Human resource management in triangular employment relationships

• Author(s): Fontinha, Rita
• Date: 2013
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/7592
• Origin: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
• Subject(s): Teses de doutoramento (co-tutela) - 2013
• Document Type: Doctoral thesis
• Language: English
• Advisor(s): Chambel, Maria José, 1962-; De Cuyper, Nele
• Contributor(s): Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa

Description

Tese de doutoramento (co-tutela), Psicologia (Psicologia dos Recursos Humanos do Trabalho e das Organizações), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Universidade de Lisboa, 2013

This dissertation concerns the triangular employment relationships of agency workers and outsourced workers. In particular, the aim was to investigate the relationship between employees’ perceptions and attributions of human resource management (HRM) practices and their dual affective organisational commitment, i.e., their commitment towards both the agency/outsourcer and the client organisation. We developed three empirical studies. In the first study, we found that commitmentfocused HRM attributions are positively and control-focused HRM attributions are negatively related to the two foci of affective commitment among a sample of outsourced IT workers. Affective commitment to the outsourcer mediates the relationships between HRM attributions and affective commitment to the client organisation. In the second study, we used a longitudinal design and contrasted the employment relationships of temporary and permanent agency workers. We found that a permanent contract with an agency is negatively related to employees’ HRM perceptions, to their psychological contract fulfilment and ultimately to their affective commitment to the client organisation. A permanent contract with the agency is not perceived as an inducement, since it decreases the chances of a direct contract with the client. In our third study, we contrasted temporary agency workers and outsourced workers from the manufacturing sector. We found that for temporary agency workers, affective commitment to the client mediated the relationship between commitment-focused HRM and performance. For outsourced workers, affective commitment to the contractor mediated this relationship, reflecting the different salience in organisational roles. Overall, our results provide evidence on the heterogeneity of the contingent workforce, regarding contractual arrangements (permanent vs. temporary agency workers) and externalization strategies (temporary agency work vs. outsourcing). Although some previous management theories claim that contingent employees are more expendable, our results also hint at the relevant role of HRM practices as antecedents of favourable employee attitudes and behaviours.

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, SFRH/BD/47633/2008)