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The objective of this paper was to examine the effect of employee type, professional experience and academic discipline on the psychological contract of higher education academics. The study combines two existing tools: psychological contract inventory and the HR Practice Scale. The study was a quantitative study that applied multiple regression analysis to determine what portion of the psychological contract types are predicted by the employee characteristics. The findings indicate that the part-time academics and academics with short-term professional experience have a significant and inverse impact on the relational psychological contract. Hence, their employment status (part-time and short-term) adversely affects the commitment and loyalty academics have to their employers. This strengthens the findings that academics have balanced perceptions; this indicates that academics are committed to both their employers and external factors such as a commitment to knowledge and societal development. The academic discipline of an academic has no impact on their perceptions. The study contributes to the literature on the psychological contract, by investigating the contract from a balanced perspective and by investigating the effects of employee characteristics.

The psychological contract provides a framework for understanding employee-employer relationships within an organisation. This paper is based on research on Canadian academics and aims to determine the effect demographic characteristics, such as the age, gender and educational background, have on the psychological contract of academics working in higher education institutions. The research contributes to the literature by investigating the psychological contract from the perspectives of the relational, transactional and balanced contract types. The research also combines two existing tools – psychological contract inventory and the HR practice scale – to gather data on the types of psychological contract developed by academics and the perception academics have on the HR practices of their employers. The study was based on quantitative analysis of a cross-sectional survey in addition to a literature review. Overall the findings suggest that, while gender and age had a positive impact on the transactional psychological contract of academics, there was no predictive relationship between education and type of psychological contract.