UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY: A PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT PERSPECTIVE David W. Hart and Jeffery A. Thompson Abstract: Although business ethicists have theorized frequently about the virtues and vices of employee loyalty, the concept of loyalty remains loosely defined. In this article, we argue that viewing loyalty as a cognitive phenomenon—an attitude that resides in the mind of the individual—helps to clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on the ethical implications of loyalty in organizations. Specifically, we adopt the psychological contract perspective to analyze loyalty's cognitive dimensions, and treat loyalty as an individual-level construction of perceived reciprocal obligations. Based upon this perspective, we present a three-tiered framework of loyalty that provides a psychologically informed definition of the concept, specifies the variety of obligation types that loyalty can imply, and anticipates the potential for asymmetrical loyalty configurations between employers and employees. We use the framework to articulate moral issues associated with both symmetrical and asymmetrical loyalty configurations and discuss the implications of the framework for theory and practice. Loyalty has played a periodic but important role in the business ethics hterature in the last few decades. Much of the recent attention to loyalty has been prompted by discussions of the changing nature of the employment reladonship (Grosman 1989; Pfeiffer 1992; Haughey 1993). The role and limits of loyalty have also featured prominently in debates about issues such as downsizing (Hecksher 1995; Sd-oh and Reilly 1997; Clancy 1999; Orlando 1999; Niehoff et al. 2001) and whistleblowing (Larmer 1992; Duska 2001; Vandekerckhove and Commers 2004). Much of the debate has focused on the appropriateness, objects, and obhgations of loyalty (Axinn 1994; Gilbert 2001; Haughey 1993; Haughey 1997; Mele 2001; Oriando 1999; Provis 2005; Randels 2001; Schrag 2001; Solomon 1994). Despite considerable scholarly attendon to the concept, loyalty and its dimensions remain, at best, casually defined (Coughlan 2005). Consequently, several conceptual problems persist in the hterature. In the philosophical tradition, for example, loyalty is typically discussed in unconditional, either/or terms: either one is loyal or one is not; loyalty is either a moral duty or a dangerous attachment (Carbone 1997; Ewin 1992, 1993; Mele 2001; Petdt 1988; Randels 2001). This dichotomous approach has provided useful fodder for philosophical inquiry into, and debate about, the © 2007. Business Ethics Quarterly, Volume 17, Issue 2. ISSN 1052-150X. pp. 297-323 BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY role of loyalty (including special issues of Business Ethics Quarterly and Criminal Justice Ethics devoted to loyalty; see Kleinig 1993; Gilbert 2001). However, debadng whether loyalty is a virtue or vice, for instance, obscures the complexity of loyalty. In the workplace, individuals must adopt a fluid approach to assessing the demands of loyalty as contexts and relationships change. Without addressing this fluidity, it is difficult if not impossible to predict behavioral or attitudinal outcomes of people's perceptions that others have been loyal or disloyal. A second problem is highlighted by the social science approach to understanding loyalty. In the social science literature, loyalty (although rarely measured as an independent constmct) is typically conceptualized and operationahzed as a continuous variable, such that one's loyalty is assessed on a scale from low to high (Coughlan, 2005, is a notable example). This approach provides more nuance than philosophical debates about what loyalty is and is not, but it tends to draw attention away from the content of loyalty—the specific obligations that individuals ascribe to the term when they use it. It is clear from the vast variety of definidons of loyalty (see Coughlan 2005, Kleinig 1993, and Gilbert 2001 for excellent discussions of the lack of definidonal consensus) that loyalty connotes different things to different people. Treating loyalty as a dichotomous or condnuous variable obscures the richness and idiosyncrasy of the concept's meaning in application. Moreover, it hampers our ability to anticipate why two parties can each claim that the other has been disloyal to the relationship, but genuinely feel that they themselves have been perfectly loyal. In short, without considering the variety of content in loyalty conceptualizadons, we cannot explain asymmetries in how two exchange partners constmct the meaning of loyalty. Our objective in this paper is to draw upon recent theoretical developments in social science—specifically, the psychological contract perspective—to provide a more nuanced account of loyalty within organizational contexts, which we believe can in tum inform philosophical inquiries on the ethics of loyalty as well. Using the psychological contract perspective, we develop a framework that addresses limitations of the current loyalty literature by a) providing a more nuanced and precise definition of loyalty, b) focusing attendon on idiosyncratic interpretations of the content of loyalty obligadons, and c) illustrating how these idiosyncradc interpretadons can result in asymmetrical loyalties (which are often carelessly mislabeled "disloyalty"). We also use the framework to argue that simultaneously maintaining muldple types of loyalty provides a moral safeguard from the potential excesses of any one loyalty type. We begin by briefly reviewing how research in the social sciences (particularly organizadonal commitment research) informs our understanding of loyalty in the employment relationship. We then apply psychological contract theory to provide an integrative framework that dimensionalizes loyalty in a way that makes debate about the ethical imperatives of loyalty more tractable. Using these dimensions, we illustrate how asymmetry in loyalty interpretadons between employers and employees, rather than actual disloyalty, may be responsible for UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY breaches to perceived obligations on either side. We close with a discussion of both the research and practical implications of our framework. Toward a Cognitive Approach to Employee Loyalty While loyalty has received considerable attendon from philosophers, it is, of course, not simply a philosophical abstraction. It is also a cognidon held by a person to characterize his or her relationship with another person or party. As such, loyalty ought to be amenable to measurement and empirical investigadon. Although social scientists have generally not investigated loyalty as a discrete constmct per se, the concept of loyalty pervades foundational literature on organizadonal commitment, which is closely related to loyalty (Mowday, Porter, and Steers 1982; O'Reilly and Chatman 1986; Meyer and Allen 1991). Defined as "a psychological state that (a) characterizes the employee's relationship with the organizadon, and (b) has imphcations for the decision to continue or discontinue membership in the organization" (Meyer and Allen 1991,67), organizadonal commitment is closely akin to tradidonal conceptuahzations of organizational loyalty, which revolve around one's level of devodon to the organizadon (Gilbert 2001; see also Royce 1908). Loyalty and commitment occupy much of the same conceptual space. Loyalty, however, extends subtly beyond basic notions of commitment in at least two ways. First, the commitment literature adopts a personal choice paradigm—to commit or not to commit to an organizadon are altematives that an employee considers based on rational analysis and/or sentiment (see Meyer and Allen 1997). Loyalty, on the other hand, introduces a normadve component into the relationship because it is usually depicted as a duty. There is less stigma associated with saying "I have chosen not to commit" than with saying "I am disloyal." Second, scholarly hterature tends to focus on commitment as if it were a unidirectional constmct. Researchers concem themselves with measuring the extent to which employees feel commitment toward their organizations, for instance. Loyalty, however, implies mutuality. Whereas commitment is usually conceptually located widiin the individual, loyalty resides more at the nexus of a relationship. Although we conceive of loyalty as encompassing more than just commitment, commitment remains an important element of loyalty. Thus, we assert, along with Coughlan (2005), that normative research on loyalty has much to gain from organizadonal commitment research (see Meyer and Allen 1997 for a definidve review of organizadonal commitment). Along those hnes, the framework of loyalty we develop here is informed by the disdncdons that Meyer and Allen (1991) have articulated between three distinct forms of commitment. They divide commitment into affecdve, condnuance, and normative dimensions, described thusly: Affective commitment refers to the employee's emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization. Employees with a strong affective commitment continue employment with the organization because they want to do so. Continuance commitment refers to an awareness of the costs associated with leaving the organization. Employees whose pri BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY mary link to the organization is based on continuance commitment remain because they need to do so. Finally, normative commitment reflects a feeling of obligation to continue employment. Employees with a high level of normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with the organization. (Meyer and Allen 1991:67) Applied to loyalty, these three components of commitment should allow ethicists to invesdgate the motives underlying loyalty to another party. Just as with organizational commitment, loyalty to one's employer, for instance, may stem from a genuine desire to protect the reladonship even in the face of costs (an affecdve explanation), or from a belief that the costs of disloyalty would be too great to bear (a continuance explanation), or from a feehng that one is somehow duty-bound to remain loyal even if his or her interests and desires lie elsewhere (a normative explanadon). We intendonally adopt elements of all three forms of commitment described above into our working definition of loyalty. Specifically, our cognitively based definition of loyalty is: an individual's perception that both parties to a relationship have fulfilled reciprocal expectations that I) denote enduring attachment between two parties, that 2) involve self-sacrifice in the face of altematives, and that 3) are laden with obligations of duty. This definidon contains the affecdve (attachment), continuance (sacrifice or opportunity costs) and normative (some notion of obhgadon) elements central to Meyer and Allen's (1997) framework of organizadonal commitment. We portray these three components as necessary and sufficient condidons for percepdons of loyalty. Given that scholars of organizadonal commitment have akeady carefully mapped the terrain of people's attachment to their organizadons, we are certainly not advocating the development of yet another measure to quandfy the extent of loyalty between employer and employee. Pursuing such a course would only contribute to what Morrow (1983) identified as a proliferation of redundant concepts that all hover around the conceptual space occupied by organizadonal commitment. Scale measurement of loyalty as a cognidve phenomenon would likely provide litde novel insight over and above what ethicists can leam from condnued research in the field of organizadonal commitment. We believe, however, that two important gaps exist in the current stream of research. First, most research on organizadonal commitment is not designed to treat loyalty as a moral constmct. This research is generally descriptive in nature, and no "ought" is implied by the "is" that organizadonal commitment research describes. Consequendy, there is litde if any consideradon of the moral implicadons inherent in our attachment to organizadons (Coughlan 2005). The one possible excepdon is normadve commitment, which Meyer and Allen (1997) define as "an employee's feelings of obhgation to remain with the organization" (Meyer and Allen 1997: 60). Second, research on organizadonal commitment tends to focus on the extent of one's commitment but does not capture the diversity of content that characterizes which obligadons are entailed in people's constmal of commitment to their organizadons. UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY The dominance of scalar measures attest to the focus on extent, rather than content, of organizadonal commitment. Focusing on the extent of one's commitment has proven an extremely fmitful strategy for organizadonal scholars. However, we advocate a more nuanced approach to the study of loyalty that emphasizes differences in perceived content of loyalty. An example may serve to clarify what we mean by the content of loyalty. Consider the various ways in which one could constme loyalty to and from one's church, for instance. If I consider myself loyal to my church, it may mean that I attend meetings assiduously and ask the pastor what I can do to help. To someone else, loyalty to church may primarily mean sdcking up for the congregadon if someone says that it is full of hypocrites. Yet again, another person may claim loyalty to church simply by paying occasional offerings even though he or she doesn't often attend. The variety of perceived obligations means that people who act very differently with regard to the church may equally consider themselves loyal. By the same token, I may consider my church (as an organizadon) loyal to me when its representatives seek me out during the week to make sure I'm hving a good hfe, or I may only consider it loyal to me if my minister tmsts me enough to not hassle me about my personal lifestyle, other than through a weekly sermon. The example serves to demonstrate a variety of ways in which loyalty can be constmed. Although the extent of loyalty in this situadon is important, a scalar approach of attachment would not capture all the aspects of loyalty contained in that situadon. Clearly this poses a challenge for scholars, but it is also an opportunity for considering the richness and complexity with which people assign obligadons to themselves and to their organizations. How is such complexity to be captured by researchers, however? And how can capturing it inform ethical discourse on loyalty? We believe a compelhng answer to thefirst quesdon hes in the burgeoning literature on psychological contracts, which seeks to idendfy the content of specific perceived obHgadons between a person and an organizadon. In this, we take our cue from Meyer and Allen themselves, who pointed out the important connecdon between psychological contracts and normadve commitment, and their shared "disdnct emphasis on obhgadons" (Meyer and Allen 1997: 62). Loyalty scholars, too, have advocated focusing on perceived obligadons to understand loyalty in the employment reladonship (see for example, Grosman 1989; Pfeiffer 1992). Adopdng a focus on obligadons allows us to consider the idiosyncradc ways in which people constme loyalty in their organizadonal reladonships. It also allows us to treat loyalty, regardless of whether it is uldmately interpreted as moral duty or dangerous attachment, as a cognidve phenomenon—an attitude that resides in the mind of the individual. And, in answer to the second question, we believe that considering loyalty from a psychological contract perspecdve, and thus grounding loyalty in cogni don and perceived obligations, allows us to anticipate ways in which expectadons between individuals and organizadonal agents are misaligned, such that fissures of loyalty somedmes represent shppage in expectadons rather than moral fail BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY ings per se (although claims of moral failing may be inevitable nonetheless). As we will demonstrate, viewing loyalty as a psychological contract helps clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides insight into idiosyncrasies in how people constmct the meaning of loyalty, and sheds light on the ethical imphcations of loyalty in organizations. Organizational Loyalty and Psychological Contracts Most employment reladonships are premised on some form of explicit written contract that specifies minimal expectations for both employer and employee. Recendy, however, organizadonal scholars have recognized that employees tend to develop a set of expectadons about their reladonship with the employer that extends beyond any formal contract, but that is nonetheless perceived to entail genuine obligadons. This set of perceived but unwritten promises and obligadons has been termed the psychological contract (McLean Parks and Schmedemann 1994; Morrison and Robinson 1997; Robinson 1996; Robinson, Kraatz, and Rousseau 1994; Rousseau and McLean Parks 1993; Tumley and Feldman 1999). The psychological contract perspecdve is an outgrowth of social exchange theory (Blau 1964; Homans 1974), which argues that implicit contracts are the very impetus for the creadon of organizadons (Sdnchcombe 1986). Psychological contracts, unlike legal contracts, do not entail agreement between two parties. By definidon, they reside in the percepdons of the individual, and thus may bear litde resemblance to what organizadonal agents understand employee obligadons to be (McLean Parks and Schmedemann 1994; Morrison and Robinson 1997; Rousseau 1990). Even if the content of one's psychological contract is a gross distordon of organizadonal reality, die cond-act is potent; it shapes the employee's actions within the organization and his or her reactions to organizational decisions. The employee's perceived obligadons can influence atdtudes and behaviors as profoundly as does the exphcit employment contract (Rousseau and Tijoriwala 1998). Violadons of perceived obligadons have been associated, for instance, widi intendons to quit (Tumley and Feldman 2000), decreased tmst in the organizadon (Robinson 1996), and decreased civic virtue behavior (Robinson and Morrison 1995). "Currencies" as the Content of the Psychological Exchange One aspect of psychological contracts that shape employee behavior is their content. Theorists have disdnguished psychological contracts in terms of the "currencies" exchanged at the nexus of the employee-organizadon reladonship. MacNeil (1985) idendfied two types of currencies: economic and socio-emodonal. When one views employment as an exchange of economic currency (i.e., contribudng dme and effort in exchange for monetary benefits), the psychological contract is transactional in nature. Self-interest predominates and the employee carefully UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY monitors the balance of reciprocal obligation fulfillment (Rousseau and McLean Parks 1993). If, however, an employee sees employment largely as an exchange of socioemotional currency (i.e., pledging personal attachment and devotion to the organizadon in exchange for job security, professional development, and membership in an identity group), the psychological contract is relational. Self-interest is replaced by group-interest, and mles of reciprocity are loosely scripted and negodable (Rousseau and McLean Parks 1993). The disdncdon between transacdonal and reladonal contracts pervades both theoredcal and empirical work in the psychological contracts literature (Cavanaugh and Noe 1999; Herriott and Pemberton 1996; McLean Parks and Kidder 1994; Millward and Hopkins 1998; Morrison and Robinson 1997; Raja, Johns, and Ntalianis 2004; Robinson, Kraatz, and Rousseau 1994; Rousseau 1995; Rousseau and Wade-Benzoni 1994). Recent scholarship has suggested a third form of psychological contract that involves the exchange of ideological currency (Thompson and Bunderson 2003). This work, grounded in social exchange theory (especially Blau 1964), asserts that ideological rewards (the feelings associated with contribudng to a noble cause) serve as an important incendve that binds people to organizadons. In an ideology-infused psychological contract, the employee believes that the organizadon is obhgated to contribute to some social cause. In retum, the employee feels obhgated to pardcipate in that cause personally, to advocate for the organization's ideological efforts, and to represent the organization in a positive light to extemal consdtuents. The resuldng tripartite framework of psychological contract currencies reflects its roots in the seminal organizadonal commitment hterature. Specifically, the concepts of transacdonal, reladonal, and ideological currencies closely mirror Kelman's (1958) classic commitment processes of compliance, idendficadon, and intemalizadon respectively (see Thompson and Bunderson 2003). Theframework also reflects logic underlying more recent theory about social contract typologies—particularly Graham and Organ's (1993) tripartite characterizadon of contracts as transacdonal, social exchange, and covenantal. The distinctions among these various currencies are important not only conceptually, but also pracdcally. For instance. Raja, Johns, and Ntalianis (2004) have shown that personality traits predispose employees to particular types of contracts: neurodcism and equity sensidvity are related to transacdonal contracts, while consciendousness and self-esteem are associated with reladonal contracts. Studies also show that reladonal contracts are associated with low tumover, as well as sadsfacdon and commitment (Raja, Johns, and Ntahanis 2004; Rousseau 1990). Further, reladonal contracts appear more susceptible to damage by violadons than transacdonal contracts, in that employees who feel their reladonal contracts have been violated perceive a greater dechne in their own obligadons than those with transacdonal contracts (Robinson, Kraatz, and Rousseau 1994). In other words, while reladonal contracts provide a stronger basis for employee loyalty, they are also more vulnerable to violadon. In contrast, ideology-infused contracts are more BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY resistant to perceived violadon than transactional or relational contracts because the primacy of the cause tends to supersede personal grievances (Thompson and Bunderson 2003). If the employee, however, perceives that the organizadon is neglecdng its espoused cause, the sense of violation can be extreme and result in hosdle and public employee reactions. While the various contractual currencies imply important differences, they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, most psychological contracts involve the simultaneous exchange of more than one currency (Robinson, Kraatz, and Rousseau 1994), as in the case, for example, of a non-profit employee whose work simultaneously provides income, an idendty group, and the opportunity to pursue a valued cause. Consequently, currency distinctions do not divide psychological contracts into neat categories. Rather, they provide several dimensions by which a contract can be characterized—i.e., as more or less transacdonal, relational, or ideological in nature. Sdll, characterizing psychological contracts in terms of their currencies has proved a useful and logical organizing stmcture for the employer-employee relationship and has promoted sound empirical research. The framework also provides a promising avenue for ethicists to examine the cognitive content of loyalty interpretadons. "Currencies" as the Content of Loyalty As we have argued, scholarship on loyalty (in both the philosophical and social sciences tradidons) has not adequately grappled with the inherent idiosyncrasy in how people constme it. Absent some organizing framework that allows us to categorize differences in the impHcadons of loyalty, scholars risk "talking past each other" as they debate loyalty's moral implications. We must therefore account for the shades and nuances of loyalty to create a platform for debate and inquiry, and we believe that doing so requires focusing on the cognidve content of an individual's loyalty to another person or party—i.e., the implied obhgadons that one interprets to exist within the relationship. The tripartiteframework of psychological contract currencies provides a useful simplifying stmcture for the complex assortment of obligadons people tend to assign to the term "loyalty." Grounded in foundadonal social science theory, the framework adheres to a sound cognidve paradigm, and allows us to speak concretely about differences in (and potendal misunderstandings about) the content of loyalty claims. This in itself represents an important contribudon to the loyalty literature, as much of the debate regarding the appropriate role of loyalty in the workplace seems to originate in an often unrecognized lack of agreement on the content and definition of the concept itself. In the following sections, we investigate the imphcations of these three currencies in the context of employee loyalty. Transactional loyalty. Transacdonal loyalty connotes fidelity in the exchange of economic obhgadons between individual and organizadon. The nature of the transacdonal reladonship is succincdy captured by the idea of "a fair day's work for a fair day's wage." For example, employers may deem themselves loyal to employees if they consistently pay fair wages and provide reasonable benefits as UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY a reward for employees' efforts. Employees may consider themselves loyal to the organizadon if they show up for work, complete required job assignments, and do not take advantage of gaps in the organizadon's monitoring of their performance. The notion of transactional loyalty implies a subtle irony, and requires supplemendng ordinary nodons of what "d-ansacdon" means. Rooted as it is in market exchange, transactional loyalty is driven by self-interest; economic theory holds that people enter exchange reladonships to increase their own udlity. In this spirit, transacdonal loyalty might be expressed as, "I'll stay loyal, as long as it is good for me." Yet this characterizadon of transacdonal loyalty is inadequate because, by our own definidon, loyalty implies some potential for self-sacrifice. Loyalty is not loyalty unless altematives to the relationship are available. As Fletcher (1993: 8) puts it, "the minimal demand of loyalty is the maintenance of the relationship, which requires the rejecdon of altemadves that undermine the principal bond." This is what makes an otherwise utilitarian market transaction an issue of loyalty—some form of self-sacrifice, however small, is required (Axinn 1997; Schrag 2001; see also Hirschman 1970; Withey and Cooper 1989). What, then, does someone who is loyal in a transactional sense sacrifice in order to maintain his or her loyalty? Is departure for a more lucrative exchange reladonship proscribed by the demands of transacdonal loyalty? At a purely transacdonal level, it seems overstated to call an employee disloyal if he or she accepts a higher paying job with another company. The demands of transactional loyalty do not require attachments to persist in the face of better exchange opportunides, because the very logic of transacdonal loyalty involves engaging in relationships that maximize utility for both exchange partners. Rather, the "rejected altemative" that constitutes transactional loyalty is, instead, opportunistic self-interest, or seeking self-interest at the expense of the exchange partner. Transactional exchange partners who are loyal may end the relationship if a better altemative exists, but they will not act opportunistically (e.g., shirk, misrepresent fair labor prices, withhold deserved economic benefits, etc.). In terms of its moral underpinnings, transacdonal loyalty reflects the ethos of a fair market exchange. Its ethical foundations reside in social contract theory (see Thompson and Hart 2006), which argues that insdtudons bind themselves together to create a social order that protects those who would be victimized by rampant opportunism (Hobbes 1657/1968). The bonds of equitable transacdonal exchange protect exchange partnersfrom potendal opportunism, while transacdonal disloyalty imphes opportunistic abuse of economic reciprocity. The normative literature on loyalty rarely discusses the concept as a form of market exchange, perhaps because the standards of economic loyalty seem so elementary. Nonetheless, it is easy to andcipate that parties will level claims of disloyalty when their exchange partners do not meet these terms. For example, an employee might claim transacdonal disloyalty when the organizadon fails to provide employment benefits consistent with industry standards, despite the employee's good performance on die job. Employers BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY might claim transactional disloyalty if a well-paid employee wastes time surfing the intemet at work. Relational loyalty. The type of loyalty that receives the most attendon in the ethics literature is loyalty embedded in personal reladonships. Reladonal loyalty involves an individual's constmcdon of expectadons based on the exchange of socio-emodonal currency (MacNeil 1985; Rousseau and McLean Parks 1993). In this type of loyalty, reciprocity is based upon mutual commitments to maintain interpersonal harmony, to merit tmst, and to persist in allegiance between partners even in the presence of altematives. In the employment exchange, reladonal loyalty means that employees transcend self-interest and seek to benefit their employers, perhaps by exercising organizadonal cidzenship or other extra-role behaviors on the job (Organ 1988; Robinson and Morrison 1995; Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch 1994; see Coyle-Shapiro 2002 in particular for a deeper discussion on the connection between psychological contracts and organizational cidzenship behaviors). They value the socio-emotional support provided by their coworkers and remain attached to the organizadon even if more lucrative job opportunities are available. Given the attention of ethics scholars to relational aspects of loyalty, we advocate that thefield consult more carefully the social psychology literature on the relationship between employee and employer, particularly with regard to constmcts such as organizadonal cidzenship behavior and perceived organizadonal support (e.g., Eisenberger et al. 1986; Shore and Tedick 1991; Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch 1994; Coyle-Shapiro and Conway 2005). Furthermore, reladonal loyalty reflects an ethos of social obligadon. Parties to the relationship adhere to collecdvist values and choose to subordinate pure self-interest to cooperation. The exchange of socio-emotional currency creates deeper bonds of attachment than does transacdonal loyalty, and this tends to make reladonships more stable (Rousseau and McLean Parks 1993). Consequently, relational loyalty is similar in many ways to "group loyalty," as discussed in the ethics literature, because it usually involves some sense of idendty or membership (Fielder 1992; Fletcher 1993; Marantz 1993; Oldenquist 1982) and other types of informal involvement such as association with one's peers, or even one's superiors in a hierarchy (Blau and Scott 1962; Murray and Corenblum 1966; Hoy and Rees 1974; Souryal and McKay 1996). Accordingly, an employee might claim reladonal disloyalty if organizadonal leaders ostracized her socially despite her consistent efforts to provide encouragement to her work colleagues. An employer might claim reladonal disloyalty if an employee publicly cridcized her after she had provided him special opportunities for professional development. Ethicists have often employed reladonal logic to describe loyalty as the incorporadon of the organizadon's idendty into one's own idendty or version of the self (Ladd 1967; Oldenquist 1982; Ewin 1993; Fletcher 1993; Haughey 1993). Consequendy, reladonal loyalty assumes some of the moral significance of the concept of integrity. One who is loyal in a relational way to a collective incorporates it as a portion of the self; thus, infidelity to the collective represents a failure to be tme UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY to oneself. Relational loyalty implies an ethical imperative to sacrifice one's own interest in order to protect the target of loyalty and to maintain the reladonship in the face of altemative partners. Consequendy, given strong reladonal loyalty, someone may feel compelled to hide the tmth in order to protect a reladonship. For this reason, reladonal loyalty is at the heart of the debate over whedier loyalty is a virtue or a vice—strong relational loyalty can foster deceptive behavior for the sake of protecting the relationship. A third type of loyalty, which may counteract the potendal dangers of reladonal loyalty, is ideological loyaUy. Ideological loyalty. Thus far, we have described loyaldes simply as reladonships between two exchange pardes. Naturally, loyalty is often more complex than this. People maintain loyaldes to multiple parties simultaneously, forging complex webs of obligadon (Oldenquist 1982; Provis 2005). These loyaldes may compete with one another, or at dmes they may merge such that they are virtually indistinguishable to the individual. This is often tme of what we term ideological loyalty, which occurs when an employee's loyalty to an organization is enmeshed with loyalty to a cause or principle that the organization espouses. As we described earher, ideology-infused psychological contracts entail percepdons that the employee is bound to the organizadon by mutual commitment to a cause (i.e., a social good extemal to the organizadon; Thompson and Bunderson 2003). Ideological loyalty emerges when individuals perceive that the exchange partner embodies a cause that represents an unconditional good, and for that reason they feel bound by obligation toward the exchange partner. The phenomenon is reminiscent of Kelman's (1958) concept of intemahzadon as a basis of commitment. Intemalizadon occurs when people feel attachment to another party because their beliefs align with the value system promoted by that party. Commitment research has shown that intemalizadon represents a disdnct base of commitment that differendally relates to individual behaviors when contrasted with Kelman's two other commitment processes, compliance and identification (Becker 1992; O'Reilly and Chatman 1986). In a similar vein, we argue that ideological loyalty is a disdnct loyalty form in that it is founded on perceived mutual obligations related to the moral demands of a worthy cause or principle. Our invocadon of a cause as a basis of loyalty is not unique. Royce defined loyalty as "the wilhng and pracdcal and thoroughgoing devodon of a person to a cause," as well as "the will to beheve in something etemal, and to express that belief in the pracdcal life of a human being" (Royce 1908: 9,166). Applying this definidon to an organizadonal setdng, loyalty can take the form of an individual-organizadon bond premised on mutual commitment to some cause that transcends both personal and organizadonal self-interest. Consequently, ideological loyalty is rooted in an ethos of social responsibility. We argue that ideological loyalty tends to assume more moral significance in the employment setting than do transactional or reladonal loyalty because it is less rooted in self-interest-seeking and has more potential to create broad societal value beyond the bounds of the employment relationship.' BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY When an employee feels ideological loyalty, he or she uses organizadonal membership as an opportunity to advocate for and contribute to the cause. In retum, the individual expects from the organizadon a credible commitment to the cause or principle and good faith efforts to make a positive difference on its behalf. For example, most non-profit organizations rely on this relationship—people working at non-profits often sacrifice eaming power for a meaningful contribution toward some social good. Along the same lines, many employees have chosen a career in the public sector based on devotion to the cause of public service (Perry and Wise 1990; Perry 1997; Brewer, Selden, and Facer 2000). In the private sector, businesses also often affihate with causes. Companies such as Timberland and Target have distinguished themselves because of their association with the pursuit of social agendas (employee voluntarism and sponsorship of charides, respectively). More broadly, businesses are increasing their focus on contributions to particular causes in the name of social responsibility and corporate citizenship. Recent research has suggested that corporate cidzenship efforts are related to employee loyalty (i.e., lower tumover and higher levels of organizadonal commitment; Peterson 2004). What is both fascinating and challenging about viewing loyalty from an ideological perspecdve is that doing so introduces an extemal entity into the employee/ employer relationship; the cause that binds one to an organization resides somewhere outside the organization itself. Because one's affiliation with the organizadon reUes upon the ongoing requirements of the cause, if the cause were to be suddenly fulfilled, one's affiliation with the organization may become meaningless (unless the organization embraces a new cause to which the employee can readily attach him- or herself). Moreover, in such a relationship, loyalty toward the organizadon is likely to be condidonal, but loyalty toward the cause may not be. For this reason, organizational decisions that appear to contradict the cause may represent a breach of the loyalty reladonship and elicit responses such as employee outrage and the withdrawal of transacdonal or relational loyalty, even if those decisions do not affect the employee's personal welfare direcdy (Thompson and Bunderson 2003). An employee might claim ideological disloyalty, for instance, if she joined an organizadon because of its pro-environment agenda and afterwards leamed that the organizadon chose to pursue a different strategy that did not emphasize environmental responsibility as originally understood. A vivid example is provided by Environmental Defense, a nonprofit organizadon devoted to creating innovadve solutions to environmental problems. Environmental Defense stirred up charges of disloyalty to the cause from both inside and outside the organizadon when it partnered with thefirst Bush administradon and McDonald's corporadon—perceived by many environmentalists as key opponents—on environmental inidadves (Reinhardt 2003). Employers, hkewise, might claim ideological disloyalty if employees neglect to contribute to the espoused cause; e.g., by refusing to participate in volunteer opportunities central to the organization's cmsade to alleviate poverty. In summary, a content-based view of employee loyalty, inspired by the psychological contract perspective, provides a complex but more complete picture of UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY loyalty. It is an organizing framework that depicts the various ways in which one can feel "bound" to an organization. The binding mechanisms include self-interestseeking in transacdonal loyalty, group-interest-seeking in reladonal loyalty, and commitment to a principle or cause in ideological loyalty. As we discuss below, this tripardte reladonship predicts unique dynamics—^both in robustness and volatility— that do not normally appear in discussions of loyalty reladonships. The Dynamics of Loyalty in Organizations Our framework allows us to consider the interplay of the various binding mechanisms of loyalty. How, for instance, does ideological loyalty impact an employee's loyalty to the transacdonal or relational aspects of the organization? Are some loyaldes preconditions for the emergence of other loyalties, or can they develop independently? What are the ethical implicadons of loyalty operadng in only one of the three dimensions, or simultaneously in multiple dimensions? Do employees and managers exploit loyalties by playing one type of loyalty off of another? These are just a few of the questions that a psychological contract view of loyalty may inspire. Our characterizadon of loyalty, with its variety of content, suggests the possibihty of multiple configuradons of loyalty between two exchange partners. We wish to focus on two generic loyalty configuradons which are suggested by the psychological contract literature and its emphasis on contract fulfillment versus breach. First, we will discuss symmetrical loyalties, which emerge when employees perceive that their organizadon is reciprocadng the same type of obligadons that the employee feels toward the organization. We suggest that there are both posidve and negative implications to symmetrical loyalties. Second, we discuss asymmetrical loyaldes, which occur when employees perceive that the organizadon emphasizes obhgadons to the employee that are misaligned with those the employee feels in retum. Symmetrical Loyalties Symmetry implies that both the employee and the employer premise their reladonship on the same types of obligations, be they transactional, relational, or ideological. Symmetrical loyaldes are likely responsible for the vast majority of the benefits of loyalty that theorists have idendfied. This is because symmetry suggests a stable relationship in which people's expectadons about their employment reladonships are met. Symmetry in the transacdonal dimension occurs when both the employer and employee perceive their reladonship to be an economic exchange. Fulfillment of such expectadons include the organization's provision of fair compensadon and benefits, which creates an obligation, on the employee's part, to exert a reasonable effort to consciendously perform required tasks. Symmetry in reladonal loyalty emerges when both parties to the employment relationship perceive work as a socio-emotional exchange, in which interpersonal BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY tmst and allegiance form an important basis for cooperation. Symmetry in reladonal loyaldes is consistent with benefits such as the building of community (Oldenquist 1982; Hecksher 1995; Mele 2001; Randels 2001), fostering cooperadon between employees and employers (Hecksher 1995), and intrinsic modvation to perform well on the job (Ewin 1993, Haughey 1993; Yoon, Ko, and Baker 1994; Schrag 2001; Rosanas and Vehlla 2003). Finally, symmetry in ideological loyalty is manifest when an organization espouses a cause and makes genuine contributions to it (e.g., financial contribudons, resources, public advocacy, and intemal practices or policies that mobilize employees to contribute), and when employees feel a similar obligadon to use their organizational membership to pursue the cause (e.g., by initiating efforts to serve a particular constituent, taking a personal pubhc stand, or sacrificing non-work time to benefit the cause; Thompson and Bunderson 2003). In short, ideological symmetry occurs when the employee and organizadon are harmoniously bound together by devotion to some noble pursuit of a societal good. In addidon to the benefits of these three types of symmetry, a great deal of damage may also arise from symmetrical loyalties. One of the gravest dangers of loyalty is the tendency to suspend moral judgment (Schrag 2001). This seems most likely when employee/employer loyaldes are both ahgned and unitary. That is, if one's relationship to an organization is premised on one and only one of the three types of loyalty we have described, then we posit that there is a greater potential for the dangers of loyalty to surface. For example, if the employment relationship focuses solely on transacdonal loyalty, the dominating market mentality may provide an employer with an excuse to provide only economic benefits and ignore intangible benefits that employees may need. If the employment relationship entails only relational loyalty, the reladonship may supersede other valid concems and result in problems such as groupthink (Janis 1982; Tumer and Pratkanis 1998) and goal displacement (Merton 1957), among others. And with symmetry in ideological loyalty alone, critical thinking may become a victim of the mutual commitment to a cause in the employment relationship, as is the case with fanatical patriotism (Oldenquist 1982; Maclntyre 1984/2002; Gomberg 1990; Nussbaum 1996). Royce (1908: 22) alludes to this dynamic when he describes the integration of one's personal moral judgment with one's loyalties when "cause becomes conscience." Taken in concert, however, multiple loyalty types may also weaken the tendency to suspend moral judgment in the face of the demands of a pardcular type of loyalty. This is because multiple types of loyaldes can act as checks for the excesses of one another. An employee who feels relational loyalty will be less inclined to withhold cridcism from the organization, for instance, if she simultaneously feels ideological loyalty, because the importance of the organization's espoused cause will likely counterbalance the tendency to "cover for" the failings of organizadonal representadves. Potendal excesses of ideological loyalty too may be counterbalanced by transacdonal or relational loyaldes. For example, one of the authors of this paper has interviewed health care providers in an integrated health system UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY who felt that the insurance arm of the organizadon was disloyal to the cause of healing the sick (due to what they felt were draconian denials of coverage). When providers began to interact personally with insurance executives, however, and thus develop reladonal loyalties to them, they began to appreciate the challenges of deciding which patients to cover, and adopted a more reasoned and moderate approach to pursuing the cause of healing the sick. Their relational loyalties, as well as an enhanced understanding of the economic realities faced by the organization, allowed them to place the demands of ideological loyalty in context and to avoid extremism in their views about the cause (thus tempering the tendency for "cause to become conscience"). Although harboring different types of loyalty simultaneously may be cognidvely complex for both employees and organizadonal agents, doing so will likely midgate the excesses of loyalty that have alarmed some ethicists (Carbone 1997; Ewin 1992, 1993; Mele 2001; Oldenquist 1982; Petdt 1988; Randels 2001). Because these types of loyalty will weigh differently in the minds of individuals depending upon the context, it is difficult, if not impossible to develop a precise predicdon about the condidons under which a particular loyalty type will dominate over another in assessments of whether the terms of loyalty are fulfilled. However, simply recognizing that there are a variety of obligadons and variability in their weighdngs allows us to think more carefully about what loyalty means in a given context, and about the possibility that what appears to be disloyalty may actually be misahgned types of loyalty between two parties to a relationship. In much of the exisdng philosophical literature, symmetrical loyalty tends to be an a priori assumption (see for example, the special issue on loyalty edited by Gilbert 2001, for a representative illustration). In the following secdon, we provide an analysis of how asymmetry occurs in loyaldes between employer and employee. We also discuss the latent hazards of asymmetry between employers' and employees' perceptions of loyalty. Asymmetrical Loyalties Given the idiosyncrasies of individual constmcdons of loyalty using multiple currencies, it is easy to see the difficulty in aligning loyalties to meet individually derived expectations. The psychological contract perspective on loyalty, with its articulation of three distinct currencies, provides a theoretical stmcture to account for the asymmetries that can occur in loyalty relationships. The common denominator among asymmetries of loyalty is that two parties to a reladonship maintain different percepdons about the type of obligadons they have to one another. It is important to note that the misahgnment in percepdons does not necessarily mean that one party is disloyal to the reladonship, although the other may deem it to be so. Rather, the perceived breach of loyalty derives instead from asymmedy in the currencies of loyalty rather than disloyalty itself. Retuming to our cognidve definidon of loyalty, asymmetry may also be characterized as the case of two actors conceiving of different reciprocal obligations in their relationship to BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY one another; each may feel that they themselves have met the three condidons of loyalty as articulated in our definidon, but because their constmal of the content of the expectadons differs from the exchange partner, they may consider each other disloyal. The moral implicadons of disloyalty and asymmetry are very different. While disloyalty is generally accepted as a moral faihng, loyalty asymmetries may occur despite good-faith efforts by both pardes to fiilfill genuine obUgadons. Even though loyalty asymmetries do not represent an ethical violation per se, we argue that disdnct moral issues attend asymmetries in each of the three exchange currencies. From a practical standpoint, the mere percepdon of these asymmetries may create deep feelings of ethical violation. We invesdgate three fundamental asymmetries—i.e., what happens when a party to an employment reladonship constmes the reciprocal obligadons between them to be rooted in one of die three exchange currencies, but perceives that the other party does not position its loyalty in terms of that same currency. In other words, we are asking what moral issues might arise in an employment relationship where employees believe that their loyalty to the organization is rooted in economic exchange, for instance, but perceive that the organizadon does not reciprocate loyalty in economic terms. We also consider what results if the opposite is tme—that is, employers premise the reladonship on economic exchange but employees do not. Given the potendal for asymmetries in two directions across three different exchange currencies, we consider six potendal mismatches in tum. For each of the six asymmetries, we identify the underlying moral issue that complicates the relationship between employee and employer. Transactional asymmetries. We willfirst consider the case in which the employee feels transactional loyalty to the organization, but perceives that the organizadon is not transactionally loyal in retum. For example, an employee may feel that she is doing a fair day's work—arriving on dme, putting in the required hours and effort, completing the basic tasks assigned to her—but that the organization is not providing a fair economic reward. She may feel that her salary and benefits are below fair market value, or that the organizadon denies her reasonable salary increases. In any case, the employee believes that she is fulfilling economic obligations in good faith, but that the organizadon is not loyal in retum. The key moral issue that underlies this asymmetry is inequity. Equity theorists have argued that receiving rewards proportional to one's input is a fundamental human expectadon (Adams 1965). Along these same lines, the organizational jusdce literature has shown that people's perceptions of faimess are influenced by both the distribution of resources as well as procedural processes (Alexander, Sinclair, and Tetrick 1995; see also Cropanzano et al. 2001 for a comprehensive overview). Transactional loyalty asymmetries from the employee perspecdve violate basic expectations about equity and faimess, and thus incite feehngs of injusdce. The irony here is that, as with other asymmetries, organizational agents may actually be acting loyally in terms of other exchange currencies (i.e., they may provide ample UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY opportunides for employee development and group membership). Nevertheless, because the employee is emphasizing transacdonal loyalty in her relationship with the organizadon, the lack of reciprocadon of economic obhgadons consdtutes, from her perspective, a breach of loyalty. Transactional asymmetries can work in the opposite direcdon as well. Organizations in which transactional loyalty is emphasized will provide compedtive salaries and fair incentive packages to their employees. Employees, however, may not reciprocate that particular type of loyalty. Some may shortchange the organizadon in terms of the hours they put into their work, or their effort while they are on the job. Some may chat with coworkers or respond to personal e-mails while they are on the clock. Others may take advantage of sick leave policies to leave work for personal reasons. A key moral issue that characterizes this asymmetry is shirking. Shirking occurs when an employee takes advantage of incomplete organizational monitoring or the indistinguishabihty of his or her inputs from those of others and chooses to supply less effort than is required for the job (Leibowitz and ToUison 1980). Shirking may come in many forms, including free-riding on team assignments, taking excessive breaks, gaming the timeclock, etc. In any case, shirking is a moral issue because it entails employees misrepresenting or shortchanging their economic obhgations to the organization. Nevertheless, employees who shirk may still consider themselves to be loyal; they may cite their intendon to stay with the organization, their public advocacy of the organizadon, or their belief in the organizadon's mission as illustrative of their loyalty. In any case, asymmetry between organizadonal leaders' and employees' loyalty definidons is at the root of this moral conffict. Relational asymmetries. Reladonal asymmetries provide perhaps the most visible of the moral issues associated with loyalty relationships (Gilbert 2001). They occur when employees place relational expectations on the organization which are then not reciprocated. This is perhaps best captured by employee statements such as: "I throw my heart and soul into this organizadon and get nothing back. The organizadon takes advantage of my loyalty." In other words, reladonal asymmetry, from the employee's perspective, entails a belief that one devotes ample socio-emodonal resources to the organizadon, but that the employer does not reciprocate by respecting or valuing the employee, expressing interest in employees' concems, or affording opportunides for the employee's growth and development at work. The consequent moral issue here is attribudons of callousness on the part of the organizadon (or its agents). Corporadons were clearly considered callous and uncaring, for instance, in the wake of the downsizing trend of the 1990s (Clancy 1999; Orlando 1999; Stroh and Reilly 1997). Employees expressed a tremendous outpouring of moral outrage as businesses summarily and unfeehngly (in their view) laid off people that had devoted a significant portion of their lives to their organizadons. The failure of organizadons to reciprocate reladonal loyalty left downsized victims (and surviving employees) to feel that their organizadons had long been exploiting their commitment and devodon (Clancy 1999; Gordon 1996; BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY Hecksher 1995). So, when employees feel reladonal loyalty to their organizadons, but organizadonal acdons do not signify reladonal loyalty in retum, charges of callousness are hkely. Relational asymmetries can also arise because employees fail to reciprocate relational obligadons to the organization. For instance, one outcome of the changing employment contract is the tendency for employees to switch jobs and careers much more frequently than they used to (Kissler 1994). Perhaps more than ever before, employees view their organizadons as stepping stones to achieve greater personal success. Organizadons that seek to build a culture of dedicadon to employees may find their efforts thwarted by job-hoppers who do not reciprocate the company's socio-emodonal commitment. Claims of employee disloyalty seem likely in this scenario. The moral issue that these organizations face is opportunism by employees. Because the new employment contract liberates employees from felt obligations of reladonal loyalty, they feel free to leave their employers for better opportunides with little thought for the consequences to their employers. This clearly creates problems for employers who attempt to build a strong culture and develop long- term employee relationships and skill sets. Just as employees oftentimes feel their employers do not genuinely care about them as individuals, organizational leaders can feel they are being "used" by opportunisdc employees who do not attend to their relational obligations to members of the organization. Ideological asymmetries. Less examined in the loyalty literature are ideological asymmetries, two forms of which we idendfy here. Thefirst is organizational indifference to ideological loyaldes. This occurs when the employee perceives ideological obhgadons within the employment contract but perceives that organizadonal agents do not fulfill those same obligadons. For instance, Bunderson and Thompson (2006), in a study of zoos as an organizadonal context, encountered many animal handlers who felt deeply loyal to the cause of wildlife conservation, but who believed that the administrators of their zoos were concemed only with financial success. This dynamic appears to be common in ideologically driven organizations such as public service, non-profit, and govemmental agencies. Idealistic employees, such as social workers, nurses, teachers, and public servants, often become disillusioned when they perceive that the administration of their organization is more focused on polidcs or finances than on serving constituents (see, for instance, Chemiss 1995). Under this form of asymmetry, hypocrisy is a moral issue. This is because, from the employee perspective, the organization has not hved up to the ideals upon which the employees premised their membership in it. In many cases, no doubt, the ideological aspect of the work was an important selling point in the recmitment of the employee. Consequently, employees may experience moral outrage because they feel that organizational leaders have misrepresented the organizadon's real values. Once again, however, organizational leaders may be surprised by charges of disloyalty. They may believe that protecting the financial solvency of the organization is emblematic of their loyalty to the cause and to employees (both in a transactional UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY sense, because it helps them compensate employees, and in a relational sense, because it makes long-term employment and professional development possible). They likely consider employees naive to the complexity of managing an ideologically driven organization (Thompson and Bunderson 2003). On the other hand, ideological asymmetries in the opposite direction also exist. In some cases, organizadonal leaders perceive ideological obligadons in the employment contract, but employees do not. For example, a business that commits strongly to social responsibility might encounter employees who view these efforts with cynicism or disinterest. Some employees refuse to pardcipate in community service efforts or charitable donations, for instance. In the non-profit setting, a charity may employ people who are only working for a paycheck, or a religious university may stmggle with faculty who are skeptical of or openly resist the school's ecclesiastical mission. Moreover, organizational leaders may also perceive that employees are committed to other causes that conflict with or distractfrom the organizadon's ideology. Managers of an organizadon that vigorously pursues environmental protection may, for instance, consider as disloyal any employees who express conservadve political views even on issues unrelated to the environment. In short, organizadonal agents often perceive employees to be ideologically disloyal when they choose not to "buy in" to the idealistic goals or values of the organizadon, or if they embrace causes that appear to mn counter to the organization's ideals. One way to characterize the moral issue underlying this asymmetry is inconstancy. Organizational leaders are likely to characterize employees who do not espouse organizadonal values as fickle and unwilling to put "higher values" above their own personal benefit or pet causes. They may view such employees as uninspired, unfocused, or loyal only to self. These same employees may express loyalty in other ways, however. They may dihgently fulfill job requirements (transacdonal loyalty) and provide support to colleagues and coworkers (relational loyalty). Nevertheless, their lack of investment in the ideological currency of the organizadon may brand them as disloyal from the leaders' perspecdve. Note that in all of these cases, the party accused of disloyalty may actually exhibit genuine loyalty at some level. Charges of disloyalty may signal misaligned loyalties rather than disloyalty per se. As a result, organizational agents criticized as ideologically disloyal can honestly respond: "How can you say we are not loyal? We consistently provide a fair wage to our employees and foster their professional development!" Or, employees charged with transactional disloyalty can, in good conscience, reply: "How can you say I'm not loyal to my company? I treat everyone here as a friend, I never badmouth the company to outsiders, and I donate to the company charity every year!" Without specifying the content of loyalty obligadons, debates about loyalty and disloyalty thus become intractable because the pardes to the reladonship are speaking in different terms. BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY Discussion There seems to be growing agreement that there is a human need to direct one's emodons and dedicadon toward something—whether it be individuals, groups, organizadons, or causes. As Ewin (1992:419) puts it, loyalty "is the rawest expression of our social nature," and without it "groups would not be formed and we should all be isolated asocial atoms." Consequently, loyalty is "an essendal ingredient in any civihzed and humane system of morals" (Ladd 1967:97). Yet pracdcally speaking, loyalty becomes a complex issue when posidoned within an organizadonal context. Current research on loyalty, in both the philosophical and social psychological tradidons, tends to obscure this complexity by focusing on dichotomous or scalar conceptuahzadons and to overlook the idiosyncrasy inherent in the perceived content of loyalty. Ourframework, based on the psychological contract tradidon, addresses these problems by viewing loyalty as idiosyncradc constmctions of perceived obligadons and evaluations of their fulfillment. The variety of content implicit in these constmcdons yields a complicated but more realistic picture of loyalty. Specifically, it allows us to define loyalty more precisely by ardculadng the types of obligations it implies, and to andcipate both symmetrical and asymmetrical configurations of loyalty content in relationships. We think the theoredcal and pracdcal implicadons of this contribution are important. One benefit of a more cognitive approach to loyalty is to reframe scholarly discussion of loyalty versus disloyalty. While disloyalty certainly exists and has powerful moral implicadons, it is often invoked in situadons that are not necessarily clear breaches of loyalty. In order to understand the moral implicadons of loyalty, we must consider that percepdons of loyalty are idiosyncradc and individuahzed. We call upon ethicists to consider the specific content of loyalty as they theorize about the virtues, vices, and ethical implicadons of loyalty in the employment reladonship. Another potendal benefit of theframework is that it should help scholars address the issue of how individuals manage (and ought to manage) muldple and confUcdng loyaldes. This is a cridcal component of the ethics of loyalty (Oldenquist 1982; Fletcher 1993) and we argue that important inroads can be made in approaching this concept from a more cognitive perspecdve. Because individuals create a muldtude of psychological contracts with various constituents, it stands to reason that people will constmct varying sets of expectations regarding loyalty to these constituents. The perceived obhgations underlying these reladonships will likely differ on the extent to which they invoke transactional, relational, and ideological elements. The framework provides concrete, and even measurable, dimensions to characterize loyaldes. We believe that these dimensions provide useful tools that allow scholars to consider when a pardcular loyalty is likely to tmmp another. The ability to predict the outcomes of loyalty dilemmas depends, we believe, on combining an understanding of loyalty content with loyalty targets. Another avenue for future inquiry is the perhaps surprising nodon that asymmetry between two pardes' constmal of loyalty may actually provide moral safeguards. UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE LOYALTY When there is asymmetry in felt obhgadons, parties to the contract may tend to be more vigilant about their interacdons with one another, and more likely to quesdon the motives and means of the other party to the reladonship. The resuldng attendon to, and condnuing reanalysis of, the meaning of loyalty in the reladonship, although potendally socially complex, may prevent unthinking allegiance and the suspension of cridcal thinking in the name of loyalty. We believe this is an important quesdon that is amenable to both philosophical reasoning and empirical scmdny. We note, of course, that the framework we have articulated also has limitadons that require circumspecdon in its apphcadon to theory. Because we have focused on psychological contracts in the workplace as a lens through which to view workplace loyalty, there are forms and aspects of the human experience of loyalty that hkely fall outside the parameters of our framework. For instance, it may be ill-equipped to help us think about indmate interpersonal loyalties such as that between parent and child, which entails dudes that are generally perceived to transcend reciprocity and which are often experienced as uncondidonal (i.e., parents' obhgadons to their children are rarely weighed against the child's fulfillment of obhgadons in retum). Some social contracts become "covenantal" (to borrow a characterizadon of Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch 1994) and thus may move beyond nodons of reciprocity characteristic of employment relationships. Moreover, people often speak of loyalty toward targets that are intangible and thus incapable of reciprocity—such as loyalty to a principle, to a creed, and to oneself. Consequently, although we believe our framework provides much needed stmcture to the concept of employee loyalty, there remains considerable conceptual work to do to fully articulate what loyalty means to human beings in general. In addidon to its theoredcal implicadons, ourframework suggests relevant pracdcal implicadons as well. The ethical pitfalls associated with symmetrical loyalty are well-documented, and a psychological contract approach ardculates even more complexides, including the potendal for asymmetry in expectadons. Our framework provides a diagnosdc tool that can aid a manager in thinking through the reasons that an employee might claim disloyalty. For instance, when a disgmntled employee grouses "The problem is that this company is not loyal to its people," the tendency for a manager may be to grow defensive and enumerate all the things that the company has doneright for the employee. However, this response introduces therisk that the employee and manager will speak past each other because they are adopdng different definidons of loyalty. Considering the tripartiteframework of loyalty allows the manager to invesdgate with the employee whether he feels the issue involves the company being negligent in its economic obhgadons (transacdonal loyalty), or inattendve to the employee's needs for support and involvement (reladonal loyalty), or lax in its commitment to the cause that inspired the employee's allegiance to the organizadon in the first place (ideological loyalty). The concept of asymmetric loyalties also underscores the practical importance of ahgning expectadons early in the employment reladonship. Research has shown that realisdc job previews, in which supervisors and employees explicidy discuss BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY expectadons at work, contribute markedly to job survival among employees (Wanous et al. 1992). The framework we provide suggests an agenda for pre-employment discussions about what parties to an employment relationship ought to expect from one another. While the psychological contract hterature is based on the nodon that people judge their relationships based on implicit and unspoken perceived obligadons, making these obligadons explicit—in other words, tuming the psychological contract into a verbal contract—is likely to midgate future problems of asymmetry, or at least make them more amenable to discussion in die future. At the least, recognizing the muldfaceted nature of loyalty should encourage circumspecdon in making sweeping claims about another's loyalty, and should foster careful consideradon about the content of loyalty obligadons in a pardcular reladonship. Given that loyalty is not a straightforward virtue (Carbone 1997; Mele 2001; Randels 2001), a major issue confrondng both managers and academics is how to manage the complexides and moral challenges of muldfaceted loyalty. Because of the very idiosyncradc nature of loyalty, it is understandable, if not inevitable, that feehngs of loyalty will occasionally foster unrealisdc expectadons of one's exchange partner. Thus, when an organization's leaders strive to foster strong loyalty among their employees, the expectadons fostered by that loyalty will somedmes go unmet, which may lead to cynicism, resentment, and even hosdhty (Grosman 1989). On the other hand, the inevitable asymmetries between loyalty expectadons may also foster opportunides for employees and their managers to invesdgate more precisely what they expect of one another and to avoid the moral trap of allowing loyalty to tmmp cridcal reasoning. 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