Temporary workers, permanent consequences: Behavioral implications of triangular employment relationships by Catherine Elizabeth Connelly A thesis submitted to the School of Business in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada August 2004 Copyright © Catherine Elizabeth Connelly, 2004 Abstract The modern workforce has changed dramatically from a generation ago; many workers can no longer anticipate permanent employment with a single organization. The proportion of workers who have a temporary employment relationship, and who find work through an intermediary, is increasing rapidly. However, despite this upsurge in intermediated temporary work, our understanding of the intricacies inherent in the resultant triangular employment relationship is limited. Of the areas that require further investigation, the effect of organizational justice on the behaviors of intermediated temporary workers is of paramount importance. However, at the present time it is unclear whether workers’ treatment in one context (e.g., their temporary firms or their client organizations) will affect their behaviors in another work environment (e.g., their client organizations or their temporary firms). As a preliminary step, new measures of organizational citizenship behaviors and counterproductive workplace behaviors (towards both temporary firms and client organizations) were generated from a series of interviews with current and former temporary workers and supervisors. These metrics, which are specifically relevant to intermediated temporary workers, were pre-tested in a survey to ensure their validity, and were then used in the final study. The final study was a survey administered to temporary workers affiliated with two branch offices of a large temporary firm. As expected, workers’ perceptions of their treatment in one context affected behaviors in that context. In addition, these perceptions also affected behaviors in the “other” context. Justice from the temporary firm predicted ii behaviors towards both the temporary firm and the client organization. Similarly, justice from the client organization predicted behaviors towards the temporary firm and the client organization. This study also found that negative affectivity predicted perceptions of justice in both contexts, and it also predicted whether the workers felt that their pursuit of temporary work (as opposed to permanent employment) was voluntary. This “volition” predicted temporary workers’ citizenship behaviors. Several control variables, including tenure, age, and gender, as well as moderators that included organizational identification and perceived threats of sanctions, were not found to be significant. This dissertation concludes by drawing implications for practice and suggesting directions for future research. iii Acknowledgements This dissertation is dedicated to temporary workers everywhere. I would like to thank Dan Gallagher for sparking my interest in this topic, and for the many interesting conversations that we have had, especially in the early stages of my writing. I am especially grateful that he continued to work with me even after he returned to James Madison University. I would also like to express my gratitude for the thoughtful contributions of Jane Webster, whose guidance was invaluable. I am particularly grateful that she agreed to help me with a topic outside her discipline. Without the insights provided by these two scholars, this dissertation would not have been possible. I am particularly grateful that they worked so well together. There are numerous other people to whom I owe thanks. I am deeply indebted to Jane Dutton, who generously used her influence to find my research site for my third study, and also to Gerry Coady and the kind people at CoTalCo Inc, which was the primary site of my first study. I am also very grateful for the assistance of Julian Barling and Bill Cooper, who helped me to broaden the scope of my research, which made it more interesting. I would like to thank my friends in Kingston and around the world for the moral support and our many fun times. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the PhD program, for their encouragement and support. I would especially like to thank those who helped me practice my dissertation proposal (Alan, Andrew, Ann Frances, Adrienne, Chris, Dave, Dave, Dianne, Ian, Jon, Kate, Kara, Leighann, Lina, Manon, Mark, iv Maureen, Michelle, Nick, Prakash, Sandy, Sandy, Sarah, Stephen, and Yannik) as well as those who kindly helped me to assemble my survey packages (Ana, Andrew, Ann Frances, Kate, Kelvin, Manon, Maureen and Sam). Finally, I would like to express my gratitude for the patience of my office-mates while I transcribed my interviews without remembering to turn on my headphones. I would like to thank Linda, Teresa, Lisa, Anne, and Annette for their assistance with the many details that were integral to the timely completion of my dissertation. I would also like to acknowledge the financial support provided by Dan, Jane, the Queen’s School of Business, Queen’s University, the Province of Ontario, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I would also like to thank Mom and Dad and Christine, for being my first teachers, and for providing me with lots of encouragement at times when I needed it most. Finally, I thank Adam, for his love, which cannot be quantified. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv List of Figures x List of Tables xi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 Contributions 3 Overview 5 CHAPTER II: CURRENT RESEARCH ON INTERMEDIATED CONTINGENT WORK 7 Types of Contingent Work 8 Methodologies 11 Context of the Contingent Work Environment 13 Independent and Dependent Variables 13 Characteristics of contingent workers 14 Working conditions of contingent workers 15 Job and work attitudes of contingent workers 17 Behaviors of contingent workers 19 Perspectives of organizations that use contingent workers’ services 20 Methodological Limitations of Contingent Work Research 21 Gaps in the Research on Contingent Work 24 CHAPTER III: EXPLAINING INTERMEDIATED TEMPORARY WORKERS’ BEHAVIORS 28 DEPENDENT VARIABLES 31 Organizational Citizenship Behaviors 31 Organizational citizenship behavior towards the client firm 35 Organizational citizenship behavior towards the temporary firm 37 Counterproductive Workplace Behaviors 39 Counterproductive behaviors towards the client organization 40 Counterproductive workplace behavior towards the temporary firm 41 PREDICTORS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORKPLACE BEHAVIORS 43 Distributive Justice 45 Distributive justice from the temporary firm 45 Procedural Justice 46 Procedural justice from the temporary firm 46 Procedural justice from the client organization 47 Interactional Justice 50 vi Interactional justice from the temporary firm 50 Interactional justice from the client organization 51 MODELS 53 Segmentation 54 Spillover 57 ADDITIONAL HYPOTHESES 62 Trait Negative Affectivity 63 Volition 64 CONTROL VARIABLES 66 Tenure 66 Impression Management 67 Social Desirability 68 Demographics 70 MODERATORS 71 Organizational Identification 72 Threats of Sanctions 74 Summary 75 CHAPTER IV: INTERVIEW STUDY 76 Method 76 Participants 76 Themes Explored 77 Analyses 78 RESULTS 80 Counterproductive Workplace Behaviors 80 Interpersonal Deviance: Client Organizations 80 Interpersonal Deviance: Temporary Firms 81 Organizational Deviance: Client Organizations 83 Organizational Deviance: Temporary Firms 85 Organizational Citizenship Behaviors 87 Interpersonal Helping: Client Organizations 87 Interpersonal Helping: Temporary Firms 89 Individual Initiative: Client Organizations 90 Individual Initiative: Temporary Firms 91 Personal Industry: Client Organizations 92 Personal Industry: Temporary Firms 94 Loyal Boosterism: Client Organizations 95 Loyal Boosterism: Temporary Firms 95 Spillover: Counterproductive Workplace Behavior 96 Spillover: Organizational Citizenship Behavior 98 Other Findings 98 Impression Management 99 vii Relationships 101 Threats of Sanctions 103 Compensation 104 Areas for Future Research 105 Work Commitment 105 Advantages of Temporary Employment 106 Challenges of Temporary Employment 107 Summary 108 CHAPTER V: SURVEY PRETEST 110 Method 110 Measures 112 Impression management 112 Social desirability 113 Organizational identification 113 Analyses 113 Results 114 Counterproductive workplace behaviors 115 Organizational citizenship behaviors 118 Correlates of Counterproductive and Citizenship Behaviors 122 Social Desirability 122 Impression Management towards the Client 124 Impression Management towards the Temporary Firm 124 Client Threats of Sanctions 125 Temporary Firm Threat of Sanctions 125 Organizational Identification 125 Source of Distributive Justice 126 Summary 126 CHAPTER VI: MAIN SURVEY 127 Method 127 Measures 129 Dependent variables 129 Justice 131 Volition 134 Threat of sanctions 135 Negative trait affectivity 136 Organizational identification 136 Control Variables 136 Analyses 137 Results 141 Moderators 144 CHAPTER VII: DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS 148 Discussion 148 viii Strengths and Limitations 154 Implications for Research and Practice 157 Conclusions 160 REFERENCES 162 APPENDICES Appendix A: Empirical Publications on Contingent Work and Contingent Workers 184 Appendix B: Theoretical Publications on Contingent Work and Contingent Workers 198 Appendix C: Protocol for the Semi-Structured Interview Study 202 Appendix