Denise Rousseau

Denise Rousseau is a University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, holds H.J. Heinz II Chair in Organizational Behavior and Public Policy, Heinz College and jointly Tepper School of Business.

Previously she worked on the faculties of the University of Michigan in Psychology and Institute for Social Research, Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, and Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Rousseau held visiting appointments at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Leeds University, UK, and Dublin City University, Ireland.

She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Academy of Management, and British Academy of Management and an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Undergraduate degrees with honors in Psychology and Anthropology from University of California at Berkeley. Ph.D. Psychology University of California at Berkeley.

Rousseau's influences include Herb Simon and Stephen Laner.

Former Students: Karl Aquino, Guillermo Dabos, Violet Ho, Lai Lei, Laurie Levesque, Ranga Ranganujam, and Sandra Robinson.

Rousseau developed the concept of a psychological contract in order to better specify how employers and employees understand the employment relationship. PCT also provides a basis for developing shared understandings in employment. It also addresses how to more effectively change the nature and terms of psychological contracts.

PCT recognized the existence of cognitive schema or mental models that employees and employers use in interacting with each other. The psychological contract is a system of beliefs an individual holds regarding an exchange arrangement with another (e.g., employment, customer/supplier relationship, family tie or marriage). A fundamental feature of the psychological contract is that like cognitive schemata generally, the contract, once established, is relatively resistant to change.

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