The Role of Psychological Contract on Secondary School Teachers Commitment in Kitui Central District

Abstract

In an environment of rapid organizational change, where the ideas of satisfaction and motivation are potentially meaningless, the psychological contract appears to provide a useful integrative concept around which to converge the concerns of the contemporary workplace. Organizational effectiveness can be achieved by developing a working environment where employees identify with their organization’s goals, values and objectives, develop a positive attitude towards their jobs, identify with superiors and identify with their occupation or professional group. The objective of the study was to establish the role of psychological contract on secondary school teachers’ commitment in Kitui Central District. The study adopted descriptive research design. The population of the study consisted of all twenty six public secondary schools in Kitui Central District. The study used primary data which were collected through self-administered structured questionnaires. The data was analyzed and presented using mean and percentages. The findings of the study was that teachers mostly derive their psychological contract from the treatment of employees by the school, from co-workers and supervisors in the organization, during recruitment in the organization, from formal compensation and benefits in the school and from behaviour of co-workers and supervisors. Psychological contract plays a critical role in the teachers’ commitment at the school as it influences the pay and job security in the employment contract, strong family ties, societal impact, employment history, extended family relationship, legal systems in the employment contract, practices that foster employee commitment, internal career development mechanisms, consistent and complementary set of human resource practices, long-term employment, changes on role and tasks of employees and introduction of new obligations