Ethics and an expanded psychological contract

Abstract

Concerned about redressing negative impacts on their communities, many people are seeking improved social, environmental and ethical outcomes from organisations. Social values and beliefs systems are playing an increasingly influential role in shaping the attitudes and behaviour of individuals and organizations towards the employment relationship. Many individuals seek a broader meaning in their work that will let them feel that they are contributing to the broader community. For many organisations, a willingness to behave ethically, and assume responsibility for social and environmental consequences of their activities, has become essential to maintaining their ‘licence to operate’. The appearance of these trends in individual and organizational behaviour towards outcomes that are more explicitly congruent with ethical and social values has significant implications for understanding the psychological contracts being created today. In this paper, we propose and discuss a model of the role of ethical values as an influence on the psychological contract.