Oregon Law Review : Vol. 90, No. 2, p. 449-524 : Justice, Employment, and the Psychological Contract
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Date
2011
Authors
DiMatteo, Larry A.
Bird, Robert C.
Colquitt, Jason A.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon School of Law
Abstract
Part I of this Article examines the evolving law of employment
discharge. This part highlights the long history and development of
the modern rule. Far from being a construction of judicial fiat,
employment at will took hold in the United States as a result of a
number of social and economic developments that impacted
employment relations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Part II introduces the concept of the psychological contract, a
bundle of expectations an employee possesses about the mutual
obligations extant between the employee and the employer. The
psychological contract, a construct commonly used in human resource
literature, offers explanatory power in that it helps explain the
antecedents and outcomes of employment termination. In this Part
we show that breach of psychological contracts by employers can
have a meaningful effect on the attitudes of employees toward their
employer.
Part III provides the data and rationale for the empirical survey of
employment termination presented in this Article. The respondents in
the survey were provided one of twelve discharge scenarios involving
issues of procedural and substantive justice. In some of the
scenarios, the participants were provided degrees of information as to the state of the existing law of employment discharge. Respondents
were then questioned on their attitudes toward the company and their
willingness to seek legal redress. Part III then reports our findings.
The study found that while substantive and procedural fairness in
isolation improve employee attitudes, having both a fair reason and a
fair process for discharge considerably amplifies these positive
attitudes. We also reach the conclusion, among others, that
propensity to sue correlates with the legal knowledge of employees
regarding their rights or lack thereof. This Article concludes that
employers have a significant influence over whether former
employees take legal action or retaliate against the firm.
Description
76 pages
Keywords
Citation
90 Or. L. Rev. 449 (2011)