Management communication and the psychological contract: the case of air traffic control

Corporate communications models conflict with the management research literature in assuming that managers hold unitary beliefs about organizational interests. In reality, while displaying some adherence to formal goals, managers have a tendency to pursue highly personalised agendas. What is more, endemic tensions in middle manager roles have recently increased in the wake of declining career opportunities and job security. Using a longitudinal case study of job change, shows how middle managers' notions of their self‐interest can conflict with fulfilling the employee psychological contract. In the face of greater penalties for poor performance, middle managers were prepared to neglect and even violate their subordinates' psychological contracts in order to appear to be meeting their commitments to top management. Concludes that the prevailing unitarist assumptions held about managers weaken the corporate communications literature and should be abandoned. Suggests that corporate communications models would be enhanced by revisions which take account of the political nature of management motives and actions.