Towards a Theory of Multiple Exchange Partners and Multiple Psychological Contracts

Although psychological contract theory acknowledges that individuals can have simultaneous psychological contracts with a wide variety of exchange partners, the idea of multiple psychological contracts has remained an under-development and under-researched topic. Using a social-cognitive perspective and focusing on the dynamics surrounding the exchange messages as building blocks of psychological contracts, we develop propositions specifying when an employee is likely to perceive a psychological contract with a particular employer representative. In addition, we develop a typology of exchange messages that help predicting the degree of distinctiveness in the outcomes of psychological contracts.