The Employment Relationship For Sue, whose patient and generous spirit is put upon every time I undertake a project like this, but whose skill I draw upon. For my mother, whose quiet pride in all her children is so appreciated but rarely publicly acknowledged. To my mentor and close friend, Professor Sir Roland Smith, whose support and guidance in my career and in my personal life has been my rock. The Employment Relationship Key challenges for HR Paul R. Sparrow and Cary L. Cooper AMSTERDAM BOSTON HEIDELBERG LONDON NEW YORK OXFORD PARIS SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO SINGAPORE SYDNEY TOKYO Butterworth-Heinemann An imprint of Elsevier Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP 200 Wheeler Road, Burlington MA 01803 First published 2003 Copyright © 2003, Paul R. Sparrow and Cary L. Cooper. All rights reserved The right of Paul R. Sparrow and Cary L. Cooper to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England W1T 4LP. Applications for the copyright holder’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science and Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone: (+44) (0) 1865 843830; fax: (+44) (0) 1865 853333; e-mail:
[email protected] You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier Science homepage (www.elsevier.com), by selecting ‘Customer Support’ and then ‘Obtaining Permissions’ British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0 7506 4941 0 For information on all Butterworth-Heinemann publications visit our website at www.bh.com Composition by Genesis Typesetting Limited, Rochester, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain Contents Foreword About the Authors ix xi 1 1 3 1 Challenges facing the employment relationship: introduction Nine key challenges The structure of the book The problem of hypercompetition: managing the employment relationship in times of disorder? New organizational forms and knowledge-based competition The political economic context for work The new flexibilities New psychological contracts, new careers? Critical views of the psychological contract Future psychological contract scenarios References 5 6 10 11 14 18 19 23 2 The psychological contract Key mechanisms of the psychological contract Getting the measure of the psychological contract The employment contract: legal regulation of the relationship Theory of psychological contracting: promises and mental models Managing change in an individual’s psychological contract Psychological contract violation References 28 28 30 32 34 39 41 49 3 The changing structure of employment Introduction Have we been here before? Historical changes in the employment relationship Demand factors behind the changing structure of employment The slow demise of long-term attachments The growth of non-traditional employment 53 53 55 57 62 64 vi Contents