Abstract: Market economy is essentially contractual economy. Contract is the foundation maintaining organization, and at its initial levels contract is the unique coordination of believes held by individuals and organization, which is called psychological contract. With the transformation of economic pattern and globalization of world economy, the psychological contract in employment relationship has changed extremely. The present article first analyzed the content, dimension, and type of psychological contract in western empirical researches, then introduced the period characteristics, finally indicated the limitation in western researches and the implications of psychological contract research for human resource management in Chinese enterprises.

Key words: psychological contract content, psychological contract dimension, psychological contract type