Duality of the transactional psychological contract over motivation: a mixed methods approach

Abstract

This paper examines whether individual perceptions of holding a transactional psychological contract are related to controlled and autonomous motivation. We use cross-sectional survey data from 104 staff employees of a multinational consultancy company operating in Portugal. To explore the relationship between transactional psychological contracts and two types of employee motivation, our work follows a combined quantitative-qualitative analysis. Quantitative data analysis follows a partial least squares modeling (PLS) method. Qualitative data analysis follows a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative approach (fsQCA). Quantitative findings show a moderate positive relationship between individuals who hold perceptions of transactional contracts and controlled motivation. In contrast, results show a negative relationship between transactional contracts and autonomous motivation. Qualitative findings triangulate and expand on the quantitative results by providing causal configurations leading to the presence and absence of both types of motivations. Additional demographic characteristics leading to the presence and absence of motivation are discussed, hinting at managerial consequences.