organisational commitment research articles

REVIEW article

The organizational commitment in the company and its relationship with the psychological contract.

• Department of Economics and Business Administration, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain

Business organizations in their work environment, aspire to create a high level of performance and low levels of absenteeism and turnover. Organizational commitment is considered a key factor in achieving this objective, however, it can be conditioned by several factors, among which is the psychological contract. The literature has related the organizational commitment with the fulfillment of the psychological contract framing it as one of the explanatory variables. This work aims to investigate research trends on psychological contract and organizational commitment. For this purpose, bibliometric techniques and the software SciMAT have been used. 220 journal articles indexed in Web of Science (WoS) were analyzed. The findings indicate that the theme chosen for this review is valid. Based on the relationship between the two concepts, as the most recurrent themes, issues such as the sense of justice and the consequences of the violation of the psychological contract, normative commitment, HR management or job insecurity are addressed. However, in the last period analyzed (2015–2018), publications related to more sensitive topics to the present time emerge, such as the employability or the impact of these two concepts in the new generations (millennial and generation-Y) or the retention of talent. On the other hand, shortcomings are detected in the research on the ideologically charged psychological contract, the analysis of the organizational context or cultural and demographic factors in relation to both theoretical constructs. The contribution of this work lies in giving visibility to scientific results, which will serve business organizations as instruments for decision making in their labor management and, for the scientific community, as knowledge of the research spaces to explore.

Introduction

In the current business context, a change toward an efficiency model based on organizational commitment is required. Business organizations need to form teams that are highly committed to their strategic objectives, oriented toward organization and work. Human resource management is positioned as one of the main functions within the organization where working conditions, worker welfare and job satisfaction are valued, which helps to maintain high levels of organizational commitment ( Tiwari and Singh, 2014 ; Kurtessis et al., 2017 ). The formation of organizational commitment is related to the inputs that the worker receives from the organization and is intimately linked to the results of the relationship between both parties, as well as to the emotional bond between the goals and values of the organization and the employee ( Buchanan, 1974 ). This exchange relationship between worker and company can affect work performance, absenteeism and job rotation ( Betanzos and Paz, 2007 ). The literature in many works has related the organizational commitment to the fulfillment of the psychological contract, that is, the degree of compliance with the promises made by the organization ( Rousseau and Parks, 1993 ), framing it as an explanatory and determining variable of the organizational commitment ( Guest, 1998 ; Zaragoza and Solanes Puchol, 2013 ). The following provides a review of these two concepts; psychological contract and organizational commitment, as well as the relationship between them.

Psychological Contract

Rousseau (1995) defined the psychological contract as the set of individual beliefs of a person in relation to the reciprocal obligations and benefits established in a relationship of exchange. The result of the exchange conditions the behavior of both the organization and the employees. However, Rousseau emphasizes in her definition the unipersonal and subjective nature of the employees’ interpretation of the psychological contract, which could lead to different views on the terms of the psychological contract between employer and employee ( Morrison and Robinson, 1997 ).

The theory of the psychological contract shows as a key factor the perceived adequate performance of the contract between two parties involved, where subjectively one of the parties considers that the other has not adequately performed the obligations promised ( Robinson, 1996 ). In reality, this comparison has consequences that go beyond the mere violation of the expected rewards. Its influence extends to the image that the person acquires about the organization, affects trust in the employer and the perception of fairness in the employment relationship ( Cantisano et al., 2008 ).

In the exchange relationship between the organization and the employee two main dimensions can be distinguished, the relational contracts and the transactional contracts ( MacNeil, 1985 ). The relational are characterized by an emotional exchange of social-emotional resources in the long term, in this case, the employee perceives that in exchange for his loyalty he will receive possible promotions to develop his career in the organization and/or security to remain in his job. The transactional contracts are mainly focused on an economic exchange ( Rousseau, 1995 ). The breach of the psychological contract and its consequences have been widely addressed by researchers, where it has been demonstrated in many empirical studies how this fact is positioned as a key aspect in the field of labor relations and influences negatively the attitudes and behavior of employees ( Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). The validity or degree of compliance with the psychological contract has different interpretations depending on whether the employee is involved ( Robinson, 1996 ), the employer ( Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2002 ) or both ( Dabos and Rousseau, 2004 ). A distinction must be made between breach and violation of the psychological contract. While the assessment of compliance or breach of the psychological contract starts from the individual’s own analysis based on his or her judgment, the violation of the psychological contract is a possible consequence of the breach, where the subject reacts in an emotional way, with greater resentment and indignation ( Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ).

The consequences associated with the breach of the psychological contract can be numerous and depend on a variety of factors that would be related to both the organization and the employee. Some of these consequences have been widely addressed by researchers; employees’ job performance ( Gracia et al., 2006 ); intention to leave work ( Lester et al., 2002 ); job satisfaction and organizational commitment ( Porter et al., 1998 ; Cassar, 2001 ; Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2002 ; Topa and Morales, 2005 ); and/or decreased trust ( Robinson, 1996 ; Zhao et al., 2007 ), among others. The difference between the promises made and their fulfillment will generate different effects depending on the characteristics of the labor relationship, the age of the employee, the professional category, the organizational culture (individualistic or collective) and other demographic variables ( Rousseau, 1995 ; Turnley and Feldman, 1999 ; Costa et al., 2017 ). As for the emerging and developing themes on the psychological contract, Coyle-Shapiro et al. (2019) point out that they focus mainly on (a) those who investigate an expansion of psychological contracts beyond social exchange, the so-called psychological contracts with a strong ideological charge and their relation to organizational commitment, the presence of this type of contract in the public sector, or its repercussion on the organizational citizen behavior of employees, (b) those who analyze the antecedents of the breach of the psychological contract, such as the restructuring and downsizing of organizations, causing a decrease in the capacity to fulfill their part of the exchange, or those who investigate the impact of the employee’s perception of job insecurity, and how it affects the breach of psychological contract, and finally, (c) those who have extended the explanations of the relationship between the rupture and the result, focusing on the analysis of psychological contracts as dynamic processes.

Organizational Commitment

There are various definitions of organizational commitment one been as the desire on the part of the employee to make high efforts for the good of the institution, longing to remain in it and accept its main objectives and values ( Porter and Lawer, 1965 ). Another widely accepted definition is that of Greenberg and Baron (2008) who define organizational commitment as the degree to which employees identify with the organization where they work, the degree of commitment they show and whether they are willing to leave it. In research related to organizational engagement, three different perspectives can be distinguished. The first one is born from the perspective of social exchange, where the commitment of the individual to the organization is the result of the small investments that he or she has made over time and that would stop his or her voluntary disengagement from the organization ( Becker, 1960 ). This perspective was later developed by Meyer and Allen (1991 , 1997) where it was called Commitment to Continuity (CC). The second model, Affective Commitment (CA), leans toward a psychological perspective, where emphasis is placed on the binding force between the person and the organization. It is characterized by the employee’s desire to remain a member of the organization, accepting values and goals from the organization in exchange for certain psychological rewards, such as support or recognition ( Mowday et al., 1979 ; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990 ). The third perspective, or Normative Commitment (NC) developed by Meyer and Allen (1991) is focuses on the work ethic and the responsibility that the worker acquires, which drives him/her to do his/her job well in any circumstance. This normative commitment has been the source of multiple interpretations regarding its independence as an element of study ( Varona, 1993 ; Ko et al., 1997 ; Bergman, 2006 ; González and Guillén, 2008 ). On the other hand, organizations have assimilated that employees represent their most important asset ( Glen, 2006 ; Fulmer and Ployhart, 2014 ; Millar et al., 2017 ). Job satisfaction and job motivation, among other factors, become key aspects for the company’s success. Several attempts have been made at an integrated theory for analyzing motivation at work, covering most approaches and factors involved in employee motivation and expectations ( Donovan, 2001 ; Locke and Latham, 2004 ), although no complete consensus has been reached. As for organizational commitment, it is closely linked to job satisfaction. This satisfaction depends on many factors, but most are related to what the organization brings to the employee. Some studies indicate that job satisfaction precedes the level of organizational commitment ( Meyer et al., 2002 ; Morrow, 2011 ), in contrast, other research defends the idea that it is organizational commitment that is a predecessor to job satisfaction ( Price and Mueller, 1981 ; Curry et al., 1986 ). Organizational engagement of employees has been addressed in remarkable research where one can distinguish between so-called individual theories and process theories. Individual theories are based on the individual, the needs of the individual, and his or her motivation to act in one way or another. In this section we could cite: the Theory of Motivation ( Maslow, 1943 ); the Theory of Hierarchy ( Alderfer, 1969 ); or the Theory of Motivation-Hygiene ( Herzberg, 2005 ). The process theories also include the characteristics of the job or work environment, where other factors surrounding the individual are taken into account and are focused on analyzing why people have different behaviors in relation to the commitment to their organization. Among these process theories are, The Theory of Work and Motivation ( Vroom, 1964 ), Goal Setting Theory ( Locke, 1968 ) and the Theory of Equity ( Adams, 1963 ) (see Culibrk et al., 2018 ).

Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment

At present, there is no generally accepted categorization that encompasses the connection between psychological contract and organizational commitment. However, the literature has strongly related the link between both theoretical constructs, analyzing it from different perspectives, and giving it special relevance in terms of its influence in the field of organizational behavior ( Meyer and Allen, 1997 ; Bunderson, 2001 ; Lester et al., 2002 ; Sels et al., 2004 ; McInnis et al., 2009 ; Meyer and Parfyonova, 2010 ; Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). Organizational commitment, within the organizational approach, is among the most analyzed consequences in the literature, when explaining the results of the breach of psychological contracts, as opposed to other approaches such as factors oriented to internal third parties (supervisors or co-workers), external third parties (unions or clients) or health ( Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). On the other hand, research has been carried out that seeks to analyze the relationship of the psychological contract and its variants (relational and transactional psychological contract) with the different types of organizational commitment. In this sense, Meyer and Parfyonova (2010) , in their attempt to explain the differentiation between CA and NC, and to reinforce the conceptualization of the latter, point out the importance of this distinction to better understand the processes by which the psychological contract influences employee behaviors. Meyer and Allen (1997) ; Bunderson (2001) , Lester et al. (2002) , Sels et al. (2004) , and McInnis et al. (2009) point out that psychological contracts have been more related to the CA, however, it is more relevant to relate it to the NC. In addition, Meyer and Parfyonova (2010) , suggest that the conception of the type of contract in which the employee is (transactional or relational contract) may have implications on the way in which the employee experiences CK. In this line, they highlight that it is likely that employees with a relational contract experience a sense of moral duty, aligning themselves with the interests of the organization, even at the cost of sacrificing their own objectives. However, employees with a transactional contract, experience their obligation within the reciprocity of a social exchange relationship, consequently, they can respond out of necessity instead of desire and restrict their contributions to what is strictly necessary.

Another connection of the psychological contract with organizational commitment has to do with the most recent conceptualization of the psychological contract, which goes beyond the theory of social interchange; the so-called ideologically charged psychological contracts. This concept is based on the proposal of Thompson and Bunderson (2003) , which has been supported by many other authors such as Bingham (2005) ; El Bedoui et al. (2011) or Vantilborgh et al. (2014) , in relation to employee behavior inspired by ideology. This approach suggests that the employee recognizes his or her contribution to the achievement of a greater good aligned with the company’s objectives, for which he or she would be willing to make some sacrifices. In this sense, the employee understands that the achievement itself provides him/her with an intrinsic motivation and this encourages him/her to continue cooperating with the organization in the belief that it is the right thing to do. Under this prism, the behavior that exceeds the psychological contract based on social exchange, is explained from the conception of the commitment with moral objectives that can promote satisfaction, even in the absence of an economic relationship ( Shamir, 1990 ; Aguilera et al., 2007 ). In this line, Meyer and Parfyonova (2010) try to relate the ideological psychological contract with the affective and normative commitment when; (a) there are ethical foundations, (b) they are transformative and charismatic leaders, or (c) they are employed with collectivist cultures.

Justification, Objectives, and Practical Implications

It is noted that there is a strong link in the literature between psychological contract and organizational commitment. It is also confirmed that new lines of research continue to appear, such as that which analyzes the relationship between the typologies of psychological contracts and the different types of organizational commitment. Hence, there is an incipient interest in ideologically charged psychological contracts and their close relationship with the CA/NC, -some authors suggest that the investigation of ideologically charged psychological contracts is in an initial phase and invite further research ( Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). For this reason, a broader approach is necessary, with the purpose of knowing more about the literature around these two great theoretical axes, which explain to a great extent the organizational behavior and the consequences that derive from them. Therefore, the objective of this work is to give visibility to scientific results that provide knowledge of the nexus between psychological contract and organizational commitment, putting the focus on explaining the relationship between them and with other theoretical elements within the area of human resources, as well as identifying the spaces of research that remain to be explored. Hence, in its practical implication, this research can serve business organizations to better focus decision-making on the management of organizational behavior, in an attempt to find greater efficiency and sustainability of human capital. To achieve this objective, this work carries out a review of the research literature that analyzes these two theoretical constructs together. To this end, bibliometric analysis techniques will be used to present a detailed study of the evolution of research and authors who have addressed this issue. The adopted approaches and the incorporation of numerous empirical studies have provided a remarkable sustained literary wealth, which goes from the first works published in the nineties of the past century, to the proliferation of publications that take place in the beginning of the twenty first century.

The Web of Science (WoS) database has been used as a source in the search of scientific publications and SciMat as software for the generation and visualization of maps. A total of 220 articles related to the topic at hand have been used as a starting point. The analysis carried out is divided into two stages; firstly, an attempt to evaluate from a quantitative and qualitative orientation the production by countries, authors and journals, and secondly by means of longitudinal and strategic maps, which show the intensity of the relationships between the topics and their evolution in time, therefore giving an idea of which are the most developed and where future research can be directed.

Materials and Methods

This work aims to know the trends in the scientific production of psychological contract and organizational commitment . This research is based on a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature. A bibliometric analysis examines bibliographic material from an objective and quantitative perspective that is useful for organizing information within a field specification ( Albort-Morant and Ribeiro-Soriano, 2016 ); Therefore, a metric analysis of the bibliography allows us to analyze the details of the main research topics within a domain and the relationships at the micro level, generating useful information for researchers who evaluate scientific activity ( Chen and Xiao, 2016 ; Rey-Martí et al., 2016 ).

In order to carry out our analysis, two clearly differentiated sets will be described in detail; relationship indicators and activity indicators. The review of the articles in our sample will reveal the evolution of the research related to psychological contract and organizational commitment. Other data that is analyzed correspond to the year of publication of the manuscripts, authors, place of origin, number of citations, impact indices and other characteristics related to scientific production. This approach will provide researchers with a complete vision of what scientific production in this field has meant.

The database used to extract the sample has been Web of Science, where the search was carried out in February 2019. To meet the objectives set out in this research, the location of articles in this database was configured with the following expressions: “psychological contract” and “organizational commitment.” The year of publication was not limited and was restricted to the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Thus, those documents whose title, abstract or keywords include the expressions “psychological contract” and “organizational commitment” are extracted. To further refine the search for the selected items, the search is restricted to the categories “Management,” “Phychology applied,” “Business,” and “Sociology.” This configuration provided a total of 220 items in this source. Usually, in reviews that use bibliometric techniques, those articles that have received a greater number of citations are selected. In this review, all articles that meet the above parameters are included, so that those manuscripts that have not yet reached their highest impact rate are not excluded.

In a first step for a global perspective, we will carry out a descriptive statistical analysis, where the indicators of activity in the literature are detailed. In a second step, where the temporal evolution of these topics will be appreciated, we will make longitudinal, strategic and thematic network maps. In this way, those topics that have had a greater transcendence throughout time will flourish, as well as those that have a lesser current impact, or those that are currently positioning themselves as topics of greater interest in relation to our purpose.

SciMAT has been used for the construction of longitudinal maps, strategic maps and thematic networks. This allows us to see chronologically what the thematic evolution of the literature under study has been. This software has been developed by SECABA, a research group from the University of Granada, Spain ( Cobo et al., 2012 ).

The following configuration of SciMAT has been carried out for the analysis: the author’s keywords and those coming from the source represent the thematic unit. The equivalence index acts as a measure of similarity to normalize the networks, as well as to create the scientific map of topics and the networks that compose it. The single center clustering algorithm was used.

In order to more clearly expose the focus of this research, Figure 1 shows schematically the procedure that has been performed. The longitudinal map ( Figure 1 , Left) indicates the evolution of literature associated to a particular theme. In this map each period represents by means of spheres the main themes concentrated in a certain number of articles of that period. The evolution from period to period is reflected by connecting lines between the represented items.

Figure 1. Example of longitudinal map, strategic map and thematic network. Prepared by the authors base in Cobo (2011) .

A strategic diagram is divided into four quadrants ( Figure 1 , Center). Motor themes are in the upper right quadrant, peripheral themes in the upper left, emerging themes are in the lower left quadrant, and basic themes are in the lower right quadrant ( Cobo et al., 2012 ). With respect to the first ( Figure 1 , Center Circle “A”), they indicate that subjects are the motors of the specialty, they have a high density and pronounced centrality, they are very developed and important subjects for the composition of the scientific field, they also have notable relations with concepts applicable to other subjects. The circle “D” ( Figure 1 , Center), identifies the position that the peripheral themes would occupy, although their importance in the scientific field being analyzed is not very high, if they have very developed internal links and are characterized by being very specialized. The circle “C” ( Figure 1 , Center) indicates the position that emerging or decadent themes would occupy. Both their density and their centrality are very low, so their development has not been very notable, although they may evolve toward more transcendental themes in the future. The basic themes are represented by the circle “D” ( Figure 1 , Center). Although they are not sufficiently developed, they are transversal and generic, and therefore represent the basic themes of a scientific field. The third dimension in the strategic map is included through the spheres of the themes, where their volume may represent different bibliometric indicators, such as the number of documents associated with a theme, the number of citations received by the documents associated with each theme, or the H-Index of the theme ( Cobo, 2011 ).

Together with the global network of interconnected themes and keywords, a second thematic network is created, based on the documents associated with each theme. Each thematic network ( Figure 1 , Right) is assigned the documents that share some keywords with the network, being able to consider two types of networks: main documents and secondary documents. A main document will be one that contains at least two keywords of the thematic network, and those documents that have at least one keyword associated to the thematic network will be called secondary document. In this way, both primary and secondary documents can belong to more than one thematic network ( Cobo, 2011 ). The quantitative and qualitative analysis developed in this research has been based on the network of primary documents.

Indicators of Activity in the Literature on Psychological Contract and Commitment

The evolution of the number of publications per year has experienced a notable increase. The sample analyzed consists of 220 articles, the first of which appears in 1994, “Expatriate Managers and the Psychological Contract” published by Guzzo, RA, Noonan, KA and Elron, E. in Journal of Applied Psychology . This journal is one of the pioneers and remains one of the most productive in this field, although its contribution does not keep a constant pace.

Up to and including the year 2000, the number of investigations published within the chosen sample was only 14 units (6%). Between 2001 and 2010 this number rises to 88 articles, and from 2011 to the present a total of 118 works have been published in these sources. The years between 2005 and 2015 are shown as the most productive with a total of 149 (68%) articles with respect to this sample. Bearing in mind that the current decade (2011–2020) still has a few months of production to go and that the articles cited gain prominence in the years following their publication, it is worth noting that there has been a considerable increase in the pace of publication on this subject.

The Figure 2 shows how from 2005 onwards the growth of publications is very high, maintaining an average rhythm of 17 articles per year until 2013, where a pronounced fall can be seen. Until 2005, researchers from the United States of America published on this subject in a significant way with 31 articles, the American country has the largest representation with a total of 58 articles between 1994 and 2018. From 2006 to 2018, researchers from England (24), Holland (16), Australia (15), Canada (15), China (14), and Germany (11) have more than 10 publications. The rest of the documents are distributed among other countries that have not reached 10 in the last 15 years; Spain (5), Taiwan (5), France (4), Greece (4) or India (4) are the most numerous examples. In this phase before the turn of the century, the research carried out by Guzzo, Noonan and Elron entitled “Expatriate managers and the psychological contract” (1994) stands out and becomes a reference for later works.

Figure 2. Number of articles by year of publication. Prepared by the authors on the basis of WoS data.

The authors who have published the greatest number of articles in the database consulted are shown in Table 1 . The Hirsch Index, or H-index, of each author is also added, which relates the number of publications and citations received.

Table 1. Authors who have published three or more articles on psychological contract and organizational commitment (1994–2018).

It is necessary to comment as the author with more publications (10), De Witte, H, only appears as first author in an article of the ten where he participates. On the other hand, De Cuyper, Bal, Ng, and others, are authors who usually appear as the first researcher in the articles in which they participate. The most cited authors per article are not represented in the above list, as their production in this field has not been as numerous. The most cited article of all those analyzed is by Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski and Bravo who in 2007 published “The impact of psychological contract breach on work-related outcomes: A meta-analysis” with 517 citations from other researchers. Another article to be highlighted is the manuscript published by Coyle-Shapiro et al. (2019) , “Psychological Contracts: Past, Present and Future,” which despite its novelty already has more than 37 citations from other authors and represents a broad systematic review on this subject.

With respect to the journals with the greatest presence in research on Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment, it can be indicated that the set of 220 articles studied in this work from 1994 to 2018 are distributed in 82 different publications, highlighting the most representative with 19 and 17 research edited. As with research production in this field, the most active journals have appeared in this field since 2005, almost continuously publishing a significant number of articles each year.

The journals with the greatest presence of this sample and its impact factor are indicated in Table 2 . Most of them are located in the first or second quartile (Q1–Q2–Q3–Q4) of this theme according to JCR Category. In the cases where a publication is cataloged in more than one category, the one belonging to the area of knowledge according to this research has been chosen.

Table 2. Journals on psychological contract and organizational commitment.

The International Journal of Human Resource Management , volume 1 of which appeared in 1990, is the most active in this field, with 19 articles since 2003, and continuous production to date. The second publication with 17 articles, Journal of Vocational Behavior appears in 1971, and like the previous one from the beginning of the twenty first century it gathers a series of researches on the subject we are concerned with, although as it happens in the general computation it shows more activity from 2008 onwards. In Table 3 , the 19 journals listed in Table 2 , which indicates the number of articles related to Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment that have been published each year, are shown.

Table 3. Annual journal activity in articles on psychological contract and organizational commitment. number of articles per year.

As can be seen, except for the International Journal of Human Resource Management , no journal represents more than 8% of the published articles, which indicates that few journals have specialized specifically in this matter. It also gives an idea of how this subject is represented from multidisciplinary approaches, which although having limited the search in certain areas of knowledge, the study of the Psychological Contract and the Organizational Commitment admits points of view from various disciplines.

Content Analysis

Evolution of keywords.

In order to analyze the conceptual and thematic evolution of the literature related to organizational commitment and psychological contract, we first analyze how the keywords have evolved, their overlapping, continuity and discontinuity chronologically. For this purpose, 4 periods are established (1994–2004/2005–2009/2010–2014/2015–2018). The criterion of creating blocks with a certain similarity in their amplitude and number of documents has been followed. It was estimated that 5 years periods would favor analysis. For the first block, due to the low level of literary production, it was thought convenient to extend from 5 to 10 years the breadth of the period, even so, it contains the least number of publications with a total of 32 documents. The second and third blocks, both have an amplitude of 5 years and 55 and 78 manuscripts, respectively. In the case of the fourth block, it comprises the last 4 years of the total period under study, and has a total of 55 publications.

In the analysis of the evolution of keywords in the area, the methodology of Price and Gürsey (1975) has been used ( Figure 3 ). Each circle represents a chosen period, the figure inside it indicating the number of different keywords in that period. The horizontal arrows that join the circles represent the keywords shared that pass from one period to the next, so they remain between the two periods. The figure in parentheses indicates the stability index or overlapping fraction (between period 1 and 2, the stability index was 49%, which decreased between period 2 and 3, and between period 3 and 4. This indicates the growth of keywords that have been associated with this theme. This indicates the growth of keywords that have been associated to this theme. An arrow appears at the top of each period to inform us of how many keywords no longer appear in the following period. At the opposite point, the arrow that enters diagonally in the circle indicates the number of new keywords that have been incorporated during this period. As you can see in Figure 3 , in each period new keywords are added and others are no longer used with respect to adjacent periods. A large number of keywords is observed, which gives an idea of the diversity of topics adjacent to those dealt with by the central core object of this study. As for the analysis of periods, the number of keywords is closely related to the number of publications, so the third (2010–2014) is where more keywords have coexisted with a total of 501. The stability index has remained between 0.49 and 0.37 which, although decreasing, shows a high strengthening of the vocabulary by the scientific community when describing the published documents ( Cobo et al., 2012 ).

Figure 3. Keywords shared between periods. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Longitudinal Analysis of the Theme

Once the evolution of keywords has been analyzed, the study would focus on how the subject has evolved. In order to do this, we rely on Figure 4 , where the relations of the themes are represented by periods according to the volume of primary documents. In the case of Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment, there is continuity in each of the periods. In the first period, the subject revolves more around the Psychological Contract, giving way to Organizational Commitment in the following periods. However, in the central blocks (2005–2009 and 2010–2014), the issues are closely related. In the case of the subject that has to do with the violation of the psychological contract, it evolves in all periods toward the conception of obligations and toward social exchange in the last period. Job insecurity remains in force in all periods, resulting in the second with health and in the last two with performance or social exchange. In the last period (2014–2018) there are themes that are not related to those of previous periods, such as personality , turnover , millennials, employability or moderating-role and that, due to their density, are themes with certain possibilities of becoming driving themes in the near future.

Figure 4. Evolution of the theme of organizational commitment and psychological contract. primary documents. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Thematic Analysis Through Strategic Diagrams

Period 1994–2004.

The strategic diagram in Figure 5 represents an image of the situation of the theme in the first decade in which the central themes of this study, Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment, began to be jointly researched. The main driving themes are psychological contract and justice . The first one has a high level of centrality and density ( Table 4 ) which makes it the main asset of the subject, at the same time it stands out from the others, both in the quantitative plane with 28 documents, and in the qualitative plane with an H-index of 24, in the case of the second, justice , with an H-index of 3, it only has 4 documents related to satisfaction, the behavior of citizens or trust. As basic topics are those related to behavior or violation of the psychological contract. As for emerging or decadent issues, there is organizational support , which has a high density, although the centrality is relatively low. In the upper left quadrant, in which peripheral themes are visualized, it is represented by performance or job insecurity , both considerably developed, although with little production and low H-index.

Figure 5. Strategic map 1994–2004. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Table 4. Cluster period 1994–2004.

With the intention of knowing which literary activity makes up the main driving theme, which in this first period is a psychological contract , it would be interesting to analyze its thematic network ( Figure 5 ). The study of psychological contracts is intimately related to organizational commitment , but it is also closely related to the analysis of performance , job satisfaction , rotation , antecedents and the consequences of the same (both topics that in turn maintain an important intensity in their relationships), as well as with other topics with less intensity such as professional commitment, models, human resources management or social exchange .

The five publications with the greatest impact of this network between 1994 and 2004 were, (i) Whitener (2001) , “High Commitment” Human Resource Practices Affect Employee Commitment? (times cited: 443); (ii) Raja et al. (2004) , The Impact Of Personality On Psychological Contracts (times cited: 308); (iii) Guzzo et al. (1994) , Expatriate Managers And The Psychological Contract (times cited: 304); (iv) Scandura and Lankau (1997) , Relationships Of Gender, Family Responsibility And Flexible Work Hours To Organizational Commitment And Job Satisfaction (times cited: 236), and (v); Meyer and Smith (2000) , Hrm Practices And Organizational Commitment: Test Of A Mediation Model (times cited: 210).

Period 2005–2009

In the second block (2005–2009), in the association Psychological Contract—Organizational Commitment as a driving theme, there is a change of leadership ( Figure 6 ). The number of documents and the quality (H-index) increased in this second period, from 28 to 51 and from 24 to 30, respectively ( Tables 4 , 5 ). As the second driving theme, obligations appear, with 7 publications related to perceptions, violation and the rupture of the psychological contract. In this period there is a peculiarity in which two clusters are generated on the topics health and turnover-intention. The first is at the border of the quadrant of emerging themes with the basic themes that, as has been commented ( Figure 4 ), was an evolution—from the previous period—of the job-insecurity theme and evolved, in the following period, toward themes such as job-insecurity or performance. In the case of the latter, it lies between the quadrant of emerging or decadent themes and peripheral themes, as seen earlier created in this period, but evolves in the following one toward normative-commitment. Both topics have few documents, between 5 and 3, respectively, and in the qualitative aspect an H-index of 5 and 3 equally ( Table 5 ).

Figure 6. Strategic map 2005–2009. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Table 5. Cluster period 2005–2009.

The thematic network of organizational commitment , for this period, as main driving theme ( Figure 6 ) is constituted, in the first place, by psychological contract and closely, by antecedents and consequences —al as well as in period anterior—, and job-satisfaction . On the other hand, there are two issues that are closely related to organizational engagement, such as social-exchange and employment-relationship. During this period there is a great deal of interest in knowing about the literature on this subject, with 12 publications on the subject of meta-analysis.

With respect to the five publications with the greatest impact between 2005 and 2009, the following can be found; (i) Zhao et al. (2007) , The Impact Of Psychological Contract Breach On Work-related Outcomes: A Meta-analysis (times cited: 538); (ii) Cheng and Chan (2008) Who Suffers More From Job Insecurity? A Meta-analytic Review (times cited: 335); (iii) Bentein et al. (2005) , The Role Of Change In The Relationship Between Commitment And Turnover: A Latent Growth Modeling Approach (times cited: 198); (iv) De Cuyper and De Witte (2006) , The Impact Of Job Insecurity And Contract Type On Attitudes, Well-being And Behavioural Reports: A Psychological Contract Perspective (times cited: 183); and (v) Bal et al., 2008 ), Psychological Contract Breach And Job Attitudes: A Meta-analysis Of Age As A Moderator (times cited: 160).

Period 2010–2014

The third block (2010–2014) continues its organizational commitment as the main driving theme ( Figure 7 ), which although it is present in more publications, 74 as opposed to 51 in the previous period, from a qualitative point of view has worsened, going from a 30 to a 23 H-index ( Tables 5 , 6 ). At the frontiers of the driving themes there are two themes that could belong to this classification. The first is in the line that divides the peripheral themes of the emerging or decadent, normative-commitment 1 , which is an evolution, as we could see, of turnover-intention and that has experienced a greater centrality between its publications—goes from 3.3 to 26.83—, giving rise to the potential necessary to become a driving theme, with a notable increase in its H-index, which goes from 3 to 10. The second, violation , is at the frontier of peripheral issues. In this period it is again configured as a driving theme with violation , but with a lower density and centrality and, in quantitative and qualitative terms, fewer documents and lower H-index. In the basic and peripheral themes, there are job-insecurity and performance , themes that have evolved from health of the previous period, to transform the first into a peripheral theme, with a notable density and centrality and the second into a basic theme, little developed, with low centrality and density, however both have the same H-index (4). As an emergent or decadent theme appears work , which with an H-index of 6, has an acceptable density, but a very low centrality ( Table 6 ).

Figure 7. Strategic map 2010–2014. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Table 6. Cluster period 2010–2014.

In the period 2010–2014, the thematic network of organizational commitment ( Figure 7 ), as the main driving theme, has its densest relationship with psychological contract , followed by meta-analysis , which is again present with some consistency, on the other hand, other themes such as job-satisfaction, consequences, psychological-contract-breach or social-exchange are related to each other and strongly related to organizational commitment.

The five publications with the greatest impact between 2010 and 2014 were; (i) Ng et al. (2010) Psychological Contract Breaches, Organizational Commitment, And Innovation-related Behaviors: A Latent Growth Modeling Approach (times cited: 94); (ii) Tremblay et al. (2010) , The Role Of Hrm Practices, Procedural Justice, Organizational Support And Trust In Organizational Commitment And In-role And Extra-role Performance , (times cited: 83); (iii) Direnzo and Greenhaus (2011) , Job Search And Voluntary Turnover In A Boundaryless World: A Control Theory Perspective (times cited: 82); (iv) Lub et al. (2012) ; Different Or Alike? Exploring The Psychological Contract And Commitment Of Different Generations Of Hospitality Workers (times cited: 79); and (v) Deconinck (2011) , The Effects Of Ethical Climate On Organizational Identification, Supervisory Trust, And Turnover Among Salespeople (times cited: 69).

Period 2015–2018

The last period (2015–2018) is characterized by the proliferation of themes, fundamentally in publications classified as peripheral and basic and as a consequence, by a lower density in the works related to the main driving theme, organizational commitment ( Figure 8 ). As in the previous period, there are motor themes that are right in the line that divides this quadrant with the basic themes or with the peripheral themes. At the border with the basic issues is a social-exchange , which is an evolution of normative-commitment , a theme inherited from the previous period, which retains virtually its range of density and centrality. With respect to its thematic network, it is interesting to highlight that, due to its evolution, it constitutes a line of research that seems to be consolidating, in addition to the normative commitment, toward issues related to the affective-organizational commitment and the importance of the perception of the organizational support, the role of the leader or the organizational trust, the professional commitment or the behavior of the citizenship. On the other hand, human-resource-management appears for the first time and does it as a work evolution,—in the previous period it was considered as a emerging topic — with topics about the management and retention of talent. With respect to the basic issues, consequences , turnover and breach appear, the first comes from the previous period as an evolution of job-insecurity , located among the peripheral issues. In the quadrant of the basic themes there are three clusters that appear for the first time and that have no link with themes in previous periods; personality , millennials and employability , have a considerable density and could become future driving themes that point to lines of research related to work attitudes, self-esteem, organizational commitment and the perspective of the psychological contract in the new generations, the exchange of knowledge or work opportunities. Finally, with respect to emerging issues ( Table 7 ), moderating-role appears for the first time, with publications analyzing the importance of organizational support in job insecurity and in performance or the role of cultural values in the psychological contract.

Figure 8. Strategic map 2015–2018. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Table 7. Cluster period 2015–2018.

In the thematic network of organizational-commitment as the main driving theme ( Figure 8 ), it maintains the most intense relationship with the psychological-contract , on the other hand, there is an important connection between both themes and job-satisfaction. Other subjects among which it is related with certain intensity are psychological-contract-breach, performance, work, citizenship-behavior, turnover-intention or meta-analysis —than also appears in this period.

The five publications with the most impact between 2015 and 2018 are; (i) Deery and Jago (2015) , Revisiting Talent Management, Work-life Balance And Retention Strategies , (times cited: 45); (ii) Ng (2015) , The Incremental Validity Of Organizational Commitment, Organizational Trust, And Organizational Identification , (times cited: 29); (iii) Choi et al. (2015) , Understanding Organizational Commitment: A Meta-analytic Examination Of The Roles Of The Five-factor Model Of Personality And Culture , (times cited: 27); (iv) Vander Elst et al. (2016) , Perceived Control And Psychological Contract Breach As Explanations Of The Relationships Between Job Insecurity, Job Strain And Coping Reactions: Towards A Theoretical Integration , (times cited: 24); (v) Solinger et al. (2016) , Bouncing Back From Psychological Contract Breach: How Commitment Recovers Over Time , (times cited: 23).

We start from the idea that this work does not intend to carry out a revision of the literature in a deep and systematic way. The methodology used leads us to make visible, in a longitudinal and relational way, how the topics related to psychological contract and organizational commitment have been developed throughout time, and to detect which topics have been leading the literature. This work provides a new perspective on the nexus of these two theoretical constructs related to organizational behavior and sheds light on the issues that have occupied more central positions and which have had a greater density, also providing information on the levels of quality of research (h-index), authors and journals that have been interested in the subject and what level of specialization they have had. This methodological approach also makes it possible to know the state of the subject, in terms of the degree of maturity or saturation, where the research is headed and what spaces have not yet been addressed.

With respect to the findings found in the sample analyzed, it is confirmed that there are key aspects within the axis of psychological contract and organizational commitment that the literature has studied extensively, such as normative commitment, social interchange, violation of the psychological contract, job satisfaction, justice, job insecurity, organizational citizen behavior, performance, or the intention to leave work ( Porter et al., 1998 ; Cassar, 2001 ; Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2002 ; Topa and Morales, 2005 ; Betanzos and Paz, 2007 ; Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). However, there are other themes that, although they may have sufficient entity in the research of either construct independently (psychological contract and organizational commitment), have not been developed from the perspective of the relationship between the two, lacking sufficient centrality and density to represent a cluster and, as a consequence, to position itself as a driving theme and set a trend. Therefore, it is considered that they have not yet been developed or are in an embryonic phase. Hence, we find research such as the analysis of psychological contracts with a strong ideological charge and their relationship with the public sector; the analysis of the organizational context in aspects such as the restructuring and reduction of organizations; how factors oriented to internal third parties (supervisors or colleagues) or external third parties (unions or clients) affect them; analysis of how intercultural differences or horizontal-individualist or vertical-collectivist cultures may affect the perception of the breach of psychological contract; or analysis of demographic variables such as employment status, professional category, age, or gender ( Rousseau, 1995 ; Turnley and Feldman, 1999 ; Costa et al., 2017 ; Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ).

The literature related to psychological contract and organizational commitment has been producing work independently, providing valuable knowledge in order to better address efficiency within the organizational context. The objective of this work was to know more about the literature of these concepts, that is, to give visibility to the lines of research that try to explain, from all possible perspectives and approaches, what effects the psychological contract has on organizational commitment and both on HR management in organizations.

From the results of this work, it can be inferred that there is indeed an important scientific production that relates the concepts of psychological contract and organizational commitment. This begins at the beginning of the nineties of the last century, in an insignificant way and it is not until 2005 when interest in this subject really takes hold. The most fruitful years in terms of the number of works were between 2006 and 2016, where 72% of the entire sample was concentrated. It should be noted that the publications analyzed belong mostly to journals of the first and second quartile of Social Science Citation Index ( SSCI ) and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) , which gives the subject a certain level of relevance, however, none of the journals represents more than 10% of published articles, which shows that there is no specialization of the subject by any of them. In terms of production by country, researchers from the United States of America with 58 documents and England with 24 represent more than 37% of the published works.

The results suggest that the basis of research on psychological contract and organizational commitment has been developed, and that, in recent years, issues have emerged that are beginning to consolidate as lines that focus on more current needs or sensitivities. However, there are research trends in psychological contract and organizational engagement that, although they are likely to begin to obtain results independently, in the field of study between the two constructs (see section “Discussion”), they are not relevant.

From the longitudinal perspective, between 1994 and 2004, psychological contract is positioned as a topic with greater density and centrality, however, from 2005, organizational commitment takes over with strength and distance progressively. At the same time, they have survived over time with different issues such as the sense of justice, the perception of obligations within the framework of the psychological contract and its violation, the normative commitment or the management of human resources. Job insecurity, sometimes as a peripheral issue and sometimes as a basic issue, has been part of the focus of the central theme. With some distance, it has also happened to the study of performance or behavior. In the last period, works oriented toward a more current social demand emerge, such as employability or the study of new generations (millennials and generation-Y) focused on organizational commitment, satisfaction or the retention of talent which, due to their density, are well developed and which could end up being driving themes in the future; however, the development of other themes, which are currently also especially sensitive, such as the management of diversity and gender equality, is missed.

It must be recognized that this work is not without its limitations. The 220 articles selected for this analysis come only from the Web of Science (WoS) database. This fact may unintentionally exclude important contributions that have been made in other sources, however, the results obtained indicate that the sample used has been sufficiently large. Neither have those studies published in non-academic journals or books been included in the analysis carried out, although they have been taken into account in the introduction and approach to the research.

Future Research

Future publications should be oriented toward the development of works that continue the investigation of topics that have emerged in recent years and that are related to current socio-economic change, such as new generations and the retention of talent, and among other topics. It would also be necessary to delve into certain topics that have not shown a significant presence and that we consider important as sensitive issues, such as the management of diversity or gender equality in relation to the psychological contract and organizational commitment, as well as the development of the psychological contract with a strong ideological charge and its relationship with the normative commitment, or the transversal analysis of how aspects such as certain demographic factors, interculturality or the organizational context affect and/or moderate both theoretical constructs.

Author Contributions

JH and CHR designed, performed, analyzed the research, wrote the manuscript, searched literature, analyzed, and verified the data of this article. Both authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We recognize the support of the University of Málaga, Spain.

• ^ The theme that preceded normative-commitment in the period 2004–2009 was turnover-intention, it was at the border between emerging or decadent themes (lower left quadrant) and peripheral themes (upper left quadrant).

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Keywords : psychological contract, organizational commitment, HR management, job insecurity, bibliometric, SciMAT

Citation: Herrera J and De Las Heras-Rosas C (2021) The Organizational Commitment in the Company and Its Relationship With the Psychological Contract. Front. Psychol. 11:609211. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.609211

Received: 22 September 2020; Accepted: 21 December 2020; Published: 14 January 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Herrera and De Las Heras-Rosas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Juan Herrera, [email protected] ; Carlos De Las Heras-Rosas, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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The relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors in the public and private sectors.

1. Introduction

2. theoretical background and hypotheses, 2.1. organizational citizenship behavior, 2.1.1. ocb: effects, 2.1.2. ocb: antecedents, 2.2. organizational commitment and ocb, 3.1. sample and procedures, 3.2. measurements, 5. discussion, 6. conclusions, 6.1. conclusion and theoretical implication, 6.2. practical implications, limitations and future research directions, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Grego-Planer, D. The Relationship between Organizational Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in the Public and Private Sectors. Sustainability 2019 , 11 , 6395. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11226395

Grego-Planer D. The Relationship between Organizational Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in the Public and Private Sectors. Sustainability . 2019; 11(22):6395. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11226395

Grego-Planer, Dorota. 2019. "The Relationship between Organizational Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in the Public and Private Sectors" Sustainability 11, no. 22: 6395. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11226395

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Employer of choice (EOC) is a relatively new phenomenon, particularly in Human Resources Management. Existing employees and prospective talent have reasons and expectations to designate an employer as an EOC. While EOC has received extensive attention from both academics and practitioners over the past few years, the work has mostly focused on managerial and marketing perspectives, and thus far lacks a strong theoretical foundation. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory (SET), based on Human Resources and employees’ perceptions and experiences, this research aims to explore and investigate the factors that constitute/designate an employer as an Employer of Choice EOC. Two qualitative triangulated data sets were collected from existing full-time employees at a Saudi multinational corporation: open interviews and document analysis (cross-sectional and longitudinal). Thematic analysis (TA) was employed to analyze both methods. The findings reveal that company image, training, and development, satisfaction, involvement and commitment, fairness, work culture, reward, opportunities for growth, teamwork, motivation, and corporate social responsibility are the factors that lead employees to designate an employer as an EOC. This research contributes to knowledge conceptually, theoretically, and empirically, mainly in the area of Human Resources Management. This research represents one of the first studies to empirically identify and investigate employee-related factors and evaluate them all together in a multinational Saudi organization. Recognizing the findings of this empirical-based research assists HR managers in designating their organizations as an EOC for current employees and prospective talents.

Peer Review reports

Introduction and research background

One of the top priority goals that strategic HR focusing is to make their organizations designated as Employer of Choice (EOC) to attract and retain talents. In the past few years, companies around the globe have experienced some competition in attracting talented employees [ 58 ]. Companies, therefore, utilise their resources to become an employer of choice [ 47 ]. The war for talent has become one of the top issues for strategic human resources [ 67 ]. One strategy that is likely to become a winner in this talent competition is inducing employees to designate an employer as an Employer of Choice (EOC) [ 50 , 59 ].

The very existence of the concept of an EOC suggests that employees deliberately choose to work for an EOC instead of for other companies [ 20 ]. However, as a concept, Employer of Choice (EOC) is still a relatively new phenomenon, particularly in Human Resources. Based on an analysis of the literature, there are other similar concepts, such as employer branding. Ambler and Barrow [ 1 ], who coined the term “employer brand”, conceptualized it “as the package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment, and identified with the employing company” (p. xvi). Backhaus and Tikoo [ 4 ] defined employer branding as “a targeted, long-term strategy to manage awareness and perceptions of employees, potential employees, and related stakeholders with regards to a particular organization” (p. 2). Employer branding has further been conceptualized as “a targeted, long-term strategy to manage the awareness and perceptions of employees, potential employees, and related stakeholders with regards to the particular firm” (Sullivan, 2004: 1). In addition, employer branding has been conceptualized as “as building an image of an organization to distinct and desirable employers” ([ 24 ], 48). Nevertheless, like many others, these conceptions in the stream of research on the employer of choice have focused on organizational and managerial perspectives to achieve organizations’ strategic goals. Most importantly, the research has clearly neglected employees’ issues. The present research defines Employer of Choice as the needs and expectations that attract employees to designate an employer as an Employer of Choice.

From the employees’ perspective, it can be considered that an EOC is a place where they are interested in or enthusiastic about working while existing employees are interested in continuing in that workplace and are content with the facilities available. According to Armstrong [ 2 ], employer branding creates EOCs for individuals and instills in them the desire to continue with a given employer. In a different dimension, an employer of choice is summed up by the popular phrase “a great place to work”.

From organizations’ perspectives, there is increasing competitiveness in the job market and the race for talent has generated a requirement on the side of the employers to prove themselves worthy by engaging in different strategies to retain and attract potentially talented people. It has become necessary for employers to attract and retain competent and enthusiastic employees so that all stakeholders are satisfied and the organization is capable of contributing towards business success. Numerous mechanisms are adopted by employers to transform themselves into Employers of Choice (EOC). Nevertheless, even if a firm makes a great effort, no guarantee existing and future employees will consider that company to be their employer of choice. However, a small portion of job seekers consider the status or brand of the employer while deciding to choose or associate with an employer [ 26 ].

There are various attributes regarding EOCs where employees play a critical role in designating an employer as an EOC. Some of these include competitive pay and benefits, the provision of a reasonable degree of security, quality of work life, enhanced future employability, commitment, employer image, supportive leadership, participation of employees, psychological benefits, opportunities for growth, and learning and recognition [ 2 , 27 , 28 , 31 , 32 , 46 ] [ 52 , 70 ]. An EOC provides an incredible work atmosphere, culture, climate, and workplace environment to attract and retain a highly competent workforce. The characteristics of an EOC may aid both the workforce and customers in terms of holistic well-being. Large numbers of progressive organizations have set themselves the goal of becoming an EOC, where people are willing to work at any cost, not only for financial benefits but also for psychological and functional benefits. Thus, the assessment of an employer as an EOC involves working with an exceptional employer who recognizes the achievements of employees in the workplace. Noe [ 33 ] proposed that an employer can be successful through a rigorous evaluation process of determining the leadership qualities, best practices, and culture that would be assets to attract and manage the most talented employees in achieving their goals.

Theoretically, due to a lack or absence of a strong theoretical foundation in EOC research, mainly social theory, this research adopts Social Exchange Theory (SET) for several reasons. First, SET is one of the most influential theories in business and HR mainly found useful in explaining the relationship between employees and employers which is based on reciprocity conveying benefited resources [ 15 , 16 , 38 ]. The approach has the distinct advantage of recognizing employees’ interpersonal and social issues. Second, SET is relational to the context and aim of the present research. Third, this current research is a qualitative study driven by social theory that has been adapted in advance of the data collection. The role of theory is fundamental as a vehicle in the present research. However, qualitative scholars often use theory as something that emerges from the data collection and analysis [ 12 ]. Fourth, the theoretical lens of SET assists in serving the main aim of this research by offering a clearer explanation and better understanding to identify and investigate this new phenomenon, EOC, and factors that designate their EOC. SET sees the factors that contribute to EOC as resources. In general, the relationship between reciprocity and resources in SET is interdependent. Employers need to provide employees with resources that will oblige them to reciprocate in kind with engagement [ 38 ]. In other words, there is no reciprocity without resources. Ultimately, reciprocity within EOC contains and conveys resources. Employees will choose to produce in response to the resources they receive from their employer of choice [ 38 ]. According to Cropanzano and Mitchell [ 15 ], once employees receive socioemotional and economic resources from their employer, they, in return, feel obliged to respond in kind and repay the employer. Therefore, the resources/factors of SET assist in investigating the types of resources that employees expect to receive from employers.

Methodologically speaking, most existing business and HRM studies about EOC in relation to marketing only use wither single quantitative method which indicates there is a qualitative methodological gap, particularly triangulation methods in HR studies. Within the context of the current research, a qualitative approach is not only appropriate but also needed. The two qualitative methods help to uncover unknown antecedents that contribute to designating the employer as an Employer of Choice in a new and undiscovered context, Saudi Arabia organization. Based on the evaluation of relevant empirical studies, the researcher realizes that the approach drawn from the research questions and the overall strategy of the research required a need for qualitative triangulation research methods, compared to a quantitative method. The advantage of qualitative research is that it allows the researcher to gain a greater perspective into the insights of the participant because it provides the opportunity for the power of words to prevail. An example is a semi-structured interview. Instead of tick boxes and Likert scales (quantitative research), qualitative research asks for self-expression and an interpretation of how the subject feels and understands. A qualitative approach seeks answers to questions that stress what and how social experience is created and given meaning. In contrast, quantitative studies emphasize the measurement and analysis of causal relationships between variables, not processes.

The two triangulated qualitative methods that will be used in the present study are semi-structured interviews and a document analysis approach (combined longitudinal and cross-sectional designs). The two qualitative methods are ‘equally and parallel’ which can be viewed as exact equivalents to serve the purpose of the study by addressing the research question. Most importantly, these two triangulated methods will help improve objectivity on the limitations of qualitative methodology is low objectivity. Moreover, the two qualitative sources offer rich data to answer the research questions sufficiently. In addition, using triangulation methods will minimize the common method bias.

The two approaches tend to be available for data collection in research studies: longitudinal and cross-sectional research—this research uses both. The present research, through having data from the document that provides reactions accumulative of employees’ experiences about EOC covered 2 years long, typically fits the description of longitudinal research. For example, the document analysis covers 2 years and the semi-structured interview covers 3 months. For the present research, both cross-sectional and longitudinal provide rich accounts of the employees’ accumulative experience.

Contextually, the demands and needs for EOC differ from country to country due to business, social, and cultural differences. Based on the analysis of the relevant literature about EOC in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, it found limited empirical-based evidence studies.

Contextually, based on a review of the literature, it appears there is a lack of empirical knowledge concerning the factors that contribute to EOC designation, especially with regard to employees’ perspectives in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia. This present research seeks to address this contextual knowledge gap. This study aims to identify and investigate relevant employee-related factors. The study assumes significance since no such attempt has yet been made concerning EOCs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The objective of the study is thus to identify the factors of an employer that contribute towards making it an EOC based on Social Exchange Theory (SET).

Social exchange theory (SET) and Employer of Choice (EOC)

Some EOC studies have adopted psychological contract theory and signalling theory (e.g., [ 37 ]). Even though Saini and Jawahar’s [ 37 ] study focused heavily on the managerial and psychological aspects, these theories did not consider social and employee perspectives.

This research adopts Social Exchange Theory (SET) as a theoretical lens mainly because it magnifies the importance of reciprocity, or two-way processes [ 15 , 16 , 38 ]. There are several reasons for the value of the social theoretical foundation in the present research. First, SET is one of the most significant conceptual approaches in human resources management and organisational behavior and is based on reciprocity between employees and employers in the workplace [ 15 , 16 , 38 ]. Second, SET is also useful in explaining the core conceptualization of the present research—the notion of the employer of choice. In theory, SET recognizes employees as a party that is reciprocally interdependent with employers. The SET mainly determines the relationship between parties involved, i.e., employer and employee, who always maintain a reciprocal interconnected affiliation. Third, and most importantly, SET’s resources are considered as factors that employees need or expect in order to reciprocate and designate an employer as an Employer of Choice. Fourth, Blau [ 6 ] suggests that social exchanges are voluntary actions that, in the context of the present research, align with the word “choice”. For example, in the context of the present study, if the employer provides resources to employees, in return, employees are expected to reciprocate that by choosing the employer.

Unlike psychological contract theory and signaling theory [ 37 ], SET is a social science theory that considers non-psychological or economic resources in social relationships based on voluntary interactions, not economic transactions. This viewpoint is aligned with other social exchange theorists who suggest, in comparison to economic exchange, that relationships depend on willful actions in contrast to formal actions [ 3 , 6 ]. Relationships based upon social exchange generally have more intangible resources and focus more on resources related to socio-emotional factors, e.g., cognizance, appreciation, or praise [ 36 ]. These intangible resources of SET offer a clearer explanation of how employees view their relationships with employers in the workplace, based on reciprocation and more than mere economic resources.

The present research is driven by SET to explore and identify employee-related factors/resources that designate an employer as an EOC. The role of theory is fundamental as a vehicle in the present research. However, qualitative scholars often use theory as it allows factors to emerge from the data analysis [ 12 ]. Conversely, Silverman [ 43 ] argued that most contemporary qualitative scholars have become increasingly interested in testing and exploring theories. Undoubtedly, there is no reason to prevent the use of qualitative triangulation research in the testing of theories that have been specified in advance of collecting the data [ 12 ]. Further, SET is an ideal theory that could assist in meeting the main aim of the present research of identifying and investigating the factors that make employees choose their employer. SET stipulates that the relationship between reciprocity and resources is interdependent. Employers need to provide employees with resources that will oblige them to reciprocate in kind with engagement [ 38 ]. In other words, there is no reciprocity without resources. Ultimately, reciprocity contains and conveys resources. Therefore, a certain amount of various resources is essential for the existence of an EOC. Employees will choose to engage themselves in response to the resources they receive from their employer [ 38 ]. According to Cropanzano and Mitchell [ 15 ], once employees receive resources associated with their socio-emotional and economic needs from their employer, they, in return, feel indebted and reciprocate with the employer in multiple ways. Therefore, the resources/factors identified in SET assist in investigating the types of resources that employees expect to receive from employers. The ongoing empirical examinations in organizational behavior and development were also taken into consideration to ascertain a fair idea of the concept of EOC and its related factors.

Relevant EOC empirical work

EOC can be best understood through employer branding, supportive leadership, fairness in recruitment processes, opportunities for growth and development, and retaining and attracting talented employees. Chhabra and Mishra [ 13 ] asserted that employer branding reflects the employer’s image and employer-of-choice status, and suggested that the best methods, tools, and techniques must be applied by the employer to motivate, influence, retain, and engage employees. Vinoth and Vasantha [ 46 ] conducted a study using a sample of 364 final-year students to examine the utility of employer branding in choosing an employer. They found that psychological benefits offered by a company are more important than other benefits such as financial or economic and functional benefits when choosing the right employer. Jobseekers are likely to be attracted to those firms that exhibit unlimited employer image value in contrast to those who show a low degree of employer value related to the image. However, other factors have not yet been identified, particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), an issue that the present study seeks to address.

Saini and Jawahar [ 37 ] studied the influence of employment experience and employer rankings on employee recommendation as an EOC. They also probed whether these variables have an impact on employee characteristics. The study was conducted on 39,010 employees, which took 3-year employer rankings (2015–2017) and revealed that employee recommendations are influenced by employees’ experience in the workplace. Further, they (ibid.) observed that employee characteristics such as full-time vs. part-time, tenure, employment status, and employment experience also influenced employee recommendations pertaining to the company as an employer of choice. However, unlike the present research, Saini and Jawahar [ 37 ] focused mostly on managerial perspectives.

In addition, Mau [ 27 ] conducted a recent study focusing on determining the notion of branding the public sector as EOC to recruit and retain the leadership ability of people in the service. This study was undertaken to address a challenge encountered by the government in the recruitment of candidates with optimal capabilities for public services. The Canadian Federal Government undertook an initiative in 2007 to brand their public service. The findings suggested that it was very challenging to provide an exact concept of branding for the public sector, where a diversified workforce was employed [ 27 ]. Although branding was found to be one of the most popular concepts in the public sector as an EOC, it was found that these concepts had flipsides that required immediate attention. Though the Canadian Federal Government took great pains to develop the concept of branding in the public service, they failed to lead federal public services to be considered as an EOC.

Recently, Tanwar and Kumar [ 45 ] conducted a study of college students to ascertain the association between brand dimensions of employers and EOC status. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used in the study. Tanwar and Kumar [ 45 ] found that person-organisation fit was perceived as a mediator for EOC and that the dimension related to employer brand required a link with person-organisation fit. It was also determined that social media plays a key moderating role in facilitating EOC. Unlike Tanwar and Kumar’s [ 45 ] research, the present study adopts qualitative and longitudinal methods that offer in-depth understanding in different ways based on employees’ experiences. Most importantly, unlike the present research, the pieces of research discussed appear are not based on theoretical foundations, which means they can be considered more as practical research rather than scholarly/academic work.

Based on the critical evaluation of the relevant literature, most works have been focused on managerial and organisational perspectives and have neglected employees’ perspectives. This research, grounded in employees’ experiences, addresses this significant gap in the literature. Unlike other managerial and organizational studies, this research, through the theoretical lens of Social Exchange Theory, identifies and explores employee-related factors that attract employees and encourage them to designate an employer as an Employer of Choice. Based on these points, the following exploratory research question was developed.

What factors attract employees to reciprocate their designation of an employer as an Employer of Choice (EOC)?

Qualitative triangulation methodology

The primary notion of qualitative research is to develop an understanding of a point rather than to verify it. Due to this, the outcomes of a qualitative investigation can be considered to be novel, reliable, genuine, and trustworthy, in contrast to quantitative research [ 19 , 25 ]. However, in qualitative methodology, subjectivity is a matter of concern [ 11 ].

With quantitative research, the findings have a higher validity as a result of the high degree of representation [ 51 ]—a concern for qualitative research. However, this research uses two triangulation methods, which provide rich data and a consequent increase in validity. For example, in the present study, document analysis, along with the open interviews, are utilized equally to shore up validity.

There is a qualitative methodological gap in the relevant literature about Employer of Choice (EOC). Reflecting on the research question above that emerged from these knowledge gaps, the answers to the research question could be obtained through both qualitative and/or quantitative methods. However, as mentioned in the review section, from the analysis of the relevant studies (e.g. [ 37 ]), it appears that a quantitative approach is favored. Therefore, this research addresses this methodological gap by using a qualitative approach. Within the context of the current research, a qualitative approach is not only appropriate but also needed.

To approach the research question, a mixed triangulation of the qualitative approach to uncover unknown factors that encourage employees to designate an employer as an Employer of Choice (EOC). The two triangulated qualitative methods used in the present study are open interviews and document analyses. The two qualitative methods are applied “equally and in parallel” and can be viewed as exact equivalents to serve the purpose of the study by addressing the research questions. To the researcher’s knowledge, this is the first study of EOC that adopts qualitative triangulation methods—in particular interviews and documentary analysis. The obtained document method is a complete set that draws upon first-hand employee comments spanning a 4-year period which is extracted from the internal organizations’ HR Blog system. The total number of comments is 104.

The second method is open interviews conducted with 22 employees. Triangulation methods assist in capturing different dimensions of the same phenomenon. For example, interviews and document analysis support the interrogation of the data to identify and/or explain factors, problems, or causes that affect employees’ decisions to choose an employer. Thus, the need to use triangulation of multiple data sources is crucial not only because it offers richer data, but also because it allows digging in-depth to obtain fine-grained results that capture what is happening in reality.

In general, triangulation is used as a means of cross-examining results from one form of data collection with those of another. For example, the document analyzed in this research contains 104 employee comments over 4 years, and interviews covering 3 months. For this research, the data triangulation helps create greater confidence in the overall results [ 53 ]. The two triangulated qualitative methods decrease researcher bias [ 56 ]. Multiple qualitative methods are employed in the collecting of data as a means of minimizing bias and limitations inherent in each method ([ 56 ]. For example, unlike with open interviews, the document analysis method used in the current research contains 104 comments written first-hand by employees with no involvement from the researcher, which decreases bias.

Two broad approaches are available for data collection in research studies: longitudinal and cross-sectional research. This research draws on both approaches. Because the data from the document provides cumulative employee reactions and employee perceptions over 4 years, this study most typically fits the description of longitudinal research.

The obtained document from the employer was as a complete set which was extracted from the internal HR Blog platform of a large multinational energy corporation. The obtained document contained interactions and discussions between employees about the Employer of Choice subject. This document contains first-hand, unadulterated comments made by employees on the platform. All documents were extracted from the HR Blog as it is without modifications or editing, as the organization stated. These texts, taken from the platform, are directly and purposively relevant to the aim of the present research.

In general, researchers need to analyze the significance of documents about study problems and aims [ 7 ]. The sampling characteristic for this research is a purposive sampling technique which is widespread in qualitative research. As this research aims to identify and investigate the factors that constitute/designate an employer as an Employer of Choice (EOC), purposive sampling was used for this study to only focus on full-time employees. For example, in interviews, the purposive sampling technique was used to focus on full-time employees. For the second method, document analysis, the received document contains employees' computerized first hand-typed written where employees responded to a question about “What designated employer of choice?” This topic document was rich and detailed information about employees’ cumulative experiences over 4 years.

For interviews, respondents were enrolled via an email sent by HR inviting them to participate. The email was purposefully sent to all employees working full-time in the organization to increase the chance of diversification of participants’ demographic characteristics. The email contains a brief invitation paragraph and several attachments, namely: a plain language statement (including the author’s contact details), and the interview guide. The researcher was copied in the email and at the end of the email, the HR asked prospective participants to contact the author directly for any questions about the research and, most importantly, to arrange the interview time and location, if they have an interest. The reason behind sending these information sheets all together in advance is to give employees time to read and understand and provide them with a clear idea about the project and interview, as well as give them time to read and decide if they would like to participate. In addition, the researcher also provided each participant with a hard copy of these sheets to explain it to them before starting the interviews.

The organization which the data was collected from is a large multinational energy Saudi corporation located in Saudi Arabia. The participants are full-time employees and the demographic characteristics are high (please see Table  1 ).

Three reasons for settling on only 22 interviews. First, from interview number fifteen and onwards, most of the interviewees’ answers started becoming repetitive. Second, the confirmation and validation between the two methods reached a satisfactory level. For example, as interviews and documents were used equally weighted and parallel, some factors that emerged from the preliminary analysis of the document required further questioning, clarification, or confirmation from interviewees during interviews (and vice versa). Third, the diversity of demographic characteristics of participants was high in genders, types of jobs (technical and administrative), years of experience, nationalities, levels of education background, and position levels (please see Table  1 ).

For the present research, thematic analysis was undertaken for both methods because it offers some flexibility when analyzing qualitative data. Thematic analysis should be seen as a foundational method for qualitative analysis [ 10 ]. Qualitative thematic analysis is a commonly used approach to analyze textual material obtained from a range of sources, including interviews and documents. As defined by Braun and Clarke [ 10 ] “ thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data” (p.6) . However, for thematic analysis, there is no fixed universal method. While key themes/factors have already been identified as concepts from the analysis of literature, other themes are allowed to emerge and they are coded based on the theoretical lens of SET.

For the present research, the process of analyzing the qualitative data involved: preparation of data; familiarisation with data; generating initial codes; collating similar codes into pre-existing or emerging themes; re-reading and reviewing themes that related to the research questions; and refining themes. This process was done through creative engagement with the data and following intuition [ 10 ].

For the present research, the coding process was carried out manually. Unlike other electronic software, Wicks [ 71 ] suggests that manual coding provides the researcher with an opportunity to reflect on the analysis as they immerse themselves in the data. However, one of the disadvantages of using manual coding, in particular with large data sets, is that it is less efficient or manageable [ 40 ]. As a result, this may lead to missing important aspects of the data. However, for the present research, the author has spent a large amount of effort and time to organize, read, and understand the data ensuring there are no missing key information or relevant factors.

Manually, the analysis of interviews’ transcriptions and documents was completed through the use of thematic analysis by starting with coding key factors that were identified based on the frequencies (presented in the conceptual model). Through the identified themes, the data will be allowed to capture an explanation of possible reality through evidence, which ultimately helps address the research questions sufficiently, as suggested by Braun and Clarke [ 10 ]. In the second stage of coding, there were new factors started to emerge based on the data analysis of pre-determined factors. These new emergent factors were coded based on the frequency and relevance of patterns. Through the coding process of thematic analysis, the entire data set is used to explore meaningful, frequent, and relevant patterns that emerge [ 54 ].

The use of two different sources of qualitative data has significantly reduced any potential risks of common method variance (CMV) [ 8 ]. This present research uses two mixed qualitative methods. Two procedural actions were taken to reduce CMV. First, the data were collected from interviews and documents at two different and separate times. Second, during the coding and thematic analysis stage, some of the key factors emerged from the interviews’ transcriptions and others were allowed to emerge from document analysis, but further confirmation and validation were conducted with other sources/methods to avoid any risks of common method variance. Therefore, the results of the investigated factors revealed that the issue of common method variance was not a major issue in this study.

The use of two mixed methods has assisted in overcoming any risks of bias, e.g., social desirability bias (SDB). First, all participants' personal information in the HR Blog where the documents were extracted from was completely anonymous which reduced social desirability bias (SDB). Second, the document analysis method used in the current research contains 104 comments written first-hand by employees with no involvement by the researcher, which consequently, decreases the bias. Third, for the interviews, in the plain language sheet, I mentioned that all of their responses would be confidential their participation is voluntary and they could leave at any time during the interview. Therefore, the use of two mixed methods has not only helped to decrease SDB and increase the genuineness of responses but also significantly increased the results’ confirmation and validation.

Most importantly, as the present research is theory-driven, the SET lens played a fundamental role in the analysis of the data. The coding techniques of thematic analysis necessarily depend on whether or not the themes are “theory-driven” (Braun and Clarke 2006). In the present research, themes have been analyzed, identified and interpreted, and driven or guided by “resources”, as provided in SET.

Findings and discussion

The purpose of this discussion section is to theoretically and empirically analyze, interpret, and establish the significance of the findings in the relevant literature, in particular about the research problem being investigated.

The overall theoretical analysis and interpretation of the present study’s results confirm that designating an employer as an Employer of Choice is based on reciprocity between employee and employer in exchanging resources. This is in line with the SET [ 15 , 38 ] which postulates that employees are involved in a social exchange relationship when they act in favor of another party, with the expectation that this favor is reciprocated in the future. Saks [ 38 ] suggested that employees are more willing to reciprocate or exchange their engagement for resources provided by their employer. Moreover, this is consistent with other studies that have suggested that EOC factors in organizations’ context in the workplace depend on reciprocal interactions [ 9 , 20 , 35 ].

Based on the thematic analysis of findings in this study, several factors were identified as significantly affecting employees’ designation of an employer as an employer of choice. The results that emerged from the analysis are summarised in Table  2 below.

Each of the above factors (present in the table), as identified by the respondents is now discussed in detail.

Company image

It is evident from the table that company image and reputation were of great importance and were ranked first. The vast majority of employees believe that the company image is a fundamental factor for EOC. It can be considered an extremely important factor that could lead to an organization being designated an EOC. Company image can be understood in terms of employees’ desire to continue in the company for a longer period of time or as long as they can. This result substantiates earlier findings mentioned in the literature review (e.g., [ 4 , 18 , 21 , 45 ]).

In contrast to a positive image, a negative image might also lead to negative perceptions of the company’s image [ 21 , 44 ]. However, Lievens and Slaughter [ 24 ] reviewed various articles and pointed out both the positive and negative aspects of company image and emphasized that a positive image of a company influences behavior towards productivity. Applying SET, it can be inferred that employees are attracted to an employer not merely for economic benefits but also for a host of non-economic benefits. Therefore, based on the analysis, company image is a socioemotional factor that was found to contribute strongly towards EOC in this study.

The results about the significance of company image and reputation to designate EOC is broadly consistent with many studies (e.g., [ 55 , 60 , 64 ]. Vast majority of participants believe that the employer’s image and reputation in public through the quality of the products’ brand and services influence the public and, consequently, make employees feel proud of their employer.

Opportunities for training and development

The analysis of the results shows training and development is one of the most important factors that they need and ultimately influence their decision to designate EOC. Employees interested in acquiring new skills through training. In return, employers need to consider this to become EOC. In light of the relevant literature, this result is also in agreement few studies (e.g., [ 61 , 65 ]. However, these studies did not fully focus on EOC as a concept but focused on organizational performance. For example, Salah [ 39 ] suggests that training and development have an impact that leads to an increase in productivity, quality, and performance. These findings were also supported by Karim et al. [ 63 ]. Theoretically, Cropanzano et al. [ 16 ] and Cropanzano and Mitchell [ 15 ] suggest that the employer–employee relationship can be established through reciprocities. Unlike other studies, this study has thus identified an opportunity for drawing on training and development as a significant factor that is capable of contributing toward perceptions of an EOC.

Company’s ability to attract and retain employees

Being able to attract talents in the market and most importantly retain them is found one of the most critical factors for employees to designate any employer as an EOC. More specific to the context of the organization as an employer, organizational attractiveness refers to the extent to which potential employees view an organization as a desirable and positive place to work [ 57 , 69 ].

From the table, it can be observed that attracting and retaining talent is one of the vital components of EOC. This indicates that one of the important employer functions is to attract and retain fresh talent with appropriate competencies to achieve organizational success. Participants believe that the talents that the organization attracts will positively influence them. This factor supports other studies that have been highlighted by many researchers [ 24 , 48 , 52 , 68 ].

Satisfaction, involvement, and commitment

One of the key factors found influencing the designation of EOC is employees’ satisfaction, involvement in decision-making, and organizational commitment. Employees believe that these can be achieved via satisfactory compensation and benefits, other amenities, paid holidays, participation in decision-making and job security are factors that could facilitate perception as an EOC. One of the key attributes of SET is that relationships progress over some time with the help of mutual commitment and satisfaction [ 6 , 15 , 17 , 22 , 29 , 38 ]. The findings from this study in this respect align with several earlier studies which suggest that job satisfaction, commitment, and involvement play a key role in making employees feel loyal to the employer [ 4 , 57 ].

The other significant factor was found to be of importance to employees in developing a positive attitude towards an EOC. Employees perceive that fairness exists in organizations if there are vertical promotions, proper resource allocations, equity, equal treatment, and justice. The current findings from this study are in alignment with previous research by Baldwin [ 5 ] and Polayni and Tompa [ 66 ]. Molm [ 30 ] suggests that fairness is one of the attributes that helps in establishing a good rapport between the employer and employees. Fairness is also found to mitigate conflicts and would be helpful in an employer becoming an EOC. This finding also has its moorings in SET. Treating employees fairly in the workplace mainly in promotion and incentives significantly affects employees’ decision to designate any employer as an EOC.

Work culture and environment

Considerable evidence exists to support the claim that HR practice and supportive behaviors in the company could create a positive work culture and an outstanding work environment in which employees are interested in working with and continuing to work with the employer. According to SET, employee engagement depends on the nature of the environment and culture provided by the employer to their employees [ 38 ]. This is also in line with the findings of Allam [ 49 ], according to whom HRM practices help in establishing good working atmospheres or an appropriate culture so that employees consider continuing with the employer.

The analysis of the findings suggests that organizational culture plays a significant role in making an employer an EOC. Outside of EOC’s context, this result is broadly in agreement with several studies (e.g., [ 62 ]). It seems that organizational culture is not a minor issue for employees. The analysis and interpretation of the data confirm that the organization's culture becomes a pivotal factor for employees to designate any employer as an EOC.

Employers provide appropriate rewards to their employees in return for their commendable performance, which encourages employees to perform further. Rewards refers to offering incentives to employees. Looking at it from the perspective of the SET, as recognized in the literature and the conceptual model, rewards are socioemotional and economic resources that employees may expect to receive from employers. This reciprocity and pattern of exchange is also highlighted in SET [ 6 , 13 , 23 , 41 ]. The findings about rewards are supported by the work of Kucherov and Zavyalova [ 65 ] and Clark and Oswald [ 14 ], who explained that rewards lead to better performances, which could, in turn, lead to the organization being considered an EOC. However, unlike Kucherov and Zavyalova [ 65 ] and other managerialists who associate rewards with job performance, the present research focuses on this as a repayment resource for employees to designate an employer as EOC.

Opportunities for growth, teamwork, and motivation

Career development and growth are found one of the factors that heavily influence the designation of EOC for employees. In the documents, employees pointed out that, at their present company, career prospects are good, employees are part of the growing company worldwide, there is good team conduct, and employees feel motivated when their performance is valued. SET stipulates that decisions made by individuals would be based on expectation of certain outcomes. The factors generated in this study are in alignment with this aspect of SET and alignment with the findings of Cropanzano and Mitchell [ 15 ].

Concern for society

It was found that employees valued their organization’s concern for society. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives aimed at uplifting society have been considered part of leading an employer to be evaluated as an EOC. The interpretation of this finding shows that not just society is affected by CSR, but also employees. It was surprising that employees take the CSR factor to designate an employer's EOC. This found to be significant This finding is consistent with several studies (e.g., [ 34 ]). According to Norbit et al. [ 34 ], employees tend to have a positive attitude towards the companies that are involved in CSR as it enhances the reputation of the organization among stakeholders. Theoretically speaking, CSR is seen as one of the resources that employees expect from employers to make, in return, an employer as EOC.

Based on analysis and interpretations of the findings, through the theoretical lens of Social Exchange Theory, the below figure (Fig.  1 ) proposes a complex theoretical/conceptual model about the antecedents/factors that encourage employees to designate an employer as an EOC.

Conceptual model (created by the author)

Research contributions and limitations

The analysis of findings from the document analysis and interviews has revealed several factors relating to and a deeper understanding of EOC. These findings contribute to theoretical knowledge, particularly SET, and empirical knowledge, specifically with respect to Saudi Arabia. Company image, opportunity for training and development, attracting and retaining, satisfaction, involvement and commitment, fairness, work culture and environment, reward, opportunities for growth, teamwork and motivation, and concern for society emerged as the most important components of EOC in this study. Many of the researchers who have studied SET have observed that the employee–employer relationship depends on exchange, reciprocity, and a relationship that satisfies both parties. It can be considered that an EOC is also dependent on relationships and reciprocity. In the event of this association having longevity, it would be beneficial to both parties and employees would then consider the organization as an EOC.

Many employers implement practices to attract and retain talented employees. EOC involves the inculcation of holistic satisfaction, having a conducive to encouraging work culture and environment, and the overall well-being of employees. Though the majority of employees in this study held a favorable opinion about EOCs, a few lamented the lack of well-being, motivation, promotion criteria, and rigid HR practices. They considered these factors to force employees to change jobs. Management needs to consider such “flipsides” of the organization to retain talent. Researchers argue that reciprocities lead to minimization of employee turnover, maximization of commitment, satisfaction, overcoming of role stress, and creating a pleasing image of the employer in the market [ 28 , 42 ].

The present study is not devoid of limitations. The first limitation of the present research relates to the external factors that might affect employees’ designation of an employer as EOC, such as cultural issues. Hence, it might be argued that the results may be unique to the Saudi context, or may not be applicable to other cultures and countries. Cultural issues can be linked to organizational culture or outside culture, depending on the country and background. For example, future studies may consider investigating the impact of employees’ cultural backgrounds on EOC. There is much room for further progress in determining how cultural factors affect EOC. As a result, further work is required to uncover new knowledge in this area.

The second limitation related to the use of a purposive sampling method to gather the information from the participants, which may influence the generalisability of the findings. However, there are multiple avenues for future research. Standardized tools and mechanisms of data analysis with different variables can be used in future research to acquire further knowledge that will spark new information assimilation about the concept of EOC in more than one organization or Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The third limitation of the present research is that the empirical result cannot be generalized because it used a single case study based on one single organization. However, the theoretical results of SET can be generalized mainly because it recognises employees who are in reciprocal interdependent relations with the employer. The results can be different from organization to organization depending on several factors, such as the type of the industry, and the size of the company.

Availability of data

Data are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Mohiya, M. What constitutes an employer of choice? A qualitative triangulation investigation. Hum Resour Health 22 , 41 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-024-00928-7

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The Effect of Organizational Communication Climate and Work Meaningfulness Towards the Organizational Commitment of The UNY Education Personnel

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This research aims to analyze the influence of organizational communication climate and work meaningfulness on organizational commitment among educational staff at Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta. The hypotheses proposed in this study are that organizational communication climate and work meaningfulness have a partial and simultaneous effect on organizational commitment. The method used in this research is quantitative explanation, invol ving 366 members of the civil servant population. The data analysis method used in this study is regression analysis. The findings of this research indicate that organizational communication climate and work meaningfulness have a partial and simultaneous i nfluence on organizational commitment. This research contributes to the study of organizational commitment among civil servants, which is influenced by organizational communication climate and work meaningfulness.

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How “Carewashing” Alienates Employees

• Maren Gube,
• Cynthia Mathieu,
• Debra Sabatini Hennelly

The perils of superficial wellness benefits.

Too many organizations with unsustainable “work hard, play hard” cultures believe that checking the well-being box by offering mindfulness training or yoga classes qualifies them as having a positive and safe culture when, in fact, they’re merely “carewashing.” Like the more familiar term greenwashing, carewashing is derived from whitewashing: covering up or putting a misleading spin on a failure to meet some commitment, stated claim, or standard. At a time when employee well-being has been unequivocally tied to organizational performance and yet workers are historically unhappy, leaders should do everything in their power to provide healthy, motivating workplaces. The authors present four strategies to safeguard against carewashing.

Post-pandemic, employees have experienced record-high stress and burnout and are increasingly attracted to organizations with cultures that support well-being at work. A 2024 Gallup survey indicates that the percentage of employees who strongly agree that their organization cares about their overall well-being has plunged from 49% in 2020 to 21% in 2024, while a previous survey found that improving well-being and culture rated much higher than increasing compensation among the things  “quiet quitters” would like to change about their work.

• Maren Gube is an international speaker whose scientific research on creativity and award-winning insights into why women leave STEM fields have made her a dedicated advocate for workplace cultures that invite all team members to belong, learn, and innovate. She is coauthor of the Harvard Business Review articles “ 4 Ways to Spark Creativity When You’re Feeling Stressed ” and “ Resilient Organizations Make Psychological Safety a Strategic Priority .” As the executive director of  Resiliti , Maren is committed to cultivating organizational resilience and emotionally healthy workplaces, combining evidence-based insights with actionable strategies. You can read more about her  here . 
• CM Cynthia Mathieu is an industrial-organizational psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at the University of Québec in Trois-Rivières (Canada). She studies and has published research on psychopathy and other dark personalities in the workplace; leadership; toxic workplace culture; and employee well-being. She consults with organizations and teaches on corporate psychopathy, employee selection, mental health in the workplace, organizational fraud, leadership, and work culture. She has been invited to speak for organizations such as the Conference Board of Canada, the Canadian federal government, the Retail Council of Canada, and Facebook. She is the author of the book Dark Personalities in the Workplace , and she regularly posts on LinkedIn, where she has received mentions: Top Community Voice on Leadership, Team Management, and Recruitment.
• Debra Sabatini Hennelly is the founder and president of Resiliti . She advises leaders and boards on enhancing organizational resilience by creating cultures that value inclusion, candor, integrity, and innovation. She facilitates experiential learning and workshops to help teams and leaders identify and address obstacles to psychological safety and ethical decision making, increasing collaboration, engagement, well-being, and productivity. Debbie also coaches compliance professionals in effective leadership and personal resilience. Her pragmatic approach is informed by her engineering and legal background and decades of corporate leadership, C-suite, and advisory roles in compliance and ethics, legal, environment and safety, and strategic management. Debbie is an adjunct professor in Fordham University Law School’s Program on Corporate Ethics & Compliance, an author, and a frequent speaker at professional conferences.

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Involvement in organizations ; Motivation ; Organizational engagement

Organizational commitment is defined as “a psychological state that (a) characterizes the employee’s relationship with the organization, and (b) has implications for the decision to continue or discontinue membership in the organization” (Meyer and Allen 1991 , p. 67). This popular definition is an attempt to create a consensus between different research traditions and definitions in the literature on organizational commitment. Specifically, these research traditions differentiate attitudinal approaches, conceptualizing commitment as an emotional attachment to the organization (Mowday et al. 1982 ), and behavioral approaches, focusing on the behavioral intention to remain in the organization (Allen and Meyer 1990 ). As an integrative approach (Klein and Park 2016 ), multidimensional conceptualizations of organizational commitment (e.g., O’Reilly and Chatman 1986 ; Penley and Gould 1988 ; Allen and Meyer 1990...

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Mueller, K., Straatmann, T., Schefer, M. (2020). Organizational Commitment. In: Maggino, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69909-7_2030-2

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What is innovation?

When you think of innovation, what springs to mind? Maybe it’s a flashy new gadget—but don’t be mistaken. There’s much more to the world of innovation, which extends far beyond new products and things you’ll find on a store shelf.

Get to know and directly engage with senior McKinsey experts on innovation.

Marc de Jong is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Amsterdam office, Laura Furstenthal is a senior partner in the Bay Area office, and Erik Roth is a senior partner in the Stamford office.

If products alone aren’t the full story, what is innovation? In a business context, innovation is the ability to conceive, develop, deliver, and scale new products, services, processes, and business models for customers.

Successful innovation delivers net new growth that is substantial. As McKinsey senior partner Laura Furstenthal  notes in an episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast , “However you measure it, innovation has to increase value and drive growth.”

As important as innovation is, getting it right can be challenging. Over 80 percent of executives surveyed  say that innovation is among their top three priorities, yet less than 10 percent report being satisfied with their organizations’ innovation performance. Many established companies are better operators than innovators , producing few new and creative game changers. Most succeed by optimizing existing core businesses.

Why is innovation important in business?

Some companies do succeed at innovation. Our research considered how proficient 183 companies were at innovation, and compared that assessment against a proprietary database of economic profit  (the total profit minus the cost of capital). We found that companies that harness the essentials of innovation see a substantial performance edge that separates them from others—with evidence that mastering innovation can generate economic profit that is 2.4 times higher than that of other players .

Learn more about our Strategy & Corporate Finance  practice.

How can leaders decide what innovations to prioritize?

Successful innovation has historically occurred at the intersection of several elements, which can guide prioritization efforts. The three most important elements are the who, the what, and the how :

• An unmet customer need (the ‘who’): Who is the customer and what problem do they need to solve? Are macrotrends such as automation driving changes in customer needs?
• A solution (the ‘what’): Is the solution compelling and can it be executed?
• A business model that allows for the solution to be monetized (the ‘how’): How will the solution create value? What is the business model?

Successful innovation requires answers to each of these questions.

An example from inventor and businessman Thomas Edison helps illustrate the concept. “In every case, he did not just invent the what, he also invented a how,” says Furstenthal in a conversation on innovation . “In the case of the light bulb, he created the filament and the vacuum tube that allowed it to turn on and off, and he developed the production process that enabled mass production.”

Introducing McKinsey Explainers : Direct answers to complex questions

How do organizations become better innovators.

McKinsey conducted research into the attributes and behaviors behind superior innovation performance , which were validated in action at hundreds of companies. This research yielded eight critical elements  for organizations to master:

• Aspire: Do you regard innovation-led growth as critical, and have you put in place cascaded targets that reflect this?
• Choose: Do you invest in a coherent, time- and risk-balanced portfolio of initiatives, and do you devote sufficient resources to it?
• Discover: Are your business, market, and technology R&D efforts actionable and capable of being translated into winning value propositions?
• Evolve: Do you create new business models that provide defensible, robust, and scalable profit sources?
• Accelerate: Do you develop and launch innovations quickly and effectively?
• Scale: Do you launch innovations at the right scale in the relevant markets and segments?
• Extend: Do you create and capitalize on external networks?
• Mobilize: Are your people motivated, rewarded, and organized to innovate repeatedly?

Of these eight essentials, two merit particular attention : aspire and choose . Without these two elements, efforts may be too scattershot to make a lasting difference. It’s particularly crucial to ensure that leaders are setting bold aspirations and making tough choices when it comes to resource allocation and portfolio moves. To do so successfully, many leaders will need to shift their mindsets or management approaches.

What are examples of successful innovators?

Real-world examples of successful innovation, related to some of the eight essentials listed , can highlight the benefits of pursuing innovation systematically :

• Mercedes-Benz Group invested extensively in digitizing its product development system. That allowed the company to shorten its innovation cycles significantly , and its capabilities for personalizing cars have improved, even as assembly efficiency rose by 25 percent.
• Gavi, a public–private partnership founded to save children’s lives and protect their health by broadening access to immunization, used nonfinancial targets to help drive its innovation efforts —and this helped the organization broaden its aspiration for impact in a way that was bold, specific, measurable, and time bound.
• Lantmännen, a large Nordic agricultural cooperative, faced flat organic growth. Leadership created a vision and strategic plan  connected to financial targets cascaded down to business units and product groups. Doing so allowed the organization to move from 4 percent annual growth to 13 percent, on the back of successfully launching several new brands.
• The information services organization RELX Group brought discipline to choosing its innovation portfolio  by running ten to 15 experiments in each customer segment in its pipeline every year. It selects one or two of the most successful ideas from the portfolio to continue.
• International insurance company Discovery Group mobilized the organization around innovation  by creating incentives for a thousand of the company’s leaders using semiannual divisional scorecards. Innovation isn’t a choice; it’s a requirement and a part of the organization’s culture.

These examples aren’t necessarily what you may think of when you imagine disruptive innovation—which calls to mind moves that shake up an entire industry, and might be more associated with top tech trends  such as the Bio Revolution . Yet these examples show how committing to innovation can make a sizable difference.

How can my organization improve the volume and quality of new ideas?

Steps to help aspiring innovators  get started include the following:

• Hold collision sessions: Cross-functional groups gather in a structured process to think through the intersection of unmet customer needs, technology trends, and business models, bringing creativity and specificity to the process of idea generation. Then, a venture panel considers these ideas and iterates on them, prioritizing what to do.
• Challenge orthodoxies: Participants gather and describe beliefs that are common but that prevent the organization from innovating for customers. Examples of these orthodoxies include statements such as “budgets are limited” or “we don’t have the digital capabilities to pull it off.” Once the orthodoxies are laid out, teams brainstorm after being prompted to consider if the opposite of the statement were true.
• Make analogies to other industries: A team might create a list of companies with unique value propositions. Then, they systematically apply these value propositions to their ideas to see if the analogy can create new sources of value or fresh opportunities.
• Apply constraints: Rather than searching for blue-sky ideas, tighten the constraints on an idea’s business or operating model and explore potential new solutions. What if you served only one type of customer? What if the only channel you could access was online?

In the words of chemist Linus Pauling, “The way to get to good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.”

What is an innovation portfolio?

An innovation portfolio  is a thoughtfully curated bundle of potentially innovative initiatives, with clear aspirations and required resources defined for each. Managing the portfolio this way helps find new opportunities and determine the appropriate number and mix of initiatives, including the following:

• confirming the total value of the portfolio needed
• evaluating existing innovation projects based on incremental value delivered, risk, and alignment with strategic priorities
• getting comfortable saying “no” to stop projects that are dilutive, and resisting the siren song of incremental initiatives that are unlikely to pay for themselves
• reallocating resources—including competencies and skills—to new initiatives or to current ones that additional support can accelerate or amplify
• identifying portfolio gaps and defining new initiatives to close them

How to measure innovation?

One way to measure innovation is to look at innovation-driven net new growth, which we call the “green box.”  This phrase refers to how you quantify the growth in revenue or earnings that an innovation needs to provide within a defined timeframe. This concept can help clarify aspirations and influence choices on the innovation journey.

While many imagine that innovation is solely about creativity and generating ideas, at its core, innovation is a matter of resource allocation . To put it another way: it’s one thing to frame innovation as a catalyst for growth, and another to act upon it by refocusing people, assets, and management attention on the organization’s best ideas.

The green box can help to solidify a tangible commitment  by defining the value that a company creates from breakthrough and incremental innovation, on a defined timeline (say, five years), with quantifiable metrics such as net new revenue or earnings growth. Crucially, the green box looks at growth from innovation alone, setting aside other possible sources such as market momentum, M&A, and so forth. And once defined, the growth aspiration can be cascaded into a set of objectives and metrics that the company’s various operating units can incorporate into its individual innovation portfolios.

It’s useful to note that some organizations may find that measures not solely financial in nature are more appropriate or relevant. For instance, metrics such as the number of subscribers or patients—or customer satisfaction—can resonate. What’s critical is selecting a metric that is a proxy for value creation. A large US healthcare payer , for example, looked to spur innovation that would improve patient satisfaction and the quality of care.

Separate from the concept of the green box, two simple metrics  can also offer surprising insight about innovation vis-à-vis the effectiveness of an organization’s R&D spending. Both of these lend themselves to benchmarking, since they can be gauged from the outside in, and they offer insight at the level of a company’s full innovation portfolio. The two R&D conversion metrics are as follows:

• R&D-to-product conversion: This metric is calculated by looking at the ratio of R&D spending (as a portion of sales) to sales from new products. It can show how well your R&D dollars convert to actual sales of new products—and it might reveal that spending more doesn’t necessarily translate into stronger performance.
• New-products-to-margin conversion: This metric considers the ratio of gross margin percentage to sales from new products. It can indicate how new-product sales contribute to lifting margins.

While no metric is perfect, these may offer perspective that keeps the focus squarely on returns from innovation and the value it creates—often more meaningful than looking inward at measures of activity, such as the number of patents secured.

How do you create a high-performing innovation team?

Innovation is a team sport. Experience working with strong innovators and start-ups has helped identify ten traits of successful innovation teams . Those fall into four big categories: vision , or the ability to spot opportunities and inspire others to go after them; collaboration , which relates to fostering effective teamwork and change management (for instance, by telling a good innovation story ); learning or absorbing new ideas; and execution , with traits that facilitate snappy decision making even when uncertainty arises.

Being strategic about the composition of an innovation team can help minimize failures and bring discipline to the process.

What innovation advice can help business leaders?

One broad piece of advice centers on creating a culture that accounts for the human side of innovation . When people worry about failure, criticism, or the career impact of a wrong move, it can keep them from embracing innovation. In a recent poll, 85 percent of executives say fear holds back their organization’s innovation efforts often or always—but there are ways to overcome these barriers .

Additionally, the Committed Innovator podcast and related articles share perspectives from leading experts who have helped their organizations tackle inertia and unlock bold strategic moves. If you are looking for words of wisdom, their insights can help spark inspiration to innovate:

• Naomi Kelman, CEO, Willow . “Creating a safe environment for innovation is really what you need to do to get the greatness out of the people who work with you, which is ultimately what drives growth.”
• Safi Bahcall, author, Loonshots . “Most of the important breakthroughs failed many times before they succeeded. That is where ‘fail fast’ goes wrong. Most companies are too impatient.”
• Amy Brooks, chief innovation officer, National Basketball Association . “You can use data or examples to convince people about what is working in the market or what other industries are doing. We like to share best practices within our own leagues and within sports, but we also pay attention to every other industry that sells to consumers.”
• Tanya Baker, global leader, Goldman Sachs Accelerate . “If someone knowledgeable thinks what you are doing is a bad idea, make sure they have a seat at the table. Put them on your board; make them one of your advisers so you don’t have any blind spots.”
• Neal Gutterson, former chief technology officer, Corteva . “[A] key skill is being able to hold two divergent thoughts and approaches in your brain and in your team at the same time. The great companies will be ambidextrous innovators, able to disrupt themselves in the future while serving the core [business] today.”
• Anjali Sud, CEO, Vimeo . “What keeps me up at night is execution and, within that, focus. Because when you are in a market like ours, at a time like now, the opportunity is huge. We are this nimble, fast-growing, fast-moving company, and everywhere I look I see opportunity. But am I providing enough focus for my teams so that we can truly be great at something? You don’t want to miss a big boat, and it’s hard sometimes to say no to valid, exciting ideas that could be transformative.”

For more in-depth exploration of these topics, see McKinsey’s insights on Strategy & Corporate Finance . Learn more about McKinsey’s Growth & Innovation  work—and check out innovation-related job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced include:

• “ Fear factor: Overcoming human barriers to innovation ,” June 3, 2022, Laura Furstenthal , Alex Morris, and Erik Roth
• “ Innovation—the launchpad out of crisis ,” September 15, 2021, Laura Furstenthal  and Erik Roth
• “ The innovation commitment ,” October 24, 2019, Daniel Cohen, Brian Quinn, and Erik Roth
• “ Fielding high-performing innovation teams ,” January 17, 2019, Matt Banholzer , Fabian Metzeler, and Erik Roth
• “ Taking the measure of innovation ,” April 20, 2018, Guttorm Aase, Erik Roth , and Sri Swaminathan
• “ The eight essentials of innovation ,” April 1, 2015, Marc de Jong , Nathan Marston, and Erik Roth

Want to know more about innovation?

Related articles.

Fear factor: Overcoming human barriers to innovation

The innovation commitment

The eight essentials of innovation

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The Organizational Commitment in the Company and Its Relationship With the Psychological Contract

Business organizations in their work environment, aspire to create a high level of performance and low levels of absenteeism and turnover. Organizational commitment is considered a key factor in achieving this objective, however, it can be conditioned by several factors, among which is the psychological contract. The literature has related the organizational commitment with the fulfillment of the psychological contract framing it as one of the explanatory variables. This work aims to investigate research trends on psychological contract and organizational commitment. For this purpose, bibliometric techniques and the software SciMAT have been used. 220 journal articles indexed in Web of Science (WoS) were analyzed. The findings indicate that the theme chosen for this review is valid. Based on the relationship between the two concepts, as the most recurrent themes, issues such as the sense of justice and the consequences of the violation of the psychological contract, normative commitment, HR management or job insecurity are addressed. However, in the last period analyzed (2015–2018), publications related to more sensitive topics to the present time emerge, such as the employability or the impact of these two concepts in the new generations (millennial and generation-Y) or the retention of talent. On the other hand, shortcomings are detected in the research on the ideologically charged psychological contract, the analysis of the organizational context or cultural and demographic factors in relation to both theoretical constructs. The contribution of this work lies in giving visibility to scientific results, which will serve business organizations as instruments for decision making in their labor management and, for the scientific community, as knowledge of the research spaces to explore.

Introduction

In the current business context, a change toward an efficiency model based on organizational commitment is required. Business organizations need to form teams that are highly committed to their strategic objectives, oriented toward organization and work. Human resource management is positioned as one of the main functions within the organization where working conditions, worker welfare and job satisfaction are valued, which helps to maintain high levels of organizational commitment ( Tiwari and Singh, 2014 ; Kurtessis et al., 2017 ). The formation of organizational commitment is related to the inputs that the worker receives from the organization and is intimately linked to the results of the relationship between both parties, as well as to the emotional bond between the goals and values of the organization and the employee ( Buchanan, 1974 ). This exchange relationship between worker and company can affect work performance, absenteeism and job rotation ( Betanzos and Paz, 2007 ). The literature in many works has related the organizational commitment to the fulfillment of the psychological contract, that is, the degree of compliance with the promises made by the organization ( Rousseau and Parks, 1993 ), framing it as an explanatory and determining variable of the organizational commitment ( Guest, 1998 ; Zaragoza and Solanes Puchol, 2013 ). The following provides a review of these two concepts; psychological contract and organizational commitment, as well as the relationship between them.

Psychological Contract

Rousseau (1995) defined the psychological contract as the set of individual beliefs of a person in relation to the reciprocal obligations and benefits established in a relationship of exchange. The result of the exchange conditions the behavior of both the organization and the employees. However, Rousseau emphasizes in her definition the unipersonal and subjective nature of the employees’ interpretation of the psychological contract, which could lead to different views on the terms of the psychological contract between employer and employee ( Morrison and Robinson, 1997 ).

The theory of the psychological contract shows as a key factor the perceived adequate performance of the contract between two parties involved, where subjectively one of the parties considers that the other has not adequately performed the obligations promised ( Robinson, 1996 ). In reality, this comparison has consequences that go beyond the mere violation of the expected rewards. Its influence extends to the image that the person acquires about the organization, affects trust in the employer and the perception of fairness in the employment relationship ( Cantisano et al., 2008 ).

In the exchange relationship between the organization and the employee two main dimensions can be distinguished, the relational contracts and the transactional contracts ( MacNeil, 1985 ). The relational are characterized by an emotional exchange of social-emotional resources in the long term, in this case, the employee perceives that in exchange for his loyalty he will receive possible promotions to develop his career in the organization and/or security to remain in his job. The transactional contracts are mainly focused on an economic exchange ( Rousseau, 1995 ). The breach of the psychological contract and its consequences have been widely addressed by researchers, where it has been demonstrated in many empirical studies how this fact is positioned as a key aspect in the field of labor relations and influences negatively the attitudes and behavior of employees ( Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). The validity or degree of compliance with the psychological contract has different interpretations depending on whether the employee is involved ( Robinson, 1996 ), the employer ( Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2002 ) or both ( Dabos and Rousseau, 2004 ). A distinction must be made between breach and violation of the psychological contract. While the assessment of compliance or breach of the psychological contract starts from the individual’s own analysis based on his or her judgment, the violation of the psychological contract is a possible consequence of the breach, where the subject reacts in an emotional way, with greater resentment and indignation ( Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ).

The consequences associated with the breach of the psychological contract can be numerous and depend on a variety of factors that would be related to both the organization and the employee. Some of these consequences have been widely addressed by researchers; employees’ job performance ( Gracia et al., 2006 ); intention to leave work ( Lester et al., 2002 ); job satisfaction and organizational commitment ( Porter et al., 1998 ; Cassar, 2001 ; Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2002 ; Topa and Morales, 2005 ); and/or decreased trust ( Robinson, 1996 ; Zhao et al., 2007 ), among others. The difference between the promises made and their fulfillment will generate different effects depending on the characteristics of the labor relationship, the age of the employee, the professional category, the organizational culture (individualistic or collective) and other demographic variables ( Rousseau, 1995 ; Turnley and Feldman, 1999 ; Costa et al., 2017 ). As for the emerging and developing themes on the psychological contract, Coyle-Shapiro et al. (2019) point out that they focus mainly on (a) those who investigate an expansion of psychological contracts beyond social exchange, the so-called psychological contracts with a strong ideological charge and their relation to organizational commitment, the presence of this type of contract in the public sector, or its repercussion on the organizational citizen behavior of employees, (b) those who analyze the antecedents of the breach of the psychological contract, such as the restructuring and downsizing of organizations, causing a decrease in the capacity to fulfill their part of the exchange, or those who investigate the impact of the employee’s perception of job insecurity, and how it affects the breach of psychological contract, and finally, (c) those who have extended the explanations of the relationship between the rupture and the result, focusing on the analysis of psychological contracts as dynamic processes.

Organizational Commitment

There are various definitions of organizational commitment one been as the desire on the part of the employee to make high efforts for the good of the institution, longing to remain in it and accept its main objectives and values ( Porter and Lawer, 1965 ). Another widely accepted definition is that of Greenberg and Baron (2008) who define organizational commitment as the degree to which employees identify with the organization where they work, the degree of commitment they show and whether they are willing to leave it. In research related to organizational engagement, three different perspectives can be distinguished. The first one is born from the perspective of social exchange, where the commitment of the individual to the organization is the result of the small investments that he or she has made over time and that would stop his or her voluntary disengagement from the organization ( Becker, 1960 ). This perspective was later developed by Meyer and Allen (1991 , 1997) where it was called Commitment to Continuity (CC). The second model, Affective Commitment (CA), leans toward a psychological perspective, where emphasis is placed on the binding force between the person and the organization. It is characterized by the employee’s desire to remain a member of the organization, accepting values and goals from the organization in exchange for certain psychological rewards, such as support or recognition ( Mowday et al., 1979 ; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990 ). The third perspective, or Normative Commitment (NC) developed by Meyer and Allen (1991) is focuses on the work ethic and the responsibility that the worker acquires, which drives him/her to do his/her job well in any circumstance. This normative commitment has been the source of multiple interpretations regarding its independence as an element of study ( Varona, 1993 ; Ko et al., 1997 ; Bergman, 2006 ; González and Guillén, 2008 ). On the other hand, organizations have assimilated that employees represent their most important asset ( Glen, 2006 ; Fulmer and Ployhart, 2014 ; Millar et al., 2017 ). Job satisfaction and job motivation, among other factors, become key aspects for the company’s success. Several attempts have been made at an integrated theory for analyzing motivation at work, covering most approaches and factors involved in employee motivation and expectations ( Donovan, 2001 ; Locke and Latham, 2004 ), although no complete consensus has been reached. As for organizational commitment, it is closely linked to job satisfaction. This satisfaction depends on many factors, but most are related to what the organization brings to the employee. Some studies indicate that job satisfaction precedes the level of organizational commitment ( Meyer et al., 2002 ; Morrow, 2011 ), in contrast, other research defends the idea that it is organizational commitment that is a predecessor to job satisfaction ( Price and Mueller, 1981 ; Curry et al., 1986 ). Organizational engagement of employees has been addressed in remarkable research where one can distinguish between so-called individual theories and process theories. Individual theories are based on the individual, the needs of the individual, and his or her motivation to act in one way or another. In this section we could cite: the Theory of Motivation ( Maslow, 1943 ); the Theory of Hierarchy ( Alderfer, 1969 ); or the Theory of Motivation-Hygiene ( Herzberg, 2005 ). The process theories also include the characteristics of the job or work environment, where other factors surrounding the individual are taken into account and are focused on analyzing why people have different behaviors in relation to the commitment to their organization. Among these process theories are, The Theory of Work and Motivation ( Vroom, 1964 ), Goal Setting Theory ( Locke, 1968 ) and the Theory of Equity ( Adams, 1963 ) (see Culibrk et al., 2018 ).

Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment

At present, there is no generally accepted categorization that encompasses the connection between psychological contract and organizational commitment. However, the literature has strongly related the link between both theoretical constructs, analyzing it from different perspectives, and giving it special relevance in terms of its influence in the field of organizational behavior ( Meyer and Allen, 1997 ; Bunderson, 2001 ; Lester et al., 2002 ; Sels et al., 2004 ; McInnis et al., 2009 ; Meyer and Parfyonova, 2010 ; Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). Organizational commitment, within the organizational approach, is among the most analyzed consequences in the literature, when explaining the results of the breach of psychological contracts, as opposed to other approaches such as factors oriented to internal third parties (supervisors or co-workers), external third parties (unions or clients) or health ( Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). On the other hand, research has been carried out that seeks to analyze the relationship of the psychological contract and its variants (relational and transactional psychological contract) with the different types of organizational commitment. In this sense, Meyer and Parfyonova (2010) , in their attempt to explain the differentiation between CA and NC, and to reinforce the conceptualization of the latter, point out the importance of this distinction to better understand the processes by which the psychological contract influences employee behaviors. Meyer and Allen (1997) ; Bunderson (2001) , Lester et al. (2002) , Sels et al. (2004) , and McInnis et al. (2009) point out that psychological contracts have been more related to the CA, however, it is more relevant to relate it to the NC. In addition, Meyer and Parfyonova (2010) , suggest that the conception of the type of contract in which the employee is (transactional or relational contract) may have implications on the way in which the employee experiences CK. In this line, they highlight that it is likely that employees with a relational contract experience a sense of moral duty, aligning themselves with the interests of the organization, even at the cost of sacrificing their own objectives. However, employees with a transactional contract, experience their obligation within the reciprocity of a social exchange relationship, consequently, they can respond out of necessity instead of desire and restrict their contributions to what is strictly necessary.

Another connection of the psychological contract with organizational commitment has to do with the most recent conceptualization of the psychological contract, which goes beyond the theory of social interchange; the so-called ideologically charged psychological contracts. This concept is based on the proposal of Thompson and Bunderson (2003) , which has been supported by many other authors such as Bingham (2005) ; El Bedoui et al. (2011) or Vantilborgh et al. (2014) , in relation to employee behavior inspired by ideology. This approach suggests that the employee recognizes his or her contribution to the achievement of a greater good aligned with the company’s objectives, for which he or she would be willing to make some sacrifices. In this sense, the employee understands that the achievement itself provides him/her with an intrinsic motivation and this encourages him/her to continue cooperating with the organization in the belief that it is the right thing to do. Under this prism, the behavior that exceeds the psychological contract based on social exchange, is explained from the conception of the commitment with moral objectives that can promote satisfaction, even in the absence of an economic relationship ( Shamir, 1990 ; Aguilera et al., 2007 ). In this line, Meyer and Parfyonova (2010) try to relate the ideological psychological contract with the affective and normative commitment when; (a) there are ethical foundations, (b) they are transformative and charismatic leaders, or (c) they are employed with collectivist cultures.

Justification, Objectives, and Practical Implications

It is noted that there is a strong link in the literature between psychological contract and organizational commitment. It is also confirmed that new lines of research continue to appear, such as that which analyzes the relationship between the typologies of psychological contracts and the different types of organizational commitment. Hence, there is an incipient interest in ideologically charged psychological contracts and their close relationship with the CA/NC, -some authors suggest that the investigation of ideologically charged psychological contracts is in an initial phase and invite further research ( Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). For this reason, a broader approach is necessary, with the purpose of knowing more about the literature around these two great theoretical axes, which explain to a great extent the organizational behavior and the consequences that derive from them. Therefore, the objective of this work is to give visibility to scientific results that provide knowledge of the nexus between psychological contract and organizational commitment, putting the focus on explaining the relationship between them and with other theoretical elements within the area of human resources, as well as identifying the spaces of research that remain to be explored. Hence, in its practical implication, this research can serve business organizations to better focus decision-making on the management of organizational behavior, in an attempt to find greater efficiency and sustainability of human capital. To achieve this objective, this work carries out a review of the research literature that analyzes these two theoretical constructs together. To this end, bibliometric analysis techniques will be used to present a detailed study of the evolution of research and authors who have addressed this issue. The adopted approaches and the incorporation of numerous empirical studies have provided a remarkable sustained literary wealth, which goes from the first works published in the nineties of the past century, to the proliferation of publications that take place in the beginning of the twenty first century.

The Web of Science (WoS) database has been used as a source in the search of scientific publications and SciMat as software for the generation and visualization of maps. A total of 220 articles related to the topic at hand have been used as a starting point. The analysis carried out is divided into two stages; firstly, an attempt to evaluate from a quantitative and qualitative orientation the production by countries, authors and journals, and secondly by means of longitudinal and strategic maps, which show the intensity of the relationships between the topics and their evolution in time, therefore giving an idea of which are the most developed and where future research can be directed.

Materials and Methods

This work aims to know the trends in the scientific production of psychological contract and organizational commitment . This research is based on a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature. A bibliometric analysis examines bibliographic material from an objective and quantitative perspective that is useful for organizing information within a field specification ( Albort-Morant and Ribeiro-Soriano, 2016 ); Therefore, a metric analysis of the bibliography allows us to analyze the details of the main research topics within a domain and the relationships at the micro level, generating useful information for researchers who evaluate scientific activity ( Chen and Xiao, 2016 ; Rey-Martí et al., 2016 ).

In order to carry out our analysis, two clearly differentiated sets will be described in detail; relationship indicators and activity indicators. The review of the articles in our sample will reveal the evolution of the research related to psychological contract and organizational commitment. Other data that is analyzed correspond to the year of publication of the manuscripts, authors, place of origin, number of citations, impact indices and other characteristics related to scientific production. This approach will provide researchers with a complete vision of what scientific production in this field has meant.

The database used to extract the sample has been Web of Science, where the search was carried out in February 2019. To meet the objectives set out in this research, the location of articles in this database was configured with the following expressions: “psychological contract” and “organizational commitment.” The year of publication was not limited and was restricted to the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Thus, those documents whose title, abstract or keywords include the expressions “psychological contract” and “organizational commitment” are extracted. To further refine the search for the selected items, the search is restricted to the categories “Management,” “Phychology applied,” “Business,” and “Sociology.” This configuration provided a total of 220 items in this source. Usually, in reviews that use bibliometric techniques, those articles that have received a greater number of citations are selected. In this review, all articles that meet the above parameters are included, so that those manuscripts that have not yet reached their highest impact rate are not excluded.

In a first step for a global perspective, we will carry out a descriptive statistical analysis, where the indicators of activity in the literature are detailed. In a second step, where the temporal evolution of these topics will be appreciated, we will make longitudinal, strategic and thematic network maps. In this way, those topics that have had a greater transcendence throughout time will flourish, as well as those that have a lesser current impact, or those that are currently positioning themselves as topics of greater interest in relation to our purpose.

SciMAT has been used for the construction of longitudinal maps, strategic maps and thematic networks. This allows us to see chronologically what the thematic evolution of the literature under study has been. This software has been developed by SECABA, a research group from the University of Granada, Spain ( Cobo et al., 2012 ).

The following configuration of SciMAT has been carried out for the analysis: the author’s keywords and those coming from the source represent the thematic unit. The equivalence index acts as a measure of similarity to normalize the networks, as well as to create the scientific map of topics and the networks that compose it. The single center clustering algorithm was used.

In order to more clearly expose the focus of this research, Figure 1 shows schematically the procedure that has been performed. The longitudinal map ( Figure 1 , Left) indicates the evolution of literature associated to a particular theme. In this map each period represents by means of spheres the main themes concentrated in a certain number of articles of that period. The evolution from period to period is reflected by connecting lines between the represented items.

Example of longitudinal map, strategic map and thematic network. Prepared by the authors base in Cobo (2011) .

A strategic diagram is divided into four quadrants ( Figure 1 , Center). Motor themes are in the upper right quadrant, peripheral themes in the upper left, emerging themes are in the lower left quadrant, and basic themes are in the lower right quadrant ( Cobo et al., 2012 ). With respect to the first ( Figure 1 , Center Circle “A”), they indicate that subjects are the motors of the specialty, they have a high density and pronounced centrality, they are very developed and important subjects for the composition of the scientific field, they also have notable relations with concepts applicable to other subjects. The circle “D” ( Figure 1 , Center), identifies the position that the peripheral themes would occupy, although their importance in the scientific field being analyzed is not very high, if they have very developed internal links and are characterized by being very specialized. The circle “C” ( Figure 1 , Center) indicates the position that emerging or decadent themes would occupy. Both their density and their centrality are very low, so their development has not been very notable, although they may evolve toward more transcendental themes in the future. The basic themes are represented by the circle “D” ( Figure 1 , Center). Although they are not sufficiently developed, they are transversal and generic, and therefore represent the basic themes of a scientific field. The third dimension in the strategic map is included through the spheres of the themes, where their volume may represent different bibliometric indicators, such as the number of documents associated with a theme, the number of citations received by the documents associated with each theme, or the H-Index of the theme ( Cobo, 2011 ).

Together with the global network of interconnected themes and keywords, a second thematic network is created, based on the documents associated with each theme. Each thematic network ( Figure 1 , Right) is assigned the documents that share some keywords with the network, being able to consider two types of networks: main documents and secondary documents. A main document will be one that contains at least two keywords of the thematic network, and those documents that have at least one keyword associated to the thematic network will be called secondary document. In this way, both primary and secondary documents can belong to more than one thematic network ( Cobo, 2011 ). The quantitative and qualitative analysis developed in this research has been based on the network of primary documents.

Indicators of Activity in the Literature on Psychological Contract and Commitment

The evolution of the number of publications per year has experienced a notable increase. The sample analyzed consists of 220 articles, the first of which appears in 1994, “Expatriate Managers and the Psychological Contract” published by Guzzo, RA, Noonan, KA and Elron, E. in Journal of Applied Psychology . This journal is one of the pioneers and remains one of the most productive in this field, although its contribution does not keep a constant pace.

Up to and including the year 2000, the number of investigations published within the chosen sample was only 14 units (6%). Between 2001 and 2010 this number rises to 88 articles, and from 2011 to the present a total of 118 works have been published in these sources. The years between 2005 and 2015 are shown as the most productive with a total of 149 (68%) articles with respect to this sample. Bearing in mind that the current decade (2011–2020) still has a few months of production to go and that the articles cited gain prominence in the years following their publication, it is worth noting that there has been a considerable increase in the pace of publication on this subject.

The Figure 2 shows how from 2005 onwards the growth of publications is very high, maintaining an average rhythm of 17 articles per year until 2013, where a pronounced fall can be seen. Until 2005, researchers from the United States of America published on this subject in a significant way with 31 articles, the American country has the largest representation with a total of 58 articles between 1994 and 2018. From 2006 to 2018, researchers from England (24), Holland (16), Australia (15), Canada (15), China (14), and Germany (11) have more than 10 publications. The rest of the documents are distributed among other countries that have not reached 10 in the last 15 years; Spain (5), Taiwan (5), France (4), Greece (4) or India (4) are the most numerous examples. In this phase before the turn of the century, the research carried out by Guzzo, Noonan and Elron entitled “Expatriate managers and the psychological contract” (1994) stands out and becomes a reference for later works.

Number of articles by year of publication. Prepared by the authors on the basis of WoS data.

The authors who have published the greatest number of articles in the database consulted are shown in Table 1 . The Hirsch Index, or H-index, of each author is also added, which relates the number of publications and citations received.

Authors who have published three or more articles on psychological contract and organizational commitment (1994–2018).

It is necessary to comment as the author with more publications (10), De Witte, H, only appears as first author in an article of the ten where he participates. On the other hand, De Cuyper, Bal, Ng, and others, are authors who usually appear as the first researcher in the articles in which they participate. The most cited authors per article are not represented in the above list, as their production in this field has not been as numerous. The most cited article of all those analyzed is by Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski and Bravo who in 2007 published “The impact of psychological contract breach on work-related outcomes: A meta-analysis” with 517 citations from other researchers. Another article to be highlighted is the manuscript published by Coyle-Shapiro et al. (2019) , “Psychological Contracts: Past, Present and Future,” which despite its novelty already has more than 37 citations from other authors and represents a broad systematic review on this subject.

With respect to the journals with the greatest presence in research on Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment, it can be indicated that the set of 220 articles studied in this work from 1994 to 2018 are distributed in 82 different publications, highlighting the most representative with 19 and 17 research edited. As with research production in this field, the most active journals have appeared in this field since 2005, almost continuously publishing a significant number of articles each year.

The journals with the greatest presence of this sample and its impact factor are indicated in Table 2 . Most of them are located in the first or second quartile (Q1–Q2–Q3–Q4) of this theme according to JCR Category. In the cases where a publication is cataloged in more than one category, the one belonging to the area of knowledge according to this research has been chosen.

Journals on psychological contract and organizational commitment.

The International Journal of Human Resource Management , volume 1 of which appeared in 1990, is the most active in this field, with 19 articles since 2003, and continuous production to date. The second publication with 17 articles, Journal of Vocational Behavior appears in 1971, and like the previous one from the beginning of the twenty first century it gathers a series of researches on the subject we are concerned with, although as it happens in the general computation it shows more activity from 2008 onwards. In Table 3 , the 19 journals listed in Table 2 , which indicates the number of articles related to Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment that have been published each year, are shown.

Annual journal activity in articles on psychological contract and organizational commitment. number of articles per year.

As can be seen, except for the International Journal of Human Resource Management , no journal represents more than 8% of the published articles, which indicates that few journals have specialized specifically in this matter. It also gives an idea of how this subject is represented from multidisciplinary approaches, which although having limited the search in certain areas of knowledge, the study of the Psychological Contract and the Organizational Commitment admits points of view from various disciplines.

Content Analysis

Evolution of keywords.

In order to analyze the conceptual and thematic evolution of the literature related to organizational commitment and psychological contract, we first analyze how the keywords have evolved, their overlapping, continuity and discontinuity chronologically. For this purpose, 4 periods are established (1994–2004/2005–2009/2010–2014/2015–2018). The criterion of creating blocks with a certain similarity in their amplitude and number of documents has been followed. It was estimated that 5 years periods would favor analysis. For the first block, due to the low level of literary production, it was thought convenient to extend from 5 to 10 years the breadth of the period, even so, it contains the least number of publications with a total of 32 documents. The second and third blocks, both have an amplitude of 5 years and 55 and 78 manuscripts, respectively. In the case of the fourth block, it comprises the last 4 years of the total period under study, and has a total of 55 publications.

In the analysis of the evolution of keywords in the area, the methodology of Price and Gürsey (1975) has been used ( Figure 3 ). Each circle represents a chosen period, the figure inside it indicating the number of different keywords in that period. The horizontal arrows that join the circles represent the keywords shared that pass from one period to the next, so they remain between the two periods. The figure in parentheses indicates the stability index or overlapping fraction (between period 1 and 2, the stability index was 49%, which decreased between period 2 and 3, and between period 3 and 4. This indicates the growth of keywords that have been associated with this theme. This indicates the growth of keywords that have been associated to this theme. An arrow appears at the top of each period to inform us of how many keywords no longer appear in the following period. At the opposite point, the arrow that enters diagonally in the circle indicates the number of new keywords that have been incorporated during this period. As you can see in Figure 3 , in each period new keywords are added and others are no longer used with respect to adjacent periods. A large number of keywords is observed, which gives an idea of the diversity of topics adjacent to those dealt with by the central core object of this study. As for the analysis of periods, the number of keywords is closely related to the number of publications, so the third (2010–2014) is where more keywords have coexisted with a total of 501. The stability index has remained between 0.49 and 0.37 which, although decreasing, shows a high strengthening of the vocabulary by the scientific community when describing the published documents ( Cobo et al., 2012 ).

Keywords shared between periods. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Longitudinal Analysis of the Theme

Once the evolution of keywords has been analyzed, the study would focus on how the subject has evolved. In order to do this, we rely on Figure 4 , where the relations of the themes are represented by periods according to the volume of primary documents. In the case of Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment, there is continuity in each of the periods. In the first period, the subject revolves more around the Psychological Contract, giving way to Organizational Commitment in the following periods. However, in the central blocks (2005–2009 and 2010–2014), the issues are closely related. In the case of the subject that has to do with the violation of the psychological contract, it evolves in all periods toward the conception of obligations and toward social exchange in the last period. Job insecurity remains in force in all periods, resulting in the second with health and in the last two with performance or social exchange. In the last period (2014–2018) there are themes that are not related to those of previous periods, such as personality , turnover , millennials, employability or moderating-role and that, due to their density, are themes with certain possibilities of becoming driving themes in the near future.

Evolution of the theme of organizational commitment and psychological contract. primary documents. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Thematic Analysis Through Strategic Diagrams

Period 1994–2004.

The strategic diagram in Figure 5 represents an image of the situation of the theme in the first decade in which the central themes of this study, Psychological Contract and Organizational Commitment, began to be jointly researched. The main driving themes are psychological contract and justice . The first one has a high level of centrality and density ( Table 4 ) which makes it the main asset of the subject, at the same time it stands out from the others, both in the quantitative plane with 28 documents, and in the qualitative plane with an H-index of 24, in the case of the second, justice , with an H-index of 3, it only has 4 documents related to satisfaction, the behavior of citizens or trust. As basic topics are those related to behavior or violation of the psychological contract. As for emerging or decadent issues, there is organizational support , which has a high density, although the centrality is relatively low. In the upper left quadrant, in which peripheral themes are visualized, it is represented by performance or job insecurity , both considerably developed, although with little production and low H-index.

Strategic map 1994–2004. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Cluster period 1994–2004.

With the intention of knowing which literary activity makes up the main driving theme, which in this first period is a psychological contract , it would be interesting to analyze its thematic network ( Figure 5 ). The study of psychological contracts is intimately related to organizational commitment , but it is also closely related to the analysis of performance , job satisfaction , rotation , antecedents and the consequences of the same (both topics that in turn maintain an important intensity in their relationships), as well as with other topics with less intensity such as professional commitment, models, human resources management or social exchange .

The five publications with the greatest impact of this network between 1994 and 2004 were, (i) Whitener (2001) , “High Commitment” Human Resource Practices Affect Employee Commitment? (times cited: 443); (ii) Raja et al. (2004) , The Impact Of Personality On Psychological Contracts (times cited: 308); (iii) Guzzo et al. (1994) , Expatriate Managers And The Psychological Contract (times cited: 304); (iv) Scandura and Lankau (1997) , Relationships Of Gender, Family Responsibility And Flexible Work Hours To Organizational Commitment And Job Satisfaction (times cited: 236), and (v); Meyer and Smith (2000) , Hrm Practices And Organizational Commitment: Test Of A Mediation Model (times cited: 210).

Period 2005–2009

In the second block (2005–2009), in the association Psychological Contract—Organizational Commitment as a driving theme, there is a change of leadership ( Figure 6 ). The number of documents and the quality (H-index) increased in this second period, from 28 to 51 and from 24 to 30, respectively ( Tables 4 , ​ ,5). 5 ). As the second driving theme, obligations appear, with 7 publications related to perceptions, violation and the rupture of the psychological contract. In this period there is a peculiarity in which two clusters are generated on the topics health and turnover-intention. The first is at the border of the quadrant of emerging themes with the basic themes that, as has been commented ( Figure 4 ), was an evolution—from the previous period—of the job-insecurity theme and evolved, in the following period, toward themes such as job-insecurity or performance. In the case of the latter, it lies between the quadrant of emerging or decadent themes and peripheral themes, as seen earlier created in this period, but evolves in the following one toward normative-commitment. Both topics have few documents, between 5 and 3, respectively, and in the qualitative aspect an H-index of 5 and 3 equally ( Table 5 ).

Strategic map 2005–2009. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Cluster period 2005–2009.

The thematic network of organizational commitment , for this period, as main driving theme ( Figure 6 ) is constituted, in the first place, by psychological contract and closely, by antecedents and consequences —al as well as in period anterior—, and job-satisfaction . On the other hand, there are two issues that are closely related to organizational engagement, such as social-exchange and employment-relationship. During this period there is a great deal of interest in knowing about the literature on this subject, with 12 publications on the subject of meta-analysis.

With respect to the five publications with the greatest impact between 2005 and 2009, the following can be found; (i) Zhao et al. (2007) , The Impact Of Psychological Contract Breach On Work-related Outcomes: A Meta-analysis (times cited: 538); (ii) Cheng and Chan (2008) Who Suffers More From Job Insecurity? A Meta-analytic Review (times cited: 335); (iii) Bentein et al. (2005) , The Role Of Change In The Relationship Between Commitment And Turnover: A Latent Growth Modeling Approach (times cited: 198); (iv) De Cuyper and De Witte (2006) , The Impact Of Job Insecurity And Contract Type On Attitudes, Well-being And Behavioural Reports: A Psychological Contract Perspective (times cited: 183); and (v) Bal et al., 2008 ), Psychological Contract Breach And Job Attitudes: A Meta-analysis Of Age As A Moderator (times cited: 160).

Period 2010–2014

The third block (2010–2014) continues its organizational commitment as the main driving theme ( Figure 7 ), which although it is present in more publications, 74 as opposed to 51 in the previous period, from a qualitative point of view has worsened, going from a 30 to a 23 H-index ( Tables 5 , ​ ,6). 6 ). At the frontiers of the driving themes there are two themes that could belong to this classification. The first is in the line that divides the peripheral themes of the emerging or decadent, normative-commitment 1 , which is an evolution, as we could see, of turnover-intention and that has experienced a greater centrality between its publications—goes from 3.3 to 26.83—, giving rise to the potential necessary to become a driving theme, with a notable increase in its H-index, which goes from 3 to 10. The second, violation , is at the frontier of peripheral issues. In this period it is again configured as a driving theme with violation , but with a lower density and centrality and, in quantitative and qualitative terms, fewer documents and lower H-index. In the basic and peripheral themes, there are job-insecurity and performance , themes that have evolved from health of the previous period, to transform the first into a peripheral theme, with a notable density and centrality and the second into a basic theme, little developed, with low centrality and density, however both have the same H-index (4). As an emergent or decadent theme appears work , which with an H-index of 6, has an acceptable density, but a very low centrality ( Table 6 ).

Strategic map 2010–2014. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Cluster period 2010–2014.

In the period 2010–2014, the thematic network of organizational commitment ( Figure 7 ), as the main driving theme, has its densest relationship with psychological contract , followed by meta-analysis , which is again present with some consistency, on the other hand, other themes such as job-satisfaction, consequences, psychological-contract-breach or social-exchange are related to each other and strongly related to organizational commitment.

The five publications with the greatest impact between 2010 and 2014 were; (i) Ng et al. (2010) Psychological Contract Breaches, Organizational Commitment, And Innovation-related Behaviors: A Latent Growth Modeling Approach (times cited: 94); (ii) Tremblay et al. (2010) , The Role Of Hrm Practices, Procedural Justice, Organizational Support And Trust In Organizational Commitment And In-role And Extra-role Performance , (times cited: 83); (iii) Direnzo and Greenhaus (2011) , Job Search And Voluntary Turnover In A Boundaryless World: A Control Theory Perspective (times cited: 82); (iv) Lub et al. (2012) ; Different Or Alike? Exploring The Psychological Contract And Commitment Of Different Generations Of Hospitality Workers (times cited: 79); and (v) Deconinck (2011) , The Effects Of Ethical Climate On Organizational Identification, Supervisory Trust, And Turnover Among Salespeople (times cited: 69).

Period 2015–2018

The last period (2015–2018) is characterized by the proliferation of themes, fundamentally in publications classified as peripheral and basic and as a consequence, by a lower density in the works related to the main driving theme, organizational commitment ( Figure 8 ). As in the previous period, there are motor themes that are right in the line that divides this quadrant with the basic themes or with the peripheral themes. At the border with the basic issues is a social-exchange , which is an evolution of normative-commitment , a theme inherited from the previous period, which retains virtually its range of density and centrality. With respect to its thematic network, it is interesting to highlight that, due to its evolution, it constitutes a line of research that seems to be consolidating, in addition to the normative commitment, toward issues related to the affective-organizational commitment and the importance of the perception of the organizational support, the role of the leader or the organizational trust, the professional commitment or the behavior of the citizenship. On the other hand, human-resource-management appears for the first time and does it as a work evolution,—in the previous period it was considered as a emerging topic — with topics about the management and retention of talent. With respect to the basic issues, consequences , turnover and breach appear, the first comes from the previous period as an evolution of job-insecurity , located among the peripheral issues. In the quadrant of the basic themes there are three clusters that appear for the first time and that have no link with themes in previous periods; personality , millennials and employability , have a considerable density and could become future driving themes that point to lines of research related to work attitudes, self-esteem, organizational commitment and the perspective of the psychological contract in the new generations, the exchange of knowledge or work opportunities. Finally, with respect to emerging issues ( Table 7 ), moderating-role appears for the first time, with publications analyzing the importance of organizational support in job insecurity and in performance or the role of cultural values in the psychological contract.

Strategic map 2015–2018. Prepared by the authors on the basis of SciMAT data.

Cluster period 2015–2018.

In the thematic network of organizational-commitment as the main driving theme ( Figure 8 ), it maintains the most intense relationship with the psychological-contract , on the other hand, there is an important connection between both themes and job-satisfaction. Other subjects among which it is related with certain intensity are psychological-contract-breach, performance, work, citizenship-behavior, turnover-intention or meta-analysis —than also appears in this period.

The five publications with the most impact between 2015 and 2018 are; (i) Deery and Jago (2015) , Revisiting Talent Management, Work-life Balance And Retention Strategies , (times cited: 45); (ii) Ng (2015) , The Incremental Validity Of Organizational Commitment, Organizational Trust, And Organizational Identification , (times cited: 29); (iii) Choi et al. (2015) , Understanding Organizational Commitment: A Meta-analytic Examination Of The Roles Of The Five-factor Model Of Personality And Culture , (times cited: 27); (iv) Vander Elst et al. (2016) , Perceived Control And Psychological Contract Breach As Explanations Of The Relationships Between Job Insecurity, Job Strain And Coping Reactions: Towards A Theoretical Integration , (times cited: 24); (v) Solinger et al. (2016) , Bouncing Back From Psychological Contract Breach: How Commitment Recovers Over Time , (times cited: 23).

We start from the idea that this work does not intend to carry out a revision of the literature in a deep and systematic way. The methodology used leads us to make visible, in a longitudinal and relational way, how the topics related to psychological contract and organizational commitment have been developed throughout time, and to detect which topics have been leading the literature. This work provides a new perspective on the nexus of these two theoretical constructs related to organizational behavior and sheds light on the issues that have occupied more central positions and which have had a greater density, also providing information on the levels of quality of research (h-index), authors and journals that have been interested in the subject and what level of specialization they have had. This methodological approach also makes it possible to know the state of the subject, in terms of the degree of maturity or saturation, where the research is headed and what spaces have not yet been addressed.

With respect to the findings found in the sample analyzed, it is confirmed that there are key aspects within the axis of psychological contract and organizational commitment that the literature has studied extensively, such as normative commitment, social interchange, violation of the psychological contract, job satisfaction, justice, job insecurity, organizational citizen behavior, performance, or the intention to leave work ( Porter et al., 1998 ; Cassar, 2001 ; Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2002 ; Topa and Morales, 2005 ; Betanzos and Paz, 2007 ; Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ). However, there are other themes that, although they may have sufficient entity in the research of either construct independently (psychological contract and organizational commitment), have not been developed from the perspective of the relationship between the two, lacking sufficient centrality and density to represent a cluster and, as a consequence, to position itself as a driving theme and set a trend. Therefore, it is considered that they have not yet been developed or are in an embryonic phase. Hence, we find research such as the analysis of psychological contracts with a strong ideological charge and their relationship with the public sector; the analysis of the organizational context in aspects such as the restructuring and reduction of organizations; how factors oriented to internal third parties (supervisors or colleagues) or external third parties (unions or clients) affect them; analysis of how intercultural differences or horizontal-individualist or vertical-collectivist cultures may affect the perception of the breach of psychological contract; or analysis of demographic variables such as employment status, professional category, age, or gender ( Rousseau, 1995 ; Turnley and Feldman, 1999 ; Costa et al., 2017 ; Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2019 ).

The literature related to psychological contract and organizational commitment has been producing work independently, providing valuable knowledge in order to better address efficiency within the organizational context. The objective of this work was to know more about the literature of these concepts, that is, to give visibility to the lines of research that try to explain, from all possible perspectives and approaches, what effects the psychological contract has on organizational commitment and both on HR management in organizations.

From the results of this work, it can be inferred that there is indeed an important scientific production that relates the concepts of psychological contract and organizational commitment. This begins at the beginning of the nineties of the last century, in an insignificant way and it is not until 2005 when interest in this subject really takes hold. The most fruitful years in terms of the number of works were between 2006 and 2016, where 72% of the entire sample was concentrated. It should be noted that the publications analyzed belong mostly to journals of the first and second quartile of Social Science Citation Index ( SSCI ) and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) , which gives the subject a certain level of relevance, however, none of the journals represents more than 10% of published articles, which shows that there is no specialization of the subject by any of them. In terms of production by country, researchers from the United States of America with 58 documents and England with 24 represent more than 37% of the published works.

The results suggest that the basis of research on psychological contract and organizational commitment has been developed, and that, in recent years, issues have emerged that are beginning to consolidate as lines that focus on more current needs or sensitivities. However, there are research trends in psychological contract and organizational engagement that, although they are likely to begin to obtain results independently, in the field of study between the two constructs (see section “Discussion”), they are not relevant.

From the longitudinal perspective, between 1994 and 2004, psychological contract is positioned as a topic with greater density and centrality, however, from 2005, organizational commitment takes over with strength and distance progressively. At the same time, they have survived over time with different issues such as the sense of justice, the perception of obligations within the framework of the psychological contract and its violation, the normative commitment or the management of human resources. Job insecurity, sometimes as a peripheral issue and sometimes as a basic issue, has been part of the focus of the central theme. With some distance, it has also happened to the study of performance or behavior. In the last period, works oriented toward a more current social demand emerge, such as employability or the study of new generations (millennials and generation-Y) focused on organizational commitment, satisfaction or the retention of talent which, due to their density, are well developed and which could end up being driving themes in the future; however, the development of other themes, which are currently also especially sensitive, such as the management of diversity and gender equality, is missed.

It must be recognized that this work is not without its limitations. The 220 articles selected for this analysis come only from the Web of Science (WoS) database. This fact may unintentionally exclude important contributions that have been made in other sources, however, the results obtained indicate that the sample used has been sufficiently large. Neither have those studies published in non-academic journals or books been included in the analysis carried out, although they have been taken into account in the introduction and approach to the research.

Future Research

Future publications should be oriented toward the development of works that continue the investigation of topics that have emerged in recent years and that are related to current socio-economic change, such as new generations and the retention of talent, and among other topics. It would also be necessary to delve into certain topics that have not shown a significant presence and that we consider important as sensitive issues, such as the management of diversity or gender equality in relation to the psychological contract and organizational commitment, as well as the development of the psychological contract with a strong ideological charge and its relationship with the normative commitment, or the transversal analysis of how aspects such as certain demographic factors, interculturality or the organizational context affect and/or moderate both theoretical constructs.

Author Contributions

JH and CHR designed, performed, analyzed the research, wrote the manuscript, searched literature, analyzed, and verified the data of this article. Both authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We recognize the support of the University of Málaga, Spain.

1 The theme that preceded normative-commitment in the period 2004–2009 was turnover-intention, it was at the border between emerging or decadent themes (lower left quadrant) and peripheral themes (upper left quadrant).

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