Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T09:53:03.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Untangling Employee Loyalty: A Psychological Contract Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Abstract:

Although business ethicists have theorized frequently about the virtues and vices of employee loyalty, the concept of loyalty remains loosely defined. In this article, we argue that viewing loyalty as a cognitive phenomenon—an attitude that resides in the mind of the individual—helps to clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on the ethical implications of loyalty in organizations. Specifically, we adopt the psychological contract perspective to analyze loyalty's cognitive dimensions, and treat loyalty as an individual-level construction of perceived reciprocal obligations. Based upon this perspective, we present a three-tiered framework of loyalty that provides a psychologically informed definition of the concept, specifies the variety of obligation types that loyalty can imply, and anticipates the potential for asymmetrical loyalty configurations between employers and employees. We use the framework to articulate moral issues associated with both symmetrical and asymmetrical loyalty configurations and discuss the implications of the framework for theory and practice.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Business Ethics Quarterly 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, J. S. 1965. “Inequity in Social Exchange.” In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, ed. Berkowitz, L.New York: Academic, 267–69.Google Scholar
Alexander, S., Sinclair, R., and Tetrick, L. 1995. “The Role of Organizational Justice in Defining and Maintaining the Employment Relationship.” In Changing Employment Relations: Behavioral and Social Perspectives, ed. Tetrick, L. and Barling, J.Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 6189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axinn, S. 1994. “Thoughts in Response to Fr. John C. Haughey on Loyalty in the Workplace.Business Ethics Quarterly 4: 355–57.Google Scholar
Axinn, S. 1997. “Loyalty.” In Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics, ed. Werhane, P. H. and Freeman, R. E.Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 388–90.Google Scholar
Becker, T. E. 1992. “Foci and Bases of Commitment: Are They Distinctions Worth Making?Academy of Management Journal 35: 232–44.Google Scholar
Blau, P. M. 1964. Exchange and Power in Social Life. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Blau, P. M., and Scott, W. R. 1962. Formal Organizations. San Francisco: Chandler.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, G. A., Selden, S. C., and Facer, R. L. 2000. “Individual Conceptions of Public Service Motivation.Public Administration Review 60: 254–64.Google Scholar
Bunderson, J. S., and Thompson, J. A. 2006. “Toward a Neoclassical Conceptualization of Calling: Learning from Zookeepers. Working paper.Google Scholar
Carbone, J. H. 1997. “Loyalty: Subversive Doctrine?The Academy of Management Executive 11: 8086.Google Scholar
Cavanaugh, M. A., and Noe, R. A. 1999. “Antecedents and Consequences of Relational Components of the New Psychological Contracts.Journal of Organizational Behavior 20: 323–40.3.0.CO;2-M>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cherniss, C. 1995. Beyond Burnout: Helping Teachers, Nurses, Therapists, and Lawyers Recover from Stress and Disillusionment. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Clancy, J. 1999. The Old Dispensation: Loyalty in Business. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.Google Scholar
Coughlan, R. 2005. “Employee Loyalty as Adherence to Shared Moral Values.Journal of Managerial Issues 17: 4357.Google Scholar
Coyle-Shapiro, J. A. M. 2002. “A Psychological Contract Perspective on Organizational Citizenship Behavior.Journal of Organizational Behavior 23: 927–47.Google Scholar
Coyle-Shapiro, J. A. M., and Conway, N. 2005. “Exchange Relationships: Examining Psychological Contracts and Perceived Organizational Support.Journal of Applied Psychology 90: 774–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cropanzano, R., Rupp, D., Mohler, C., and Schminke, M. 2001. “Three Roads to Organizational Justice.” In Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, ed. Ferris, G.New York: JAI Press, 1113.Google Scholar
Duska, R. 2001. “Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty.” In Ethical Theory and Business, ed. Beauchamp, T. L. and Bowie, N. E.Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 325–30.Google Scholar
Eisenberger, R., Huntington, R., Hutchison, S., and Sowa, D. 1986. “Perceived Organizational Support.Journal of Applied Psychology 71: 500–07.Google Scholar
Ewin, R. E. 1992. “Loyalty and Virtues.The Philosophical Quarterly 42: 403–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewin, R. E. 1993. “Corporate Loyalty: Its Objects and its Grounds.Journal of Business Ethics 12: 387–96.Google Scholar
Fielder, J. H. 1992. “Organizational Loyalty.Business and Professional Ethics Journal 11: 7190.Google Scholar
Fletcher., G. P. 1993. Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, D. R. Jr., 2001. “An Extraordinary Concept in the Ordinary Service of Management.Business Ethics Quarterly 11: 110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gomberg, P. 1990. “Patriotism Is Like Racism.Ethics 101: 144–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, D. M. 1996. Fat and Mean: The Corporate Squeeze of Working Americans and the Myth of Managerial “Downsizing.” New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Graham, J. W., and Organ, D. W. 1993. “Commitment and the Covenantal Organization.Journal of Managerial Issues 5: 483502.Google Scholar
Grosman, B. 1989. “Corporate Loyalty: Does It Have a Future?Journal of Business Ethics 8: 565–68.Google Scholar
Haughey, J. C. 1993. “Does Loyalty in the Workplace Have a Future?Business Ethics Quarterly 3: 116.Google Scholar
Haughey, J. C. 1997. “The Loyalty Effect’” Business Ethics Quarterly 7(4): 145–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hecksher, C. 1995. White-Collar Blues: Management Loyalties in an Age of Corporate Restructuring. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Herriott, P., and Pemberton, C. 1996. “Contracting Careers.Human Relations 49: 759–90.Google Scholar
Hirschman, A. O. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, T. 1657/1968. Leviathan, ed. Macpherson, C. B.New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Homans, G. C. 1974. Social Behavior: Its Elements and Forms. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Hoy, W. K., and Rees, R. 1974. “Subordinate Loyalty to Immediate Superior: A Neglected Concept in the Study of Educational Administration.Sociology of Education 47: 268–86.Google Scholar
Janis, I. 1982. Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Kelman, H. C. 1958. “Compliance, Identification, and Internalization: Three Processes of Attitude Change.Journal of Conflict Resolution 2: 5160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kissler, G. D. 1994. “The New Employment Contract.Human Resource Management 33: 335–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleinig, J. 1993. “Loyalty.Criminal Justice Ethics 12: 3436.Google Scholar
Ladd, J. 1967. “Loyalty.” In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edwards, P.London: Macmillan Publishing, 9798.Google Scholar
Larmer, R. 1992. “Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty.Journal of Business Ethics 11: 125–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leibowitz, A., and Tollison, R. 1980. “Free Riding, Shirking, and Team Production in Legal Partnerships.Economic Inquiry 18: 380–94.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. 1984/2002. “Is Patriotism a Virtue?” Reprinted in Patriotism, ed. Primoratz, I.Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 4358.Google Scholar
MacNeil, I. R. 1985. “Relational Contracts: What We Do and Do Not Know.Wisconsin Law Review 1985: 483525.Google Scholar
Marantz, H. 1993. “Loyalty and Identity: On and About a Theme in Fletcher's LoyaltyCriminal Justice Ethics 12: 6368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLean Parks, J., and Kidder, D. L. 1994. “‘Till Death Do Us Part …’: Changing Work Relationships in the 1990s.” In Trends in Organizational Behavior, ed. Cooper, C. L. and Rousseau, D. M.New York: Wiley, 111–36.Google Scholar
McLean Parks, J., and Schmedemann, D. 1994. “When Promises Become Contracts: Implied Contracts and Handbook Provisions on Job Security.Human Resource Management 33: 403–23.Google Scholar
Mele, D. 2001. “Loyalty in Business: Subversive Doctrine or Real Need?Business Ethics Quarterly 11: 1126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merton, R. 1957. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, J. P., and Allen, N. J. 1991. “A Three-Component Conceptualization of Organizational Commitment.Human Resource Management Review 1: 6189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, J. P., and Allen, N. J. 1997. Commitment in the Workplace. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Millward, L. J., and Hopkins, L. J. 1998. “Psychological Contracts, Organizational, and Job Commitment.Journal of Applied Social Psychology 28: 1530–56.Google Scholar
Morrison, E. W., and Robinson, S. L. 1997. “When Employees Feel Betrayed: A Model of How Psychological Contract Violations Develop.Academy of Management Review 22: 226–56.Google Scholar
Morrow, P. 1983. “Concept Redundancy in Organizational Research: The Case of Work Commitment.Academy of Management Review 8: 486500.Google Scholar
Mowday, R., Porter, L. W., and Steers, R. 1982. Employee-Organization Linkages. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Murray, V. V., and Corenblum, A. F. 1966. “Loyalty to Immediate Superior at Alternate Hierarchical Levels in a Bureaucracy.American Journal of Sociology 72: 7785.Google Scholar
Niehoff, B. P., Moorman, R. H., Blakely, G., and Fuller, J. 2001. “Job Enrichment on Employee Loyalty in a Downsizing Environment.Group and Organization Management 26: 93113.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. 1996. For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Oldenquist, A. 1982. “Loyalties.The Journal of Philosophy 79: 173–93.Google Scholar
O'Reilly, C. A., and Chatman, J. 1986. “Organizational Commitment and Psychological Attachment: The Effects of Compliance, Identification and Internalization on Prosocial Behavior.Journal of Applied Psychology 71: 492–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Organ, D. W. 1988. Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Orlando, J. 1999. “The Fourth Wave: The Ethics of Corporate Downsizing.Business Ethics Quarterly 9: 295314.Google Scholar
Perry, J. L. 1997. “Antecedents of Public Service Motivation.Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 7: 181–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, J. L., and Wise, L. R. 1990. “The Motivational Bases of Public Service.Public Administration Review 50: 367–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, D. K. 2004. “The Relationship between Perceptions of Corporate Citizenship and Organizational Commitment.Business & Society 43: 296319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettit, P. 1988. “The Paradox of Loyalty.American Philosophical Quarterly 25: 163–71.Google Scholar
Pfeiffer, R. S. 1992. “Owing Loyalty to One's Employer.Journal of Business Ethics 11: 535–44.Google Scholar
Provis, C. 2005. “Dirty Hands and Loyalty in Organisational Politics.Business Ethics Quarterly 15: 283–98.Google Scholar
Raja, U., Johns, G., and Ntalianis, F. 2004. “The Impact of Personality on Psychological Contracts.The Academy of Management Journal 47: 350–67.Google Scholar
Randels, G. D. 2001. “Loyalty, Corporations, and Community.Business Ethics Quarterly 11: 2740.Google Scholar
Reinhardt, F. L. 2003. “Environmental Defense. Harvard Business School Case No. 9–703-029.” Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.Google Scholar
Robinson, S. L. 1996. “Trust and Breach of the Psychological Contract.Administrative Science Quarterly 41: 574–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, S. L., Kraatz, M. S., and Rousseau, D. L. 1994. “Changing Obligations and the Psychological Contract: A Longitudinal Study.Academy of Management Journal 37: 137–52.Google Scholar
Robinson, S. L., and Morrison, E. W. 1995. “Psychological Contracts and OCB: The Effect of Unfulfilled Obligations on Civic Virtue Behavior.Journal of Organizational Behavior 16: 289–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosanas, J. M., and Velilla, M. 2003. “Loyalty and Trust as the Ethical Bases of Organizations.Journal of Business Ethics 44: 4959.Google Scholar
Rousseau, D. M. 1990. “New Hire Perceptions of Their Own and Their Employer's Obligations: A Study of Psychological Contracts.Journal of Organizational Behavior 11: 389400.Google Scholar
Rousseau, D. M. 1995. Psychological Contracts in Organizations: Understanding Written and Unwritten Agreements. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.Google Scholar
Rousseau, D. M., and McLean Parks, J. 1993. “The Contracts of Individuals and Organizations.Research in Organizational Behavior 15: 147.Google Scholar
Rousseau, D. M., and Tijoriwala, S. A. 1998. “Assessing Psychological Contracts: Issues, Alternatives, and Measures.Journal of Organizational Behavior 19: 679–95.Google Scholar
Rousseau, D. M., and Wade-Benzoni, K. A. 1994. “Linking Strategy and Human Resource Practices: How Employee and Customer Contracts are Created.Human Resource Management 33: 463–89.Google Scholar
Royce, J. 1908. The Philosophy of Loyalty. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.Google Scholar
Schrag, B. 2001. “The Moral Significance of Employee Loyalty.Business Ethics Quarterly 11: 4166.Google Scholar
Shore, L. M., and Tetrick, L. E. 1991. “A Construct Validity Study of the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support.Journal of Applied Psychology 76: 637–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomon, R. C. 1994. “The Corporation as Community: A Reply to Ed Hartman.Business Ethics Quarterly 4: 271–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Souryal, S., and McKay, B. 1996. “Personal Loyalty to Superiors in Public Service.Criminal Justice Ethics 15: 4463.Google Scholar
Stinchcombe, A. L. 1986. Stratification and Organization: Selected Papers. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stroh, L. K., and Reilly, A. H. 1997. “Loyalty in the Age of Downsizing.Sloan Management Review 38: 8488.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. A., and Bunderson, J. S. 2003. “Violations of Principle: Ideological Currency in the Psychological Contract.Academy of Management Review 28: 571–86.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. A., and Hart, D. W. 2006. “Psychological Contracts: A Nano-Level Perspective on Social Contract Theory.Journal of Business Ethics 69: 229–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, K., and Pratkanis, A. 1998. “Theoretical Perspectives on Groupthink: A Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Appraisal.Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 73: 103–04.Google Scholar
Turnkey, W. H., and Feldman, D. C. 1999. “The Impact of Psychological Contract Violations on Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect.Human Relations 52: 895922.Google Scholar
Turnkey, W. H., and Feldman, D. C. 2000. “Re-Examining the Effects of Psychological Contract Violations: Unmet Expectations and Job Dissatisfaction as Mediators.Journal of Organizational Behavior 21: 2542.3.0.CO;2-Z>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vandekerckhove, W., and Commers, M. S. R. 2004. “Whistle Blowing and Rational Loyalty.Journal of Business Ethics 53: 225–33.Google Scholar
Van Dyne, L., Graham, J. W., and Dienesch, R. M. 1994. “Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Construct Redefinition, Measurement, and Validation.Academy of Management Journal 37: 765802.Google Scholar
Wanous, J. P., Poland, T. D., Premack, S. L., and Davis, K. S. 1992. “The Effects of Met Expectations on Newcomer Attitudes and Behavior: A Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of Applied Psychology 77: 288–97.Google Scholar
Withey, M. J., and Cooper, W. H. 1989. “Predicting, Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect.Administrative Science Quarterly 34: 521–39.Google Scholar
Yoon, J., Ko, J. W., and Baker, M. 1994. “Interpersonal Attachment and Organizational Commitment: Subgroup Hypothesis Revisited.Human Relations 47: 329–52.Google Scholar