Breaking the Psychological Contract: The Effects of Change-work on Middle Managers when Implementing Organizational Change

Abstract

A psychological contract has been defined as the implicit beliefs about reciprocal obligations held by employees and employers. Thus, it would be expected that during an explicit organizational change the implicit factors of employment would become areas of tension and disharmony for the implementors of such programs. Local governments in many jurisdictions are undergoing structural changes, with a shift from the old ‘civil service’ ethos to the new ‘public management’ ethos. This grounded theory study of 25 middle managers in a medium-sized authority in New Zealand reports on managerial experiences of implementing organizational change. In line with other recent research, managers reported experiencing continuing work intensification or permanent work overload. They indicated that a significant part of the overload involved the ‘organizational change-work’ required to implement changes and that the change-work has resulted in tension and disharmony. The tension and disharmony was experienced by middle mangers as a ‘sense of violation’ of the content of their psychological contract.