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Managerial discourses tend to portray work-related mobility practices in a positive light, presenting mobility assignments as a place of stimulus and differentiation. A conception of mobility as an opportunity, may contrast, in specific economies and business settings, with lived personal experiences. This article reports the results of a three-year study, aimed to question how multinational companies (MNCs) located in a small and developing European economy (Portugal) are building talent pools for expatriate assignments. Interaction effects, as proposed by the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, are considered as lens to understand the interplay of company expatriate policies, willingness profiles and psychological contracts of expatriates. By using a Portuguese sample, the study examines whether prior findings in mature economies and consolidated MNCs can be generalized to less developed international business settings.

A three-year study, encompassing 24 expatriate cases observed in five multinational firms born or located in Portugal. Two techniques of empirical data collection were used: statistical sources and documental analysis and in-depth interviews. A total of 37 interviews were conducted, both in-person and remotely, of which 13 were with company managers and representatives, and 24 with expatriates (as defined and referred like this by the companies under study).

Heterogeneous company policies, ranging from juvenile, functionalist to more dynamic and flow-based approaches, are presented as qualifying resources of willingness levels and psychological contracts of expatriates. Observed interaction effects between policies, willingness and psychological contracts, empirically mirrored in three profiles (conformist, protean and disrupted expatriates) suggest that incentive effects (emanating from company policies) and job demand-resource balance, factored as terms of social and economic trade, are non-linear and asymmetric, influencing firm propensity to succeed while using international work to support company expansion goals. As job resources, expatriate policies are presented as operating as pull or push factors: functionalist HR approaches seem to act as push factors generating more conformist or compelled willingness profiles.

Generalization of study's outcomes has limitations. Future studies are encouraged to use comparative and longitudinal research designs. Furthermore, future research should include business expatriates with entry-level positions, and increase the number of interviewees, as results can also be considered as limited by sample size.

It is suggested that further strategic work is needed to present expatriation development value, formally screen and consider willingness level as selection criteria, and enlarge the pool (from internal to external) of candidates, in peripheral economic settings such as Portugal. A shift to more dynamic and job resource-dense policies are suggested as beneficial, as pathway to optimize social and economic value from expatriation assignments and work experiences.

By putting the interplay between macro and micro-level processes into perspective, the study provides empirical evidence on how company expatriate policies have come to promote unforeseen differentiation of employee willingness and psychological contracts at the heart of MNCs. This is particularly relevant in developing economies such as Portugal, challenging the need to build talent pools for international work assignments. Empirical data illustrating company policies interactive effects with different willingness profiles and psychological contracts of expatriates is provided.

Based on the psychological contract (PC) theory, the purpose of this paper is to identify PC profiles, differentiating between permanent and temporary agency workers (TAW). Moreover, the authors analyzed whether different profiles presented different levels of work engagement.

A cross-sectional survey data analysis of 2,867 workers, of whom 1,046 were TAW, was analyzed using latent profile analyses.

Four PC profiles were identified, which differed quantitatively in terms of the overall dimension levels (i.e. balanced, relational and transactional) for PC (i.e. content and fulfillment). ANCOVAs showed that the relational/balanced dominant and transactional dominant profiles presented similar engagement levels for TAW, but for permanent workers the former profile showed higher engagement than the latter. However, for both permanent and TAW the fulfillment profile showed higher engagement than the unfulfillment profile.

The cross-sectional design and the reliance on self-report measures are the limitations of this study, although no causality was claimed and method biases were controlled.

Actions that increase PC fulfillment positively affect the employment relationship of TAW with the client organization.

Few studies have addressed PC typologies. Furthermore, most studies have focussed on temporary workers, but not on TAW and their contract with the client organization. Finally, this study emphasizes the crucial role played by the PC in the levels of work engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature linked to the emerging field of employer branding, with a view to adding insight from the perspective of the management of human resources.

The approach taken entails reviewing books and academic journals from the area of marketing, organisational behaviour (OB) and business management. The review shows that research and theory from a range of fields can help add to one's knowledge of employer branding; these include areas of research that investigate organisational attractiveness to potential new recruits, research and writing linked to the psychological contract literature as well as work that examines organisational identity, organisational identification and organisational personality characteristics.

The main limitation of the review is that, while different areas and fields of research are being drawn on to help identify useful knowledge that can improve one's understanding of what effective employer branding might involve, the literature and research in each area will be (necessarily) selective.

The review has a number of general practical implications; many of these are highlighted in the propositions set out within each section.

The originality of the review is that it is unique in showing how different areas of literature can be linked to employer branding. The review helps to integrate the existing literature in a way which can help personnel practitioners to immediately see the relevance of theories and research from a range of key academic fields.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of psychological contracts of international business travellers (IBTs), a new form of expatriate that has arisen from the growing need for alternative forms of internationally mobile talent. The research is conducted in Belgium, a country recognised as a global hub in which international assignments are essential to economic success.

Research in respect of IBTs is limited and semi-structured interviews are used to explore Belgian employee perspectives.

The contract is more relational in nature than might be expected with an idiosyncratic mix of relational and transactional obligations.

The research is small-scale and qualitative and not widely generalisable. Further it presents only employee perspectives. Nevertheless it generates rich insights into a phenomena about which little is known.

The findings develop understanding of how to manage the valuable strategic resource that is the IBT.

First, the research is of value to the International Human Resource Management field in developing understanding of a newly emerging form of international employee, the IBT. Second, it contributes to psychological contract research in both developing understanding the transactional/relational balance and in generating much-needed rich and nuanced qualitative data.

Few studies aim to uniquely conceptualize the experiences of bridge employees after they enter the workforce. Supported by the psychological contract theory and the self-determination theory, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the bridge employment experience by examining how the expectations of bridge employees shape their experiences.

This paper first reviews the extant literature on bridge employment. It then discusses the psychological contract theory and the self-determination theory, and examines the expectations of bridge employees through the theoretical perspectives of these two theories, to examine experiences in bridge employment.

Discord in the bridge employment relationship may be attributed to a lack of understanding of the implicit expectations of bridge employees. More specifically, unmet expectations may be detrimental to the bridge employment experience, and ultimately jeopardize both employer and employee outcomes.

This paper examines expectations and experiences of bridge employees from a theoretical perspective. Theoretical tenets are utilized to analyze how and why implicit expectations may influence bridge employees in ways that result in detrimental outcomes for both employers and employees.

This paper sheds light on why bridge employment arrangements may result in adverse outcomes. Specifically, when there is a lack of understanding between bridge employees’ expectations and experiences, both individual and organizational outcomes may be impaired. An improved understanding of the bridge employment experience will likely result in an enhanced working relationship between bridge employees and employers, and minimize misunderstandings about this cohort of the workforce.

Using the guidelines of the psychological contract theory and the self-determination theory, we develop a model to examine how expectation of bridge employees may affect the experiences and ultimately, the outcomes of bridge employment. The authors also identify factors uniquely applicable to bridge employees. This is the first paper that examines the experiences of bridge employees through such theoretical perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between pay satisfaction, global job satisfaction, loyalty and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) – as they all pertain to contingent workers. The proposed model suggests, due to the nature of contingent work, pay satisfaction will influence the above variables. Additionally, this study aims to explore the relationship between pay satisfaction and OCB directed toward an individual employee.

This study used a cross-sectional research design, administering a web-based survey to the participants (n=117) for data collection. Hierarchical regression, correlation and relative importance analyses were used for hypothesis testing.

The results suggest pay satisfaction of contingent workers is positively related to global job satisfaction, loyalty to a hiring agency, loyalty to a client company and OCB directed toward a client organization.

The primary contribution of the current study was the assessment of extrinsic rewards and their relationship to job satisfaction, loyalty and OCBs among contingent workers. This appears to be the first study to assess the relationship between pay satisfaction and loyalty, along with OCBs of contingent workers. The findings establish the importance of pay when loyalty to both staffing agency and client company is considered.

Owing to business uncertainty, it is prudent for organizations to rely on temporary employees to achieve numerical flexibility. This paper investigates the effect of perceived investment in temporary employee development (PITED) on organizational performance (OP) through the mediation process of organizational identification (OI), work engagement (WE) and the moderation process of perceived human resource policies (PHRP). A conceptual framework was built on social exchange theory and job demands-resource theory.

Data was collected from skilled temporary employees deputed at client organizations in the information technology business process management (IT-BPM) industry. Analysis was done using the partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) method using SmartPLS 3.0 software.

The study established a significant association between PITED, OI and OP, in which OI acts as a partial mediator. In contrast, the mediating relationship of WE between PITED and OP was insignificant. PHRP moderated the relationship between PITED and OP.

This research suggests to top management and human resource leaders that PITED makes temporary employees identify with client organizations, resulting in increased OP.

This research builds on theoretical assumptions to adopt a temporary employee perspective on organizational initiatives and performance in the IT-BPM industry, which is uncommon.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the specific relationship between temporary agency workers (TAWs) and their employing temporary work agencies in Germany that is characterized – in contrast to other European countries – by agencies’ central role in employment and the prevalence of permanent contracts. The study addresses a research gap in understanding the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS) provided by temporary work agencies in the relationship between employment-specific antecedents and TAWs’ subjective well-being (SWB).

Based on a sample of 350 TAWs in Germany, the mediating role of POS provided by agencies is analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The authors show that procedural justice, performance feedback and social network availability positively relate to POS while perceived job insecurity shows the expected negative influence and distributive justice has no impact on POS. POS, in turn, positively relates to SWB. The partially mediating effect of POS between employment-specific antecedents and SWB is also confirmed.

The study is based on cross-sectional data and self-reported measures; this may limit causal inferences.

The results highlight the importance of agencies creating POS and reducing perceived job insecurity for improving TAWs’ SWB.

The study contributes to previous POS research by focusing on the agencies’ role and by showing the mediating effect of POS on TAWs’ SWB in Germany.

This study aims to investigate the possible negativity of job embeddedness in developing countries. Operationally, the study aimed to configure the relationship between job embeddedness and cyberloafing with respect to both contextual (job satisfaction) and individual (internet addiction) factors.

Incorporating the conservation of resources theory and reactance theory into the theory of job embeddedness, the present study adopted a resource-based approach to job embeddedness to examine its main and moderated effects on cyberloafing in a three-way interaction model. With the focus on public organizations, 500 administrative employees from an Iranian university were surveyed using self-reporting measures, and the collected data were analyzed using partial least squares–structural equation modeling and hierarchical moderated multiple regression.

As predicted, job embeddedness was positively associated with cyberloafing; however, in contrast with predictions, job satisfaction had no inverse impact on the job embeddedness–cyberloafing relationship, and its role was limited to neutralizing the increasing effect of internet addiction.

Consideration should be given to how job embeddedness interacts with contextual and individual moderators to affect cyberloafing. In particular, this study implicated some practical procedures to provide employees with on- and off-the-job resources and avoid fighting over the organization's resources. Additionally, this study provides insights into embeddedness-satisfaction interplay to provide employees with propitious work conditions in line with organizational productivity.

There is little research on the association between job embeddedness and counterproductive work behaviors, and the findings are inconsistent. A review of the literature revealed no study addressing cyberloafing implications of job embeddedness. This study expands the literature by theoretically and empirically correlating job embeddedness and cyberloafing in a non-western developing country. Accordingly, the significance of this study is its capability in mitigating cyberloafing behaviors by promoting the adverse job embeddedness.

Drawing on COR theory and based on a person-centered approach, this study aims to explore profiles of both leadership behavior (transformational leadership, abusive supervision) and well-being indicators (cognitive irritation, emotional exhaustion). Additionally, we consider whether certain resource-draining (work intensification) and resource-creating factors (leader autonomy, psychological contract fulfillment) from the leaders' work context are related to profile membership.

The profiles are built using LPA on data from 153 leaders and their 1,077 followers. The relationship between profile membership and correlates from the leaders' work context is examined using multinomial logistic regression analyses.

LPA results in an interpretable four-profile solution with the profiles named (1) Good health – constructive leading, (2) Average health – inconsistent leading, (3) Impaired health – constructive leading and (4) Impaired health – destructive leading. The two groups with the highest sample share – Profiles 1 and 3 – both show highly constructive leadership behavior but differ significantly in their well-being indicators. The regression analyses show that work intensification and psychological contract fulfillment are significantly related to profile membership.

The person-centered approach provides a more nuanced view of the leadership behavior – leader well-being relationship, which can address inconsistencies in previous research. In terms of practical relevance, the person-centered approach allows for the identification of risk groups among leaders for whom organizations can provide additional resources and health-promoting interventions.