Work-life balance psychological contract perceptions for older workers

Pages1194-1210
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/PR-10-2017-0300
Date03 September 2018
Published date03 September 2018
AuthorJohannes Marcelus Kraak,Marcello Russo,Alfredo Jiménez
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM
Work-life balance psychological
contract perceptions for
older workers
Johannes Marcelus Kraak
Department of Management, INSEEC Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
Marcello Russo
Department of Management,
University of Bologna/Bologna Business School, Bologna, Italy and
Kedge Business School, Talence, France, and
Alfredo Jiménez
Department of Management, Kedge Business School Bordeaux, Talence, France
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of worklife balance (WLB) inducements of the
psychological contract on three work-related outcomes for a sample of Dutch older workers: psychological
contract breach, turnover intentions and intentions to participate in development activities.
Design/methodology/approach This paper employs polyno mial regression and re sponse surface
methodology.
Findings Results show that the volume at which fulfillment occurs is important in predicting feelings of
psychological contract violation and intentions to engage in development activities but that this relationship
is not straightforward for turnover intentions. Furthermore, under- and over-fulfillment have different
relationships with intentions to participate in development activities than previous literature suggests.
Additionally, gender moderates a number of the relationships in this study.
Originality/value This study provides detailed insights regarding the dynamics between promised and
delivered WLB inducements and outcomes for a sample of older workers instead of presenting generalized
differences between several age groups.
Keywords Quantitative, Older workers, Psychological contract, Turnover, Worklife balance (WLB),
Continuing professional development (CPD)
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
More and more employees expect support for handling their work and non-work
commitments from their employer (e.g. Russo et al., 2015) and worklife balance (WLB)
promises are increasingly perceived as a critical component of the psychological contract
(Morgan and King, 2012). However, little knowledge is available on how older workers will
react to WLB inducements since few studies focus on the psychological contracts of this
particular group of employees (Kraak et al., 2017).
We therefore studya sample of older workers, i.e. employees over the age of 45(De Lange
et al., 2010), working in the Netherlands. These workers are currently facing substantial
changes in their life planning due to measures recently implemented by the Dutch
Government to reduce the impact of an aging population on the national welfare budget.
These measures aim to dissuade early retirement schemes and gradually raise the legal age
for full state-retirement benefitsto the age of 67 (Delsen, 2010).As a result, many Dutch people
currently over 45need to work significantly longer thanpreviously anticipated and will have
less time to devote to their families and personal interests during this career extension.
The question then arises: will these employees disengage from work or will they engage
in a prolonged maintenance phase and continue to invest in their professional activities?
Personnel Review
Vol. 47 No. 6, 2018
pp. 1194-1210
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-10-2017-0300
Received 10 October 2017
Revised 29 January 2018
Accepted 21 April 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
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47,6
WLB inducements could be important for older workers in this context as they partially
compensate for the loss of early retirement schemes.
Despite previous studies showing significant differences between women and men
(Bellou, 2009), research on the psychological contracts of older workers has only
included gender as a control variable. Consequently, none of the recent meta-analyses
(Bal et al., 2008; Lub et al., 2017; Vantilborgh et al., 2015) on research examining age and
generational related differences in psychological contracts research includes studies
focusing on gender.
We draw on the expanded view of the psychological contract (e.g. Irving and Montes,
2009), which suggests that the impact of a given inducement under investigation on
work-related outcomes depends on both elements (promises and deliveries) of that
inducement rather than the difference score representing the extent of its fulfillment
(Lambert et al., 2003). Vantilborgh et al. (2013) used the expanded view to study the influence
of aging on psychological contracts but, to our knowledge, no previous research applied this
methodology to study older workers.
To address these gaps in literature, we use the expanded view of the psychological
contract to examine the relationships between WLB inducements and feelings of
psychological contract violation, the motivation to keep developing in ones job and the
intention to leave ones employment for a sample of Dutch older workers. Furthermore, we
assess if there are differences between women and men. Since we wanted to focus on older
workers who will work for at least ten more years before they are eligible for state
retirement, participants in this study are aged 4555.
2. Literature review and hypotheses
The psychological contract consists of an individuals beliefs regarding the terms and
conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement between that focal person and another party
(Rousseau, 1989, p. 123). Perceptions about these terms and conditions can originate from
both current as well as previous employment settings (Eilam-Shamir and Erez Yaakobi,
2014). Psychological contract research is anchored in social exchange theory (Blau, 1964),
which suggests that the relationship between employee and employer is driven by norms
and rules. The most common of these is the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), which
captures the mechanism by which employees tend to exchange their daily contributions
because of a perceived promise of future returns (Robinson and Rousseau, 1994). Over time,
the ongoing interactions between employer and employee typically lead to a set of perceived
mutual obligations (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). When the employer is perceived as not
having fulfilled their obligations, employees are likely to experience psychological contract
breach (Morrison and Robinson, 1997). Breach typically leads to lowered trust and faith in
the organization (Robinson, 1996; Rousseau, 1989) and negative changes in work attitudes
and behaviors (Zhao et al., 2007) such as increased turnover intentions (Freese et al., 2011).
Unsurprisingly, breach on worklife inducements is followed by emotional reactions,
characterized by anger, frustration and resentment toward the organization (Morgan and
King, 2012). When the employee has a strong negative reaction to breach, it is referred to as
feelings of psychological contract violation (Morrison and Robinson, 1997); and even though
breach and violation have been used to describe the same phenomena (Cassar and Buttigieg,
2015), they are in fact separate constructs (Morrison and Robinson, 1997).
Psychological contracts change throughout ones career (Freese and Schalk, 1995) as
employees attribute different meanings to work at different points in their professional lives
(Schalk, 2004). There is a growing body of literature that examines differences in
psychological contracts based on generational cohorts (e.g. Lub et al., 2012, 2016), career
stage (Low and Bordia, 2011), chronological age (e.g. Bal et al., 2008) and tenure (e.g. Conway
and Coyle-Shapiro, 2012).
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