Meaning constitution among Swedish nurses on the subject of psychological contract breach

Abstract: This study examines the effects of psychological contract breach among Swedish nurses in the public healthcare sector. To gather insight on how nurses themselves experience that they are affected by psychological contract breach, this study takes a phenomenological approach with emphasis on meaning constitution. The sample includes a total of N=12 professional nurses from five different organizations. For the purpose of this study the nurses were asked to share one memory associated with what they themselves perceived as a psychological contract breach. Narratives were collected through an open-ended survey. A phenomenological analysis was carried out by the software application Meaning Constitution Analysis – Minerva, with the purpose of increasing understanding of how the participants ascribed meaning to the research subject from an individual and contextual point of view. Results indicate that psychological contract breaches manifest in different ways among nurses, and that they ascribe different meanings to such experiences. However, the outcomes from the contextual analysis indicate that psychological contract breach is, in some sense, experienced in a similar fashion. The primary findings of the study suggest that psychological contract breaches; 1) are found unpleasant and undesirable among nurses, 2) are partly constituted by mental manifestations and 3) may not necessarily only involve the manager and the employee, but the entire staff.