Search results

The purpose of this editorial is two‐fold: first, to provide an overview of team‐related issues in the particular realm of contingent work arrangements, and second, to introduce the collection of articles encompassing this special issue.

The editorial is a general literature review that provides the readers of this special issue with a broader scholarly literature framework. The editorial also provides a historical context of the field. First, the phenomenon of contingent work arrangements is discussed. Second, attention is given to identification of major strategic factors, which have been contributing to the growth of contingent work arrangements. Third, team‐related issues of differentiation, integration, and cooperation are discussed.

The overview of research in the area of contingent work arrangements demonstrates that such work arrangements are diverse in their contractual structure. The rationale for which organizations use contingent work arrangements are diverse, as are the reasons why employees undertake such work outside the scope of the traditional employment model. Research in this area has grown primarily with the focus on economic, legal, and social factors influencing the expansion of non‐standard work arrangements. Less research is found in the area of individual, managerial, and organizational consequences of this expansion.

This editorial – and the special issue in particular – gives attention to understanding the array of experiences associated with contingent workers with the purpose of accumulating theoretical knowledge in this field, but also – and perhaps more importantly – to add to the transition from evidence‐based knowledge to practical advice.

This paper seeks to challenge the claim that traditional and non‐traditional employees differ significantly in terms of their needs, personality characteristics, and work motivation patterns, by surveying management consultants in Canada.

The study is based on a quantitative online survey undertaken among 204 Canadian management consultants in 2008, representing both traditional employed consultants, contingent consultants, and company representatives.

The study demonstrated no significant differences with regard to needs, motivation, and personality characteristics between traditional and non‐traditional employed management consultants, which means that no significant changes to existing human resource management policies seem to be needed.

The existing literature on contingent employees' needs, personality characteristics and work motivation has mainly been devoted to the study of differences between traditional and non‐traditional work arrangements seen as single groups. This study extends and complements the understanding of the underlying dimensions of both the explicit and the implicit contract within the contingent management consultant‐organization relationship in order to explain the influence of these dimensions on the human resource management strategies. The underlying assumption is that non‐traditional work arrangements vary according to the type of job and the context in which the job is performed.

The main goal of this article is to present a new taxonomy of contingent employment that better represents the wide variety of part‐time, temporary, and contract employment arrangements that have emerged since Feldman's review.

Reviews the literature over the past 15 years.

The paper suggests that contingent work arrangements can be arrayed along three dimensions: time, space, and the number/kind of employers. In addition, analysis of the recent research on contingent employment should be expanded to include worker timeliness, responsiveness, job embeddedness, citizenship behaviours, quality of work, and social integration costs.

The article suggests that a wider range of individual differences (including education, race, citizenship, career stage, and rational demography) all serve to moderate the relationships between different kinds of contingent work arrangements and outcome variables.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the differential effects of workplace stress and the use of social support by contingent vs standard employees.

Conservation of resources (COR) theory is used to frame research questions. Using content analysis of 40 interviews from individuals in the hospitality industry, differences between the levels of stress reported by contingent and standard employees as well as differences in their use of social support networks to offset stress is examined.

Contingent employees report experiencing more stress than do standard employees in the same profession. Furthermore, contingent employees seek out more social support than do standard employees. There was no difference between the two groups with respect to the desire for social support from three sources: vertical, horizontal, and customer groups.

This study extends the literature on contingent workers, the literature on how different types of employees deal with stress, as well as adding to the COR literature by showing that contingent employees experience and assuage their stress differently than do standard employees.

This paper aims to illustrate a simple, holistic overview of contingent workforce management.

This paper’s viewpoint outlines benefits and challenges that employers and employees encounter with contingent work arrangements and highlights relevant human resource (HR) practices to effectively manage contingent workforce.

Benefits to employers are cost-effective hiring solutions, filling-up skill requirements, increasing numerical flexibility and diversity and broadened talent pool. Challenges include legal ramifications, hidden costs, confidentiality and security issues, low organisational commitment and productivity. For employees, benefits are working flexibility and financial gain and gaining work experience. Challenges include dependence on economy, irregular work hours, health risks and exploitation and differential treatment by employers. “Value-adding” practices of holistic hiring, onboarding, performance management, workplace training and developing resilient organisational culture can effectively manage contingent workforce.

This paper provides a broader outline of benefits and challenges, both from employers’ and employees’ perspectives, linked with precarious employment. Further investigations on employers’ and employee’s perspectives based on specific types of contingent work arrangements (e.g. temporary agency workers and gig workers) can give in-depth insights.

This paper provides a simplified framework of pros and cons of contingent employment, along with practical HR remedies to manage contingent workforce.

The use of contingent knowledge workers may be an efficient means of investing in an organization's intellectual capital. However, exposing contingent workers to private, key competitive knowledge is considered risky. A study was undertaken to collect the costs, benefits and losses experienced by organizations that had contracted contingent knowledge workers to develop intellectual capital.

A purposive cross‐section of senior managers of knowledge‐intensive organizations were interviewed regarding the tangible benefits, costs, perceived risks, and experienced losses from contingent knowledge worker arrangements. The constant comparison method of analysis was used.

The data revealed perceived increases in flexibility, expertise, creative stimuli, and knowledge bank development. These benefits were believed to have bottom‐line impact through product and process improvements and innovations, and operational efficiencies. The managers did not perceive much risk or experience material losses as a result of the contingent knowledge worker arrangements.

These findings are based on interviews with a small group of organizations. Although not generalizable, they present an interesting contrast to previous researchers’ conclusions regarding the use of contingent knowledge workers. Further empirical work is needed to test the degree to which this study's findings can be generalized.

Contrary to recent literature, this study suggests that contracting contingent knowledge workers to develop in‐house intellectual capital is worth the risk.

The study presents a divergent viewpoint on the contracting of contingent knowledge workers. It also initiates research on rational evaluation of investments in intellectual capital, which constitutes an important contribution to the area of knowledge management. It also contributes to the ongoing research on intellectual capital valuation.

Companies are being encouraged to adopt a positive organisational safety culture in order to safeguard their operations against accidents. The viability of a positive safety culture within the context of a diverse workforce, characterised by a reduced number of permanent employees, supplemented with more contingent and contract workers, is considered. This review summarises theoretical and empirical evidence of the likely effects of changing employment arrangements on safety attitudes and behaviours, and implications for organisational safety culture. It is argued that it will be more difficult to integrate employees with diverse working arrangements, compared to a workforce of permanent employees, into a corporate safety culture. Human resource management techniques and practices are identified as ways of developing and maintaining positive safety attitudes across all types of employees. The need for further empirical work is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to compare knowledge employees' perceptions of contingent work with their managers' perceptions, highlighting potential differences in their respective psychological contracts which might produce dissonance in the employment relationship.

Original research using interviews and scalar data of both contingent knowledge workers and their managers are reported. The study sample consists of 32 contingent knowledge workers and 33 managers in five industries in Canada: two public sector and three private sector.

The results of this study indicate that differences exist between contingent knowledge workers and their managers with how contingent work affects career goals, promotion opportunities, and training and development opportunities. Additionally, differences occur in the constructs that mirror the traditional empirical measurements of the psychological contract. Two major themes are revealed: coping with uncertainty and integration with the organization on the part of contingent workers and managers.

This study contributes to research on contingent employment as it compares manager and contingent knowledge worker responses in terms of the psychological contracts formed by each.

This work examines the intersection between traditional human resource management and the novel employment arrangements of the expanding gig economy. While there is a substantial multidisciplinary literature on the digital platform labor phenomenon, it has been largely centered on the experiences of gig workers. As digital labor platforms continue to grow and specialize, more managers, executives, and human resource practitioners will need to make decisions about whether and how to utilize gig workers. Here the authors explore and interrogate the unique features of human resource management (HRM) activities in the context of digital labor platforms. The authors discuss challenges and opportunities regarding (1) HRM in organizations that outsource labor needs to external labor platforms, (2) HRM functions within digital labor platform firms, and (3) HRM policies and practices for organizations that develop their own spin-off digital labor platform. To foster a more nuanced understanding of work in the gig economy, the authors identify common themes across these contexts, highlight knowledge gaps, offer recommendations for future research, and outline pathways for collecting empirical data on HRM in the gig economy.

The world of work is changing and creating challenges and opportunities for the employment inclusion of young people with disabilities. In this article, the perceptions held by young adults with disabilities regarding participation in the future of work are examined.

One-on-one interviews were conducted with Canadian young adults (ages 18–36 years) living with a disability. Participants were asked about their thoughts regarding the impact of the changing nature of work on their labor market involvement and career aspirations. A thematic analysis was performed to identify and examine emergent salient themes.

In total, 22 young adults were interviewed; over half held secure employment. Career aspirations and work-related decisions were primarily shaped by a participant's health needs. The future of work was seen as a more proximal determinant to employment. Digital technologies were expected to impact working conditions and create barriers and facilitators to employment. Participants who indicated being securely employed held positive expectations regarding the impact of digital technology on their work. Participants working precariously held negative appraisals regarding the impact of digital technologies on employment opportunities. The role of technological and soft skills was critical to participating in a labor market reliant on advanced technology. Participants reported barriers to developing job skills related to their disability and their work arrangements.

This research highlights the importance of considering changes in the future of work, especially the digital transformation of the economy, in the design of initiatives which promote the employment inclusion of young adults with disabilities. Despite the significance of the changing nature of work, supporting health needs and encouraging access to secure work arrangements also remain paramount.