Great Expectations: How Role Expectations and Role Experiences Relate to Perceptions of Group Cohesion.

Many athletes experience a discrepancy between the roles they expect to fulfill and the roles they eventually occupy. Drawing from met expectations theory, we applied response surface methodology to examine how role expectations, in relation to role experiences, influence perceptions of group cohesion among Canadian Interuniversity Sport athletes (N = 153). On the basis of data from two time points, as athletes approached and exceeded their role contribution expectations, they reported higher perceptions of task cohesion. Furthermore, as athletes approached and exceeded their social involvement expectations, they reported higher perceptions of social cohesion. These response surface patterns-pertaining to task and social cohesion-were driven by the positive influence of role experiences. On the basis of the interplay between athletes' role experiences and their perception of the group environment, efforts to improve team dynamics may benefit from focusing on improving the quality of role experiences, in conjunction with developing realistic role expectations.

Disentangling the effects of promised and delivered inducements: relational and transactional contract elements and the mediating role of trust.

Psychological contracts contain both relational and transactional elements, each of which is associated with unique characteristics. In the present research, the authors drew on these distinct qualities to develop and test hypotheses regarding differential employee reactions to underfulfillment, fulfillment, and overfulfillment of relational and transactional promises. Further, the authors extended their test of the theoretical distinctions between relational and transactional contracts by assessing the relevance of trust as a key underlying mechanism of relational and transactional psychological contract breach effects. Participants in this 3-wave longitudinal study included 342 full-time temporary employees. In support of existing theoretical distinctions, results indicated that employees reacted differently to varying levels of fulfillment of their relational and transactional contracts and that trust is a more central mechanism of relational, as opposed to transactional, psychological contract breach effects. These findings underscore L.S. Lambert, J. R. Edwards, and D. M. Cable's (2003) recent recommendation that the traditional conceptualization and study of psychological contract breach requires expansion.