Alternative employment arrangements contribute to organizational citizenship and innovative work, or not: information technology professional's psychological contract will tell

Abstract

Management of information technology (IT) human capital is more dynamic and diverse today as organizations use a variety and mixture of employment arrangements to gain IT core competency, cost, and productivity improvements, yet it is not well known how the employment arrangements affect the IT professional. Applying the psychological contract framework and social information processing theory in the investigation into the IT professional's psychological contract and the affects of their employment arrangement will bring improved understanding of their subsequent attitudes and behaviors. This study will obtain cross-sectional data from IT professionals, which is especially relevant as alternative employment strategies continue to be the trend. Goals toward organizational effectiveness can be implemented through the use of varied employment arrangements; however, ensuring the goals succeed requires new understanding of how the varied employment arrangements affect the psychological contracts of IT professionals. The anticipated findings will provide human resource managers the knowledge necessary to implement strategies toward improved psychological contracts to facilitate continued organizational citizenship and innovative work. This study extends current research on alternative employment arrangements by considering the important factors, such as psychological contracts, organizational citizenship behavior and innovative work behavior in the context of IT professionals.