Research On Employees' Psychological Contract & Stock Ownership Plan

When a person entered an organization, he would sign a written contract with it. At the same time, the psychological contract came into being. The written contract was imperfect and explicit. However, the psychological contract was different from written contract. It was implicit and dynamic. It meant many things. So psychological contract violations were more then written contract violations in organizations. Especially, When the organization faced changes, psychological contract violations often occured, which relevant to job satisfaction, job performance, organizational civil behavior, turnover intention, and so on. Since 1990s,more and more researchers paid attention to psychological contract theory.With the state-owned firm reform, the relationship between employee and top management changed, especially, employee stock ownership plan effected the employees' psychological contract. After researching psychological contract theory, we implicated it into researching on employees stock ownership plan effectiveness.By using questionnaire, structured interview, in-structure interview and experimentation, the present study, with four sub-studies attempted to examine psychological contract theory and its implications.In Study I, we developed a. psychological contract structure, which had two levels & multi dimensions. One level was expectation, the other level was obligation perception. Psychological contract was different because the employer fulfilled his obligation differently. This sub-study also revealed psychological contract was dynamic.In Study II, we examined psychological contract development process, using two-factor mix experimentation method. We designed three different stages. This sub study indicated psychological contract changed with the stages. Because the trend ofEmployer fulfilling his obligation was different, psychological contract developed differently.The author also found psychological contract change led to stay intention. So she made a conclusion that psychological contract changes were initial source of psychological contract violations.In Study III, the author analyzed what influenced psychological contract violations, if psychological contract violations influenced organizational civil behavior , unmeet expectation, turnover intention and in-role behavior.Psychological contract theory was composed these three sub-studies, which were relevant to motivating employees and retaining potentials strategy issue.Since the 1990s, employee stock ownership plan had appeared in state-owned firms. It was an investment compensation system, which was relevant to motivating employees issue. Employee stock ownership plan made relationship between employee and state-owned firms to change, it was classical organizational change, which influenced psychological contract violations. This conclusion made psychological contract theory implicating into employee stock ownership plan was possible.Study V focused the following questions: how to evaluate employee stock ownership plan Effectiveness. If employee stock ownership plan could effect psychological contract.The sub study indicated employee stock ownership plan effectiveness had three dimensions They were motivating employee who had stock, satisfaction with employee stock ownership plan and organizational performance. The author also found the following three points: a. Characteristics of employee stock ownership plan influenced employees' psychological contract. b.If psychological contract violations were different, employee stock ownership plan effectiveness was also different c. Meet expectation would lead to increase in employee stock ownership plan effectiveness.