Construct clarity refers to the precision of a construct’s conceptual definition and the extent to which that definition is consistently adopted in the literature. Construct ambiguity makes it difficult to understand how particular findings fit relative to others in the literature, impeding the ability to understand fully the phenomenon in question. This has negative implications both for scholarly advancement and for practice. In this chapter, the author identifies and addresses problems of construct ambiguity in the study of psychological contracts. The author’s assessment suggests that construct ambiguity has interfered with the coherence of this literature. For example, the term ‘psychological contract’ has represented distinct constructs (i.e., the jingle fallacy), and different terms (e.g., ‘breach’, ‘violation’) have represented the same concept (i.e., jangle fallacy). The author discusses recent efforts to strengthen construct clarity in the study of psychological contracts and suggests next steps to further build a coherent literature.
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Front Matter
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PART I: REVISITING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT RESEARCH
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PART II: NEW CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS
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PART III: INTRODUCING THE DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT
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PART IV: NEW METHODOLOGICAL AND ANALYTICAL DEVELOPMENTS
