauthorized persons to take assessments on their behalf. Several techniques exist to handle impersonation. Some researchers recommend use of integrity policy, but communicating the policy effectively to the students is a challenge. Others propose authentication methods like, password and fingerprint; they offer initial authentication but are vulnerable thereafter. Face recognition offers post-login authentication but necessitates additional hardware. Keystroke Dynamics (KD) has been used to provide post-login authentication without any additional hardware, but its use is limited to subjective assessment. In this work, we address impersonation in assessments with Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ). Our approach combines two key strategies: reinforcement of integrity policy for prevention, and keystroke-based random authentication for detection of impersonation. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first attempt to use keystroke dynamics for post-login authentication in the context of MCQ. We improve an online quiz tool for the data collection suited to our needs and use feature engineering to address the challenge of high-dimensional keystroke datasets. Using machine learning classifiers, we identify the best-performing model for authenticating the students. The results indicate that the highest accuracy (83%) is achieved by the Isolation Forest classifier. Furthermore, to validate the results, the approach is applied to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) benchmark dataset, thereby achieving an improved accuracy of 94%. Though we also used mouse dynamics for authentication, but its subpar performance leads us to not consider it for our approach.
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Background Psychological aspects of labor and birth have received little attention within maternity care service planning or clinical practice. The aim of this paper is to propose a model demonstrating how neurohormonal processes, in particular oxytocinergic mechanisms, not only control the physiological aspects of labor and birth, but also contribute to the subjective psychological experiences of birth. In addition, sensory information from the uterus as well as the external environment might influence these neurohormonal processes thereby influencing the progress of labor and the experience of birth. Methodology In this new model of childbirth, we integrated the findings from two previous systematic reviews, one on maternal plasma levels of oxytocin during physiological childbirth and one meta-synthesis of women´s subjective experiences of physiological childbirth. Findings The neurobiological processes induced by the release of endogenous oxytocin during birth influence maternal behaviour and feelings in connection with birth in order to facilitate birth. The psychological experiences during birth may promote an optimal transition to motherhood. The spontaneous altered state of consciousness, that some women experience, may well be a hallmark of physiological childbirth in humans. The data also highlights the crucial role of one-to-one support during labor and birth. The physiological importance of social support to reduce labor stress and pain necessitates a reconsideration of many aspects of modern maternity care. Conclusion By listening to women’s experiences and by observing women during childbirth, factors that contribute to an optimized process of labor, such as the mothers’ wellbeing and feelings of safety, may be identified. These observations support the integrative role of endogenous oxytocin in coordinating the neuroendocrine, psychological and physiological aspects of labor and birth, including oxytocin mediated. decrease of pain, fear and stress, support the need for midwifery one-to-one support in labour as well as the need for maternity care that optimizes the function of these neuroendocrine processes even when birth interventions are used. Women and their partners would benefit from understanding the crucial role that endogenous oxytocin plays in the psychological and neuroendocrinological process of labor.
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One of the most important societal trends affecting our workplace and workforce in the following decade concerns the combination of a smaller number of younger workers relative to their older counterparts, and the current ‘early exit’ culture in Europe. Because of the staff shortages and possible knowledge loss (e.g., Calo 2008; Joe et al. 2013) that may accompany these demographic changes, there is a strong financial reason to retain and sustain ageing employees at work (Kooij et al. 2014; Truxillo and Fraccaroli 2013). In order to respond to today’s labour market needs, many governments have chosen to increase the official retirement age to 66 or even higher. In the Netherlands, for example, retirement age will be gradually raised to 66 years in 2019 and to 67 years in 2023. Other European Union countries have similar plans to steadily raise their retirement ages to 67 years in 2023 (France), 2027 (Spain), or 2031 (Germany). In the UK and Ireland, the retirement age will increase to 68 in 2028 (Ireland) and in 2046 (the UK). However, the reality of older workers’ current employment does not yet match these political ambitions. According to figures collected by the European Union Labour Force in the European Union Labour Force Survey (Eurostat 2014), the EU-28 (i.e., average of the 28 European Union countries) employment rate for persons aged 15–64 was 64.1 per cent in 2013. However, when looking more closely at the country level or when differentiating between age categories, the active labor participation of older European employees does not appear to be as high. The EU employment rate of older workers—calculated by dividing the number of persons in employment and aged 55–64 by the total population of the same age group—was 49.5 per cent in 2013 (OECD 2014), whereas the OECD average was 54.9 per cent in the same year. In the USA and Korea, for example, employment rates of workers of 55–64 years old were, respectively, 60.9 per cent and 64.3 per cent in 2013.
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