Do HRD investment strategies pay? Exploring the relationship between lifelong learning and psychological contracts

In the context of the debate over the returns on investment from company-level HRD strategies, this article explores the relationship between a programme of lifelong learning and employee perceptions of their psychological contracts. It does so through an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data drawn from a longitudinal case study of a well-known Scottish company. The data provide evidence of a positive relationship between the lifelong learning programme and employee perceptions of careers, fairness, and certain key outcomes of psycho-logical contracts, even when the company reduced its previous commitment to job security. This finding allows us to speculate on the positive relationship between HRD and trust relations and the importance of this relationship for future organisational change in the plant.