A qualitative study on the formation and violation of psychological contracts of state and foundation university academics

Psychological contract is an unwritten agreement between the employee and the employer that includes mutual expectations, obligations and promises. Although there is an increase in the number of studies on the concept of psychological contract in the literature, studies on this subject in higher education are still limited. The purpose of this study is to examine the formation and violation of psychological contracts of academics. The study group of this research, which was conducted using a phenomenological design, consisted of 25 academicians working in state and foundation universities in Istanbul. A semi-structured interview form consisting of two sections and 16 questions was prepared by the researcher for this study in which interview technique was used as the data collection method. The data obtained were analyzed using content analysis method. According to the results of the study, contracts of academicians begin to form in the pre-employment period. These contracts continue to take shape during the socialization process and are revised in the post-employment period by checking the consistency between initial expectations and subsequent experiences. It has been revealed that many individual and organizational factors are effective in the formation of psychological contracts. In this study, contract violations experienced by academics were grouped under five main themes. It is thought that this research, which is important as an attempt to understand academics' psychological contracts in depth, will not only identify problems, but also provide solutions to improve the overall quality of academic life in universities and the welfare of academics.