The Rules of Social Exchange: Unchanged but More Important Than Ever

Abstract

Social exchange theory (SET) is one of the most prominent and well-known theories in the organizational sciences literature (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). In the focal article, Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu (2018) asserted that SET needs to be adjusted to account for changes in the nature of work, workers, and workplace characteristics. Specifically, they identify that workplaces are now more volatile, complex, uncertain, and ambiguous (Bennett & Lemoine, 2014), and work itself has become more flexible, virtual, and technology dependent; accordingly, today's workers are sourced from a global talent pool and more frequently occupy nontraditional employment arrangements (e.g., freelancing). It is undisputable that the workplace landscape is vastly different from that of the workplace landscape during which early forms of SET were originally articulated (Gouldner, 1960; Homans, 1958).