The role of psychological contracts within internal service networks

This article explores internal service relationships within the service del ivery process of a large telecommunications company The empirical research generates an expression of the psychological contracts held between interna l customers and suppliers based upon the content analysis of qualitative in terviews. Seven hundred and twenty three contractual expectations are reduc ed into 17 categories and this analytical framework is applied to measure t he strength of the psychological contract between three interdependent serv ice groups. The research explores how, established psychological contracts encouraged the provision of flexible internal services and how psychologica l contract breach precipitated service delivery problems with clear implica tions for managers and service organisations.