This study undertook to investigate the response of labour (agent) and organisations (principal) to structural adjustment programmes. It focused on (1) the ability of either party's ability to keep the psychological contract, (2) the specific labour responses of interest namely discretionary cooperation, intentions to exist one's employment relationship and the evaluation of the psychological contract, and (3) the relationship between the labour responses.
We found evidence of gross inability of the principal to keep the psychological contract and a consequent break of the agents' own contract.
During the course of the study, we came across widespread complaints that the drugs that are supposed to last three months never do. There was also a major enquiry by the Danish Red Cross, the major donor agency of drug kits, into the disappearance of drugs. The tragedy of this case is in the implication that the squeeze of the health services is so severe that Uganda can hardly make maximum use of external help.
The data we have gathered confirm the deterioration of the services since the largest majority of full-time employees supplement their earnings by other activities that impose a demanding regime on the time available for the formal employment. The data also show that we would not be exaggerating if we concluded that without altruism most government services would ground to a halt. The case study describing the experience of the newly qualified medical doctor was a case in point.
The social exchange model adopted in this study clearly indicates, meeting mutual obligations and expectations is the key to a continuing relationship. This means that even altruism is not free. The case of the junior doctor who is virtually in charge of a district hospital is a direct reminder of this fact. It is the pattern in the Uganda health service for such remote areas to be manned only by junior people or under-qualified officers. That few qualified people would want to serve in such difficult conditions is evidenced by the fact that whereas 90% of our people live in the rural areas, only 1% of the qualified doctors serve in such areas.
The justification for a study such as this one is in recognising that SAPs have a long gestation period qualifying them as complex economic, social, and political programmes. In effect this means that the longer it takes to mature the more factors other than the purely economic considerations impinge on them and influence the final outcome. The recognition of this fact has led to several attempts to alleviate some of the outstanding consequences of SAPs. These efforts have been directed towards the poor and those groups most vulnerable to poverty such as women and the rural dwellers.
Effort in this study has been directed at highlighting the vulnerability of organisations and those who work there in the hope that both will be elevated to priority status. This has been done at two levels. The first level was theoretical. On the second level we considered the current ability of organisations in the health and educational institutions to meet their side of the psychological contract and concluded from available evidence that the organisations are hardly in a position to honour the contract. We have, in addition, given some evidence that failure to meet the contract leads to low commitment and therefore to greater incidence of moral hazard. This is the case since the psychological contract and commitment were positively correlated.
The case for assisting formal labour and formal organisations has been more strengthened by finding evidence that the psychological contract is positively related to actual behaviour of our respondents as seen in the eyes of their supervisors. That is, those who positively evaluated their psychological contract were also evaluated by their superiors as more cooperative. A case in point was the relatively poor evaluation of urban nurses by their superiors who found the latter to be more uncooperative than any other group such as rural nurses. This evaluation concurs with that which is generally experienced by the public who compalin about the nurses' notorious bedside manners.
Discretionary cooperation, which was the major behavioral focus of the study and whose relationship to the state of the psychological contract the study has supported, could be considered as an aspect of the service ethic. There should be no contention concerning the centrality of either behaviour in the daily functioning of a service organisation or any other organisation. Thus no effort should be spared by organisations and institutions to ensure the supply of these behaviours.
The theoretical and the practical arguments we are putting forward have wider implications beyond SAPs and SAPs objectives. It is important to restate the most significant implication of the general findings of this study, namely that SAPs cripple the very mechanism that ultimately carries out or delivers the objectives of every macro and micro plans, by directly disabling organisation from carrying out their part of the implicit or psychological contract. The wider implication is that no economy succeeds when organisations, as delivery systems, experience an extended period of inability to keep their own side of the psychological contract.
