Relational Contracts and HCC: some observations

Innovation In Contracting

Psychological contracts are unwritten relationships in which an individual holds a belief in mutual obligations between themselves and another party. An often-cited example is an employment relationship. There may be a written employment contract but, beyond that, an employee may have tacit expectations about job security, personal development, recognition, promotion, growth, personal well-being and respect. If these are not met, they may withdraw effort. Employers are well-advised to empathize with the unwritten expectations of the psychological contract in order to optimize employee motivation.

Okay, that's something that tends to be forgotten by many administrators.  Good ones remember it, though.

A brand promise can be a similar psychological contract. Brand make overt promises regarding the benefits they claim to bring to users. In turn, users create their own expectations — as we always emphasize, value is subjective and customers engage in a value learning process when they interact with brands. Their subjectively-defined expectations undergo continuous change, especially as they make comparisons with alternative offers and alternative sources of satisfaction. It’s imperative for brand owners to monitor the evolution of customer-perceived mutual obligations. Customers hold a strong perception of how much consumption work they have to do to receive the benefits that the brand promised, and if the equation gets out of balance, they’ll withdraw their effort. 

Now this has multiple applications.  The idea of creating a unified culture at HCC, for instance, runs into challenges at multiple levels.  Viewed through this lens,  the students approximate being customers in the classroom.  The challenges of learner engagement can be understood from this angle in the present day.  This may not entirely be a desirable thing, but we cannot ignore the perspective entirely.  

At the same time,  instructors are internal customers and the various levels of administration are providers, particularly when we talk about culture.  The money quote: "It’s imperative for brand owners to monitor the evolution of customer-perceived mutual obligations."  If upper-level administrators are ignoring their end of the mutual obligations, they will not get positive results.  This is something we have seen repeatedly over the last twenty or more years: when faculty feel like their buy-in is not going to get them anything useful in return, they won't do it.  The implied threat of "we can find someone else, there are lots of adjuncts who want jobs" rings hollow, though, because we are not a closed society --word gets out when a place is not a good place to work, and we have trouble attracting quality applicants.  

Finally, the community at large is a customer base unto itself irrespective of the students.  If the college is not providing added value, they will not support the college.  This is why it is critical that the college maintain a good public image --and that means being honest and open and admitting mistakes when they occur.