Emerald | Society and Business Review

Free Will in Social and Psychological Contracts

Denise M ROUSSEAU — 2011-11-07 00:00:00.0

Abstract

Purpose - This essay examines the scientific standing of the concept of free will and its role and functioning in social and psychological contracts. Design/methodology/approach - an essayFindings - reflexiveResearch limitations/implications - the limits inherent to an essayPractical implications - Personal narratives that value the future over the present enable individuals to resist both internal temptation and situational pressure Originality/value - About the fundamentals of the psychological contract

Social Contract and Psychological Contract

Yvon Pesqueux — 2011-11-07 00:00:00.0

Abstract

Purpose - The concept of contract is a key concept in organization science. It contributes extensively to an essentialist conception of the organization (the contract would then be its essence), a descriptive method (describing the organization as a contract or set of contracts), and a normative standpoint (the contract as a major manifestation of the contingencies and teleonomy inherent in the organization). Design/methodology/approach - After delineating the notion of contract (and its correlates agency, gift, exchange and association) and reviewing the "epithet-based" contracts, the two dimensions of the contract (social and psychological) will be addressed and compared based on two anthropologies, one of the individual and one of the contract. Findings - This comparison underscores the relevance of contractualism today and the richness of comparing across different eras and perimeters. If these two aspects have anything in common, it is whatever links the contract with sociality.Research limitations/implications - This comparing process must underscore two limitations, namely anachronism (the two texts were written two centuries apart), and underpinning, a political underpinning in the social contract and an organizational underpinning in the psychological contract. It thus looks as though the organization was made of the same substance as the nation, which – like the notion of governance – may lead to some kind of confusion between contract and constitution, contracting power and constituent powers. Practical implications - A key notion in Political Philosophy and Organization ScienceOriginality/value - The comparison between two key conceptions of the notion of contract.

Denise versus Jean-Jacques: homonymies, homologies and tectonic faults between psychological contract and social contract

Rémi JARDAT — 2011-11-07 00:00:00.0

Abstract

Purpose - This work is an attempt to evaluate to what extent Denise Rousseau’s psychological contracts in organizations and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social contract present superficial or profound similarities. Having localized more precisely the lines of gaps between both works, "transgressive" research directions are proposed to enrich each of both thoughts of contracts.Design/methodology/approach - That work consists in an analysis in the sense of Descartes, dividing conceptual difficulties into smaller and smaller parts. More precisely, that analysis is a semiotic one as defined by linguist Hjelmslev, considering each step of the analysis a "level" and assessing the depth of similarities between two works: On the Social Contract and Psychological Contracts in Organizations. The parallel study of both works consists in analyzing the "grammar of use" of concepts at each level, establishing semantic comparative tables. That digging into parallel strata of sense is metaphorically considered as the tectonic study of two continents of thought.Findings - We establish that common ideas and concepts are similar up to the depth of level three but radically differ at level four. At level one, nine main common ideas and concepts are raised. Analysis at level two allows considering those superficial similarities as nine more profound homologies in the sense of Greimas & Courtes. At level three we establish two different groups of homologies binding, on the one hand, an isomorphism between spheres of contracting and, on the other hand, an isomorphism between substances of contract. At level four we unveil a deep tectonic fault between Jean-Jacques’ and Denise’s thought of contract: the sovereignty/exchange gap. That fault corresponds to two universal different syntaxes of subjects and objects defined by Greimas: the participative communication vs. closed circulation of the objects of value. Research limitations/implications - That analysis is based on a corpus of two major works. However, every grammar of use relies on the study of a finite corpus.Originality/value - That paper proposes rigorous criteria for every trans-cultural and trans-disciplinary use of concepts in an original manner. A comparative "geology of thought" is made possible through semiotic instruments.

CONTRACTS TO FRAME SUSTAINABLE FUTURES: THE RATIONAL AND SYMBOLIC SIDES OF CONTRACT FUNCTIONS AND DYSFUNCTIONS

Anne MARCHAIS-ROUBELAT — 2011-11-07 00:00:00.0

Abstract

Purpose - What role can or should have the contract to frame sustainable futures? Design/methodology/approach - Theoretical discussion, implementation of action based scenarios methodFindings - In a sustainable perspective, function and dysfunction of contracts relate to irreversibility to be designed as transfer, stalemate, oscillation and phase lag.Research limitations/implications - Contracts appear as the product of a rational decision settling the interactions between contracting parties as well as of a symbolic act.Originality/value - Discussion of contracts in a long range perspective through the implementation of action based scenarios method.

The metric exhaustion of the Psychological Contract

Pascale de Rozario — 2011-11-08 00:00:00.0

Abstract

Purpose - Receptions of seminal works to contract thinking today: Psychological contract (Denise M. Rousseau) and Social contract (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).Design/methodology/approach - Use of a 7 normative criteria's comparative framework discriminating forms of democratic contracts today.Findings - - a grild to assess later works on psychological contracts, - criteria defining a 'democratic contractualism' Research limitations/implications - Assessment of the initial theory of psychological contracts and its reception from 1995 to 2005.Practical implications - Method to review and going back to the initial theory of psychological contracts in employment.Originality/value - Strenghening of the psychological contracts’ framework with historical and external comparisons.

THE CONTRACTUAL FORMS OF SEXUAL TRANSACTIONS

Sonny PERSEIL — 2011-11-08 00:00:00.0

Abstract

Purpose - To study the sexual deals, the Italian ethnologist Paola Tabet introduced an original frame of analysis, the "economico-sexual exchanges" frame, which she conceives as a continuum, from marriage to prostitution. Our purpose is to know if we have to accept the idea of a sexual social contract as a holistic way of understanding, like for Carole Pateman, or whether we have to admit the heterogeneity of the sexual transactions. Design/methodology/approach - According to the social function of the contract presented by Yvon Pesqueux and introducing the workshop - gift, exchange and association - this communication will try to seize the contractual forms of the sexual transactions, developing at the same time in the logic of the psychological contract, in particular to approach more finely the notion of consent, notion at the heart of the debates concerning the economic sexuality and which can’t be reduced to the expression of the personal freedom. Carole Pateman's work is also too fundamental to be ignored; we will try to summarize the main ideas. Findings - We can say that the social reality of sexual transactions exists between two opposite contractual and anti-contractual ideologies, between a gender idealistic point of view and a management realistic one. Individuals, men and women, are more or less free to sell or buy sexual services. If freedom exists, we can speak about contracts, if not, a contractual point of view appears only as a justification for the strong.Research limitations/implications - Originality/value - A sexual/gender point of view in the contractual theories.