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CHAPTER 13.5
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT
How to Stimulate Initiative and
Innovation in Any Organization
Through the years, arguments have persisted relative to the philosophy of peo-
ple in organizations. Knowledgeable and perceptive experts in behavioral sci-
ence repeatedly offer analyses of the ills in organizations and propose remedies
by the hundreds. These are usually fascinating dissertations. Based on formal
studies in this discipline, and extensive, personal field experience and observa-
tion, I offer some of my own thoughts on this topic.
Behavioral Studies
What a treasure trove of discoveries and prescriptions we have in the literature
of the past century. Reaching back to Frederick Taylor’s breakthrough treatise
on productivity and efficiency of men and machines, through Joseph Scanlon’s
provocative concepts of group rewards, continuing with behavioral observations
by Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, George Odiorne, Douglas MacGre-
gor, Henry Mintzberg, Herbert Simon, Chester Barnard, James March, Rensis
Likert, Elton Mayo, Henri Fayol, Theodore Levitt, Chris Argyris, and Warren
Bennis, and more recently, writings on leadership by Tom Peters, W. Edwards
Deming, Peter Drucker, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, we are the beneficiaries of
years and years of research, reduced by these experts to a few hundred books
on organizational behavior.
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