Personality and balanced psychological contracts: The mediating roles of epistemic curiosity and rule‐following behavior

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12311
AuthorUsman Raja,Muhammad Mubbashar Hassan,Sajid Bashir,Sana Aroos Khattak,Patrick Mussel
Published date01 January 2021
Date01 January 2021
102  
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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer Business Ethics, Env & Resp. 2021;30:102–115.© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
1 | INTRODUCTION
It is importa nt to understand the dynamsi cs involved in the fo rma-
tion of psycholog ical contrac ts because t hey have the inhere nt ca-
pacity to affe ct employee job satisfact ion, turnover intentions, and
eventually job pe rformance (Bal, De C ooman, & Mol, 2013; De Jong,
Schalk, & De Cuy per, 2009; Gakovic & Tetrick , 2003; Kara gonlar,
Eisenberger, & Ase lage, 2016; Rayton & Yalabik, 2014; Zhao, Wayn e,
Glibkowski, & Br avo, 2007). A psycho logical contra ct refers to an
employee's perceptions of mutual obligations in an employment
exchange relatio nship (Rousseau, 1989). Rouss eau (1995) proposed
three type s of contracts : transacti onal, relationa l, and balanced
contracts. Transactional contracts have an economic orientation a nd
are short-term in natu re. These contra cts result in l imited engage-
ment between the employee and employer. Conversely, relational
contracts are long-term in nat ure. In relational contrac ts, employees
expect job se curity and ca reer progressi on in exchange for the ir
commitment to the organization. Balanced psychological contracts
couple the flexible timespan and shared concerns of relational con-
tracts wit h performa nce requirement s and the renegot iation of
transact ional agreement s. The compon ents of such contr acts are
external employability, internal advancement, and dynamic perfor-
mance (Rousseau , 2000, 2004).
Studies that have ana lyzed the relat ionships betw een psy-
chological contract formation and personality-related anteced-
ents (Bingham , 2005; Metz, Ku lik, Cregan, & Br own, 2017; Raja,
Johns, & Ntalia nis, 2004; Tallman & Br uning, 200 8; Vantilborgh
et al., 2013) have mostl y explored tra nsactional a nd relational con-
tracts. H owever, balanced contra cts, the mos t pragmatic t ype of
psychologic al contract (Rou sseau, 200 0, 2004), have su rprisingly
been neglec ted (Bal & Vink, 2011; Ntalianis, 20 06). This is a serious
omission for vari ous reasons. Fir st, the natur e of employment and
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DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12311
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Personality and balanced psychological contracts: The
mediating roles of epistemic curiosity and rule-following
behavior
Muhammad Mubbashar Hassan1| Sajid Bashir2| Usman Raja3| Patrick Mussel4|
Sana Aroos Khattak5
1Visiting Faculty, Management Sciences,
Captial Uni versity of Science & Techn ology,
Islamabad, Pakistan
2Business Stu dies, Namal Insti tute, Mianwali,
Pakistan
3Goodman Sch ool of Business, Br ock
Universit y, Saint Catharines , ON, Canada
4Personalit y Psychology an d Psychological
Assessment, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin,
Germany
5Department of Management Studies,
Bahria University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Correspondence
Muhammad Mubbashar Hassan, Visiting
Faculty, Managem ent Sciences, Ca pital
Universit y of Science & Technology,
Islamabad E xpressway, Kahuta Ro ad,
Zone-V, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Email: mubbashar.hr@gmail.com
Abstract
This study exte nds prior research on t he relationships bet ween personali ty con-
structs an d types of psychol ogical contract s by exploring how th e Big Five traits
predict balance d psychological contr acts. Furt her, we determine whether epis temic
curiosity and ru le-following behavior are key medi ators of the proposed re lation-
ships. We tested our prop osed hypotheses usin g three-wave time-lagged d ata from
469 respondents. T he results indic ated that openness to ex perience was positi vely
associated and both cons cientiousness and ne uroticism were negative ly associated
with balanced contr acts. Ex traversion and agree ableness were not asso ciated with
balanced contrac ts. We also establi shed the mediating rol e of epistemic curiosit y in
the relationships be tween persona lity traits an d balanced contrac ts, but there was
no support for th e mediating role of rule-foll owing behavior in the pre sent study.
These findings h ave important imp lications for managers and organizat ions in terms
of selecting the r ight person for a job (pe rson-job fit) and ensur ing employee re-
tention (person-o rganization fit), he nce having a bottom-line ef fect on firm pe rfor-
mance. Future research directions are also discussed.

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