The Psychological Contract in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Symbolic Review of Work Imaginaries and the Emergence of Distributed, Post-Relational and Contingent Contracts
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper examines how artificial intelligence reshapes the psychological contract by transforming the symbolic and interpretive conditions through which organisational obligations, fairness, reciprocity, and legitimacy are understood. While psychological contract theory has traditionally focused on perceived mutual obligations within employment relationships, and research on algorithmic management has explored new forms of control, opacity, and governance, the conceptual relationship between these fields remains underdeveloped. The article argues that AI’s most significant intervention is not merely operational but symbolic: organisational commitments are increasingly mediated through algorithms, metrics, interfaces, dashboards, predictive systems, and automated decision infrastructures that partially replace interpersonal judgement and discretion. Drawing on psychological contract theory, social imaginary theory, socio-technical imaginaries, and scholarship on algorithmic governance, the paper reconceptualises the psychological contract as a symbolic micro-institution embedded within socio-technical systems. On this basis, the study develops a framework of three emergent forms of psychological contracts in AI-mediated environments: distributed, post-relational, and contingent contracts. The framework demonstrates how trust, responsibility, contestability, and the temporal horizon of obligation are reorganised when authority is enacted through infrastructural mediation rather than direct human interaction. More broadly, the article positions the psychological contract as a diagnostic lens for understanding how workers interpret and moralise organisational transformation under AI-governed conditions. It concludes by advancing the concept of “symbolic resilience” as a critical horizon for AI-mediated organising and argues that the governance of workplace AI must be understood not only as a technical or regulatory challenge, but also as a question of recognition, intelligibility, and social legitimacy.
Author: Thomadakis, Markos
Language: English
Topic: Legal and Labor Studies
Subfield: Industrial relations
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7160704664
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