On the job and co-worker commitment of Dutch agency workers and permanent employees

This article explores the relationship between employment status (agency workers vs. permanent employees) and affective and normative job and co-worker commitment. Our study was conducted on employees from four metal companies in the Netherlands. As HRM practices seem to influence employee commitment, we performed 89 interviews across all four companies and included blue-collar workers, their managers (direct supervisors, HR managers and production managers), as well as works council members. To test our hypotheses on commitment differences, we conducted quantitative research within the companies (permanent employees N = 167; agency workers N = 54), all blue-collar workers. Results show that permanent employees and agency workers express similar degrees of commitment to their job and to their co-workers, apart from affective commitment to co-workers, which is lower for agency workers than for permanent workers. We argue that national legislation, as well as managers' attempts to offer HR practices equal to those of permanent staff, play a prominent role in stimulating agency workers' commitment.     

New public management and organisational commitment in the public sector: testing a mediation model

This paper focuses on the attitudes of learning professionals towards New Public Management (NPM). In a survey of the UK further education sector (n = 433), NPM beliefs were found to be positively associated with both affective and normative organisational commitment. However, as expected, NPM beliefs were not found to be related to continuance organisational commitment. The results also show that although perceived organisational support mediates the relationship between NPM beliefs and affective organisational comment, it is only a partial mediator of the relationship between NPM beliefs and normative organisational commitment. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings, and potential directions for future research, are discussed.     

Perceived HRM practices,organizational commitment,and voluntary early retirement among late‐career managers

Using a sample of 514 French late‐career managers representing a variety of occupations and organizations, we investigated the relations among perceived HRM practices, organizational commitment, and voluntary early retirement. We found that the provision of training opportunities was associated with the most favorable outcomes. It was related to higher affective and high‐sacrifice commitment, lower lack of alternatives commitment, and reduced voluntary early retirement. On the other hand, we found that flexible working conditions and the assignment of older workers to new roles (for example, mentor or coach) did not have the expected positive effects. In addition, our results highlight the importance of disentangling the components of continuance commitment, as high‐sacrifice commitment was associated with reduced likelihood of voluntary early retirement, while lack of alternatives commitment had the opposite effect. These findings suggest that voluntary early retirement should be incorporated as a major outcome in future organizational behavior research. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Exploring possible trade‐offs between organisational performance and employee well‐being: The role of teamwork practices

There is growing evidence linking teamwork practices to performance outcomes. However, critics have raised concerns that such outcomes are achieved at the expense of increased job demands and stress among workers. Using large data from a representative sample of British workplaces (N = 4,311 workers in 664 workplaces), this study explores the pattern of relationships between teamwork practices, organisational performance, and employee well‐being. The study draws on a mutual gains model linking teamwork practices to organisational performance via affective commitment, and a conflicting outcomes model associated with high job demands and job‐related anxiety. The study also examines an interactive outcomes model that integrates the mutual gains and conflicting outcomes models. The study reports evidence that the performance gains of teamwork practices may actually come at the cost of increased job demands and job‐related anxiety. Nevertheless, these adverse outcomes tend to weaken at higher levels of affective commitment.     

顾客关系承诺研究:模型与实证

顾客关系承诺有三个维度,持续性承诺、规范性承诺以及情感性承诺。顾客关系承诺意愿越强,则其转换意图就越弱,忠诚度越高。持续性承诺的影响因素包括转换成本和服务质量;情感性承诺的影响因素包括满意和信任;规范性承诺的影响因素为主观规范。对山东省服务业的调查分析显示,情感承诺、规范化承诺和持续性承诺都与转换意向负相关,但是情感承诺由规范化承诺中介,即情感承诺越强,对服务供应商的规范化承诺越强。主观规范与转换意图之间的关系由规范性承诺中介,信任与转换意图之间的关系由情感承诺中介,转换成本与转换意图之间的关系由持续性承诺中介,服务质量和转换意图之间关系没有由持续性承诺中介。     

Explaining variations in absence rates: temporary and agency workers in the food manufacturing sector

This article responds to a recent call in a provocation article in the Human Resource Management Journal by Thompson to use workplace studies to investigate employees' experiences of HR practices. Examining the particular case of absence management, the article investigates the experiences of short‐term workers in the food manufacturing industry in the UK. Variations in absence rates between directly employed temporary workers and agency workers are shown to be the result of differing levels of managerial control over absence, which affects workers' ability to use absence as a form of industrial conflict to escape a low‐skilled and monotonous work process.     

Agency workers and organisation's commitment to its workers

This study explores the understanding that Dutch agency workers (i.e. workers affiliated with a temporary-help service firm) have of organisation's commitment to its workers (OCW). Semi-structured interviews with 33 Dutch agency workers aimed to answer two questions: (1) what do agency workers believe the agency and the client should offer if they are aiming for perceived OCW and (2) who are the potential messengers of agency and client OCW? If agencies and clients want to get rewarded by agency workers with perceived OCW, they have to carry a shared responsibility for many aspects of fair and favourable human resource management. However, agency workers link some aspects exclusively to one of the two organisational parties: agency workers seem to associate promotion with the client organisation, and certain aspects of job characteristics (e.g. autonomy and performance feedback) solely with the client OCW. Other elements related to job characteristics were only associated with agency OCW (current and future person–task fit, job-satisfaction concerns and job-related problems), as well as keeping in touch and problem solving (e.g. job dissatisfaction) solely with agency OCW. Moreover, agency workers personify all the mentioned responsibilities: organisational member's actions concerning these responsibilities represent OCW. Agency consultants seem to be the sole representatives of perceived agency OCW, whereas several agents (e.g. top managers, direct supervisors, co-workers, clients' ‘clients’) serve as potential representatives of client organisations' commitment.     

Employees' concerns about change and commitment to change among Italian organizations: the moderating role of innovative work behavior

Despite being regarded as a critical psychological process influencing the effectiveness of change initiatives, concerns about change have not received empirical attention in the organizational change literature. The present study addresses this issue by examining the relationships among employees' concerns about change (conceptualized as including concerns about the contents and benefits of change, and concerns about mastering the change), commitment to change and innovative work behavior. First, in a hospital undergoing a major administrative change (N = 435), concerns about change were generally found to be negatively related to affective and normative commitment to change and positively related to continuance commitment to change. These results were replicated in a chemical and pharmaceutical company undergoing a technological change (N = 113), except that concerns about change were unrelated to normative commitment to change. In addition, employees' innovative work behavior moderated the relationship of concerns about change to affective commitment to change such that the relationship was negative when innovative behavior was low but nonsignificant when innovative behavior was high. This study provides scholars and practitioners with a theoretically and empirically grounded framework for assessing employees' concerns about change, and moves research a step forward into identifying the behaviors that organizations should support to counteract this psychological threat.     

Unravelling the complexities of high commitment: an employee‐level analysis

Research within HRM has faced criticism for failing to focus adequately on employee experiences of HR practice. In particular, the ‘high‐commitment’ models fail to recognise employee perspectives on HRM, the complexities of the commitment construct and the possibility that organisations configure HR systems in various ways. This paper explores the impact of employee attitudes towards HR practices on affective, continuance and normative commitment, and intention to leave in three organisational contexts. The findings suggest that different HR systems can yield different attitudes towards HR practices, which in turn can impact on different forms of commitment and levels of intention to leave. The findings provide insights into the ways in which organisations manage the commitment process through HR practices and the response by employees to these interventions.     

Linking rewards to commitment: an empirical investigation of four UK call centres

Rewards being an important component of exchange theory, this research examines relationships among frontline employees' perceptions of rewards (extrinsic and intrinsic) and the three components of organizational commitment (i.e. affective, normative and continuance). The investigation is conducted by the help of a large survey in four call centres of a major retail bank in the UK. The results of the study support the contentions of exchange theory, and highlight the significance of both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards to develop affective, normative and continuance commitment in call centre employees. This research also helps to identify the antecedents that develop each component of commitment. The findings of this research have key messages for practitioners, and contribute to the fields of HRM, rewards, commitment and exchange theory.     

When Does the Stepping‐Stone Work? Fixed‐Term Contracts Versus Temporary Agency Work in Changing Economic Conditions

This paper emphasizes differences among short‐term contracts in terms of career prospects. Using French data over the 2002–2010 period, we rely on a dynamic model with fixed effects to disentangle state dependence from unobserved heterogeneity. Although fixed‐term contracts may provide a ‘stepping‐stone’ to permanent positions, temporary agency work is hardly better than unemployment in this regard. The Great Recession of 2008 has changed the dynamics on the labor market and amplified the difference between fixed‐term contracts and temporary agency work. For both types of temporary workers, providing overtime work does not significantly increase the transition to permanent employment. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The study of the effects of identity-related judgment, affective identification and continuance commitment on WOM behavior

In the past, many researches had focused on discussions related to the importance of word-of-mouth (WOM) that affects consumer behavior. In this research, the antecedents of WOM behavior will be discussed from WOM senders’ perspectives. It covers consumers’ identity-related judgment, affective identification, and continuance commitment. Furthermore, discussions will also be made regarding whether consumer affective identification and continuance commitment will affect the relationship between consumers’ identity-related judgment and WOM behavior. The study findings show that the distinctiveness and conformity of consumers have significant effects on consumer affective identification. In terms of mediating effects, consumer affective identification plays a mediating role in consumers’ identity-related judgment, continuance commitment and WOM behavior.     

Commitment before and after: An evaluation and reconceptualization of organizational commitment

A review of the organizational commitment literature has pointed out several advantages as well as some limitations of the approach advanced by Meyer and Allen (Meyer, P.J. and Allen, J.N. (1997). Commitment in the workplace: Theory, research, and application. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.). The advantages include good psychometric properties of the current scales, acceptable discriminant validity of the three dimensions, and research findings that showed the usefulness and acceptable content validity of the three-dimensional approach. Some of the limitations are limited predictive validity, conceptual ambiguity of continuance commitment, and concept redundancy between normative and affective commitment. This paper suggests a conceptualization that builds upon the strengths of the current approaches and minimizes their limitations. The proposed theory contends that organizational commitment is two-dimensional. One dimension is instrumental in nature and the second is affective. In addition, a sharp difference needs to be made between commitment propensity that develops before one's entry into the organization and commitment attitudes that develop after one's entry into the organization. The advantages of the suggested theory and its implications for the understanding of organizational commitment and future research on it are discussed.     

The impact of the employee-organization relationship on temporary employees' performance and attitude: testing a Singaporean sample

Following the framework proposed by Tsui et al . (1997), this research paper examines the impact of the employee-organization relationship on temporary employees' job performance, turnover intention, overall job satisfaction, affective commitment, perception of fairness and perception of work options. Data were collected from 191 temporary employees from seven employment agencies in Singapore. Analyses conducted revealed that employee responses do vary under the four types of relationship (quasi-spot contract, under-investment, mutual investment and over-investment). In general, both mutual investment and over-investment relationships were associated with higher levels of performance and more favourable attitudes than either the under-investment or quasi-spot contract. Specifically, temporary employees under the mutual investment and over-investment relationships have better job performance, a higher level of affective commitment to the agency, improved overall job satisfaction, higher perception of fairness, higher perception of work options and lower turnover intentions. Furthermore, these finding were obtained even after controlling for the effects of company tenure and job level on employee performance and attitudes. The results highlight the importance of employee-organization relationships in eliciting the desired temporary employee outcomes. Practical implications were drawn for human resource practitioners and employment agencies on how best to manage temporary employees. Some limitations and suggestions for future research were discussed.     

The German temporary staffing industry: growth,development, scandal and resistance

In Germany the size of the temporary agency workforce has almost doubled between 2002 and 2012 prompted by deregulation and expansion of temporary staffing agency networks. This article examines the growth of the temporary staffing industry in Germany revealing important milestones in the regulatory framework transformation. The article then explores the role of key actors in the development of temporary staffing industry in the Germany labour market, in particular the shifting positions of trade unions in relation to temporary agency work, as well as intervention from the state with re‐regulation in order to mitigate for exploitative affecting temporary agency workers. The findings highlight that while the growth of the German temporary staffing industry has been substantial, and that the state has been an active agent, it has not been without its controversies and challenges, and that features of the industry remain potential barriers for its future development. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

Employees' Nonwork Obligations and Organizational Commitments: A New Way to Look at the Relationships

The authors 1 adopted a family resource view of nonwork obligations and examined these obligations' relationships to dimensions of employees' organizational commitment. Complex interactions were found between employees' marital status, number of children, and having relatives nearby as related to the continuance dimension, but not the affective dimension, of commitment. In particular, results were strongest when the focus was on employees' perceptions of whether they would experience a high personal sacrifice if they were to leave their organizations. These findings are discussed in the context of developing family‐friendly human resource programs that may help employees feel less “trapped” in organizations. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Interaction effects of dual organizational commitment on retention in international assignments: the case of Western expatriates in Vietnam

The purpose of this study is to examine the interaction effects of two commitment foci (parent company and local operation commitment) on a focal work behavior (retention in an international assignment). Accordingly, this study formulated and tested four hypotheses by using hierarchical regression, moderated regression analyses and plots of two-way interactions. The data were gathered from 471 Western expatriates working for the subsidiaries of multinational companies in Vietnam. The results confirmed that all components (affective, normative and continuance) of parent company commitment and local operation commitment positively predicted retention in international assignments; however, the retention was more driven by the parent company commitment. Besides, the relationships between two components (affective and continuance) of local operation commitment and retention were moderated by the corresponding components of parent company commitment. The findings improve the understanding of dual commitment's links to work behaviors in international business contexts. Moreover, as to the practical implication, multinational companies were recommended to be aware of the level of expatriate commitments to two foci in order to reduce the rate of premature return.     

Analysing mediating effects underlying the relationships between P–O fit,P–J fit,and organisational commitment

Abstract

Person–Organisation fit (P–O fit) and Person–Job fit (P–J fit) are important predictors of employees’ commitment to their organisations. Yet little is known about the underlying mediating variables that account for these relationships. Based on assumptions derived from Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Social Identity Theory (SIT), the present study predicts that the effects of P–J fit and P–O fit on employee commitment are mediated by job satisfaction and organisational identification, respectively. An online survey (N = 432 employees) was used to test the proposed relationships using a series of path models in AMOS. As expected, P–O fit and P–J fit are positively related to affective, normative, and continuance commitment, with P–O fit showing stronger effects than P–J fit. Organisational identification and job satisfaction completely mediate the effects of fit on the commitment facets. Evidence of differential effects for P–O fit and P–J fit suggest that different forms of fit operate in different ways to influence facets of organisational commitment. This knowledge can be helpful for advancing the integration of SIT and SET in the context of the employee–organisation relationship and for designing interventions to foster organisational commitment.     

Too old or too young? The impact of perceived age discrimination

This article examines the impact on employee attitudes of perceived age discrimination, drawing on a study of a local authority. Survey respondents report that discrimination on the grounds of being ‘too young’ is at least as common as discrimination on the grounds of being ‘too old’. Findings suggest that perceived age discrimination, whether for being too old or too young, has negative consequences for affective commitment to the organisation. Those who feel that they have been discriminated against because they are considered too old have higher levels of continuance commitment. There is partial support for the hypothesis that older workers who feel that they have been discriminated against have a stronger intention to retire early.     

Affective,Normative and Continuance Commitment: Can the ‘Right Kind’ of Commitment be Managed?

This study examines the multi-dimensionality of organizational commitment: affective, normative and continuance (including the sub-components of low perceived alternatives and high personal sacrifice), and how these are differentially related to a set of antecedents and consequences (i.e. turnover intentions, absenteeism and acceptance of change). The results, based on a sample of 505 Australian male fire-fighters, indicate that organizational commitment is best represented by the four-factors of affective, normative, low perceived alternatives and high personal sacrifice. In addition, employees experience different personal, job-related and environmental causes of commitment depending on whether they feel they want to, ought to, or need to remain with the organization. Further, not all facets of commitment enhanced organizational effectiveness, with affective being the most beneficial (i.e. employees are less likely to leave, be absent and are more accepting of change) and low perceived alternatives being the most detrimental (i.e. less accepting of change). The implications of these findings for the management of desirable forms of commitment are discussed.