Rethinking Employment Relations in the New World of Work: A Psychological Contract Perspective

Abstract

In the new world of work, employers are increasingly favoring flexible work arrangements in order to minimize labor costs, and technological advancements are also making it easier for corporate employers to pursue efficiency and productivity at the expense of humanness in the workplace. As such, more workers are faced with new challenges in their employment relations, especially regarding how to make sense of their relationships and mutual obligations with the organization and then act accordingly. Against this backdrop, our symposium seeks to shed new light on issues of employee-organization relationship in the new world of work, particularly taking a psychological contract perspective. Conceptual and empirical studies in this symposium aim to advance our understanding of psychological contracts in relation to workplace changes, technological disruptions, individual emotions, and identity in the new world of work. Specifically, these studies highlight the potential influence of new technology (e.g., integration of artificial intelligence into the workplace) on the development of psychological contract currencies, the implications of different types of psychological contracts for human experience at work (e.g., in terms of emotional regulation and authentic self-expression), and possible ways for organizations to enrich employment relations in today’s workplace (e.g., through expressed gratitude, organization-sponsored causes). Will AI Make Human Work More Meaningful or Make Humans Obsolete? AI and Psychological Contract Presenter: Sarah Bankins; Macquarie U. Presenter: Paul Formosa; Macquarie U. Costs of Becoming Less Human: Psychological Contract and Emotional Regulation Presenter: Ki-Won Haan; Carnegie Mellon U. - Tepper School of Business Presenter: Chen Zhang; Tsinghua U. Presenter: Julia Lee Cunningham; U. of Michigan What Gratitude Brings to Organization: Receiving Gratitude and Psychological Contract Presenter: Boram Do; Yonsei U. Presenter: Claire Huang; Tsinghua U. School of Economics and Management Presenter: Julia Lee Cunningham; U. of Michigan Presenter: Paul Isaac Green; U. of Texas at Austin Just