I didn't promise, I said inshallah 1: Saudi Arabian employees' perceptions of the importance of implicit promises within the psychological contract

Maryam Aldossari*, Maxine Robertson, Sara Chaudhry

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The psychological contract was both conceptualised and has been investigated primarily in Western contexts. While research has demonstrated its utility for exploring the nature of the individual employment relationship in other cultures, the fundamental tenets of the psychological contract have never been challenged. In particular, there is an absence of empirical research on how the notion of implicit promises might be viewed in Eastern contexts, in spite of promises constituting a significant plank of employee interpretation of the psychological contract. Using two case studies in Saudi Arabia, this research investigates how different sources of information influence the construction of implicit promises in a culturally unique employment context. We propose a theoretical model that outlines key factors that shape employee beliefs of implicit promises in order to guide future research in the field of psychological contracts.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)287-305
Number of pages19
JournalEuropean Management Review
Volume20
Issue number2
Early online date21 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

© 2022 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Keywords

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
  • RESEARCH ARTICLES
  • national culture
  • organisational culture
  • promises
  • psychological contract
  • Saudi Arabia

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