| dc.description.abstract | The psychological contract has been widely researched in the organisational literature,
and found to have a strong impact on employment relations. Despite it already having
been identified in the 1960's, Rousseau among others has recently been one of the
leading pioneers to develop on the concept of the psychological contract to how it is now
understood as a "the experience of employee and employer obligations through perceived
promises made in the reciprocal employee-organisation relationship". Much of the
literature has been focused on the experiences of violation, when these expectations go
unmet, and the consequences of such violations.
The other construct of this study is emotional intelligence. This heavyweight concept has
also been widely explored in the research. Many different models have germinated from
the different theories developed on emotional intelligence, and for the purpose of this
research, an ability model approach developed by Mayer and Salovey has been used as a
framework or paradigm. According to this approach, emotional intelligence is defined as
an ability to perceive, access and generate emotions to guide thought patterns, understand
others' emotions and to regulate our own emotions, so as to promote emotional and
intellectual growth. Research on emotional intelligence and emotions in an organisational
context has shown those to have an impact on work relations, consequently generating
the interest to investigate whether the psychological contract could impact on this
relationship.
This study was carried out' using a cross sectional survey design to collect the data and
obtain the research objectives. A convenience sample (N = 67) of administrative
personnel at a higher educational institution was taken. As this research was of an
exploratory nature, participants were allowed to remain completely anonymous for the
study, as the population demographics were not required for the purpose of this study.
The Psycones Questionnaire (Psychological Contracts among Employment Relations), was used to measure the state of the psychological contract, whereas the GEIS (Greek
Emotional Intelligence Scale) was used to measure the experiences of emotional
intelligence.
The first objective of this study was to conceptualise the relationship between emotional
intelligence and the psychological contract, which was achieved through an in depth
literature review on the two constructs. A literature review on the psychological contract
highlighted an integrative definition as well as an exploration of psychological contract
breach and violation, and the consequences thereof. Where the literature on emotional
intelligence explored the importance of emotions in the workplace and the benefits of the
emotional intelligence research for the organisation as well as a definition: from an ability
model proposed by Mayer and Salovey.
The second objective of this study was to determine the construct validity and reliability
of the emotional intelligence and psychological contract questionnaires. With the support
from previous validated studies of these questionnaires carried out in a South African
context, factor analyses and reliability analyses were nevertheless carried out and the
results corresponded with the previous findings indicating the. viability of these
questionnaires.
The third objective was to determine the relationship between the emotional intelligence
and the psychological contract constructs. Through correlation analyses the most
significant findings .showed that the state of the psychological contract was directly
related to control of emotions. Inter-item correlations also returned significant
correlations. The fourth objective was to determine if emotional intelligence predicts the
variance explained in the psychological contract. Through a series of regression analyses,
one significant model was obtained between state of the psychological contract and
control of emotions which explained 20% of the variance, which in relation to this study
was profound. This finding concurred with the correlation analyses, clearly indicating in
the overall results that a relationship between emotional intelligence and the
psychological contract had to do with one's ability to control one's emotions, which had
a significant effect on an individual's state (overall experience) of their psychological
contract. | |
