Abstract
In a comprehensive examination of whether the Big Five personality traits could be used to predict transactional and relational contracts, the current study aimed to investigate the moderating effects of uncertainty avoidance on the relation between the personality traits of employees and their formed psychological contracts with respective employers. Time-lagged data were obtained from 469 respondents representing the public and private sector employees of Pakistan in order to ensure theoretical generalizability. Transactional contracts were found to be positively predicted by Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism whereas these contracts were negatively predicted by Extraversion and Agreeableness. On the other hand, relational contracts were positively predicted by Extraversion and Agreeableness and negatively predicted by Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism. Uncertainty avoidance was found to affect the relation between Agreeableness and relational contracts. Implications, limitations and future directions are also discussed.