Contingent Employment
During the past two decades, there has been a noticeable inclination toward giving other directions to the worker-employer employment relationship in the industrialized nations and an increase of the use of employment differing from the traditional employment when it comes to stability (Anderson, Brosnan, & Walsh, 1994; Parks et al., 1998). By definition, the contingent workers are those who do not have an implicit or explicit contract for prolonged employment (Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangement, 2005). One of the characteristics of contingent workers is the uncertainty relating to their job stability, the contractor is fully aware of the temporary status of his/her employment (Dagot & Voisin, 2007; De Witte & Näswall, 2003; Onyishi, 2010).
The Specificities of Contingent Employment
Despite the increasing use of contingent workers by organizations and the emergence of studies covering this segment of the workforce, this area of research is still facing difficulties finding clear definitions for contingent or alternative employment (Gallagher & Sverke, 2005).
A definition of contingent workers provided by Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangement (2005) states that they are those who do not have an implicit or explicit contract for ongoing employment. In light of that definition we can distinguish, according to Connelly and Gallagher (2004) different types of contingent workers such as independent contractors, direct-hires or in-house temporaries, temporary-help service firms’ workers. The independent contractors are these people providing their services to an organization for a specific period of time. The temporary-help service workers are involved in a tripartite relationship between an employment agency, a client organization and the worker where it is clearly stated that the employment will be of fixed duration. The in-house temporaries are also called direct hires and are directly hired by an organization to meet its needs.
The table 2.1 from Parks et al. (1998) provides working definitions of different types of workers in a non-traditional employment relationship.
8 Table 2.1.
Working Definitions of Contingent Employment Arrangements
Exemplar categories Definition
Core Permanent full-time and part-time workers with either an implicit or explicit understanding that employment will be continuous or ongoing Floats Full-time employees who are moved around within different departments
or divisions within the organization as a regular part of their job
Networked Individuals whose work is performed outside the boundaries of their home organization
In-house Workers hired by the organization to meet variable scheduling needs, temporaries listed in a `registry' (i.e., performs function of temporary agency) Direct-hire or Workers for whom organizations advertise and recruit for the purpose seasonal temporaries of filling position vacancies as needed
Leased workers Employee leasing company effectively `rents' an entire workforce to a client employer
Temporary firm The temporary firm is the employer, rather than the client organization workers who utilizes the workers
Subcontracted Work is transferred to another organization whose employees perform the workers tasks on or off the premises of the client company
Consultants Organization either contracts with a professional consulting firm or with independent consultants for the completion of a project
Independent Brought into the firm to supply specific skills, from manual labor such as contractors plumbing to software and other engineering applications
______________________________________________________________________________
Source: “Fitting square pegs into round holes: Mapping the domain of contingent work arrangements onto the psychological contract,” by Parks, Kidder, and Gallagher (1998), Journal of Organizational Behavior, 19(S1), p.702.
Studies on temporary workers classified them into clusters of people voluntarily choosing this type of work because it fits their needs, involuntary temporaries and people working under contract for the time being but with the objective of changing to permanent status in the future either with the same organization or elsewhere.
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The Non-profit Sector
The Non-profit Organization
There are several major actors in a society which, with their specific activities play an inherent role in keeping a society alive. These players are: the state also called the first sector that is in charge of a nation, the marketplace or second sector which is entirely engaged in economic and financial actions in the society, the civil society or third sector which comprises the non-profit actors. All these actors co-exist within a society to keep it running (Lee, 2012). What differentiate the NPO with the for-profit organizations is their values. The for-profit’s main purpose is to accumulate financial gains which help expansion and generate profits that are shared to enrich their shareholders whereas the non-profit focus is more socially oriented. The NPO gains, if any, are reinvested in accomplishing its mission instead of being shared amongst individuals. The non-profit activities vary from environmental protection to education, from humanitarian aid to health, religion, charities and so on.
Like the for-profit organization, the NPO has an organizational structure making sure its operations runs smoothly and efficiently, need funds to operate, has employees, care about its image, and needs to be competitive in order to stay afloat. According to Basini and Buckley (1997), the third sector refers to organizations whose course of actions is distinct from the state and the private sector. This term includes the organizations also referred to as non-profit, voluntary or charities, and independent. The key characteristics of the third sector actors are:
1. They do not necessarily exist to generate profits for the owners, but they may generate income that is spent.
2. They may be outside the realm of government and private enterprise, but they may rely on both for funding or expertise etc.
3. They may be staffed by unpaid volunteers as well as paid employees
4. They may be exempt from taxation on income or property and may generate revenues through charitable donation. (p.2)
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The International Organization
International organizations (IOs) are "associations established by governments or their representatives that are sufficiently institutionalized to require regular meetings, rules governing decision-making, a permanent staff, and headquarters." (Shanks, Jacobson, & Kaplan, 1996, p.
593). International Organizations are organizations which, instead of individual and private groups as members as it is the case in NGOs, have nations as members. This definition is used following the standards set by the United Nations and the Yearbook of International organizations (McCormick & Kihl, 1979).
There are generally three types of international organizations: intergovernmental organization, the international nongovernmental organization, the multinational enterprises (Types of International Organizations, 1978). Literature says that the main purpose of IOs is to resolve cross-border matters that cannot be addressed by the concerned local authorities (Mansfield &
Pevehouse, 2006) .
The Non-Governmental Organization
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) are defined as: “private organizations that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect the environment, provide basic social services, or undertake community development" (Operational Directive 14.70 as cited in World bank and NGOs, 2005). The International NGOs operate internationally and are actively engaged in development and strongly oriented towards improving the quality of life or the less fortunate in less developed countries (Werker & Ahmed, 2008) whereas the local NGOs course of action do not cross borders.
Despite the professionalization of NGOs in the last decades, orientation towards helping behaviors and voluntarism are the major characteristics of these organizations, and financial purposes are not the main objectives (Werker & Ahmed, 2008; World Bank and NGOs, 2005).
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A Brief Introduction of Haiti
Haitian Republic is located in the West Indies and is delimited by the Dominican Republic at the east and with which the island is shared. It has about 10 million habitants and they have mostly African roots but there is also a presence of French, Spanish cultures (Lawson-Body, Willoughby, Keengwe, & Mukankusi, 2011). Due to the various tumultuous events that happened and that hardly hit the Haitian economy along with the earthquake of 2010, the actual administration, aspiring to bring foreign investments in the country, instigated a campaign to this purpose. According to Institut Haitien de Statistiques et d' Informatique (2010) (IHSI), at the national level, the unemployment rate is 16.8% but in the metropolitan area where most of the activities are being carried out, the rate is of 33.3%. In rural area, the rate is 9.4%.
The Non-Profit Sector in Haiti
In Haiti, following the devastating earthquake of January 2010, the number of operating non-profit operators has increased and these organizations provide masses of employment.
According to Ramachandran and Walz (2012), due to deficiencies of the government and the institutions, NGOs and private contractors are now playing a very important role in the country.
However, it is difficult to estimate the number of NGOs that are operating in Haiti. Estimations vary significantly and not all of these organizations are registered with the Ministry of Planning (Ramachandran & Walz, 2012). Estimates vary from 343 (Unite de Coordination des Activites des ONG, n.d.) to more than 10,000 (Street, 2004).
A search for job banks led us to one of the most used website in Haiti called “Jobpaw.com”.
On this website, From October to December 2012, over 50 non-profit organizations have posted at least one job vacancy; some have posted around 25 positions for these three months. There are postings from international agencies, NGOs, private actors and some positions in the government offices. The non-profit job offers totalled 252 positions with 176 being short-term.
Only a few posts were from the private and public sector who offered some short and long term positions totalling 40 jobs. An interesting point made by Morton (1997) in the document called Haiti: NGO sector study, is that NGOs pointed out that they head hunt the best technicians from many of the government agencies because of their better offers when it comes to compensation,
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working conditions and work recognition. According to the same author, the short duration of the contracts does not stop these workers to join the NGOs because the advantages do outweigh the inconvenience of the limited contract duration. According to Schuller (2009), they provide almost one-third of all formal sector jobs and are considered as offering the most respected and with well-paying positions. They even lead to the Haitian concept of NGO class. The author pursues by saying that there is a real “brain drain” for the benefit of the private and non-profit sector to the detriment of the public sector (p.20). While there is no official database of employment created by this sector, the investigation the researcher conducted online could give a rough idea of the jobs created. As seen on the website, 86% of the posts were from the non-profit sector with 69.84 % of these being short term renewable contracts varying from less than three months to six months and sometimes one year. Their staffs are both international and local hires. Many of the NPOs, international organizations and NGOs in Haiti provide employment under renewable contract (Tremlett & Collins, 1999) as they have funds for ongoing or projects to be executed or for other specific purposes. The times for implementations and execution vary in length but often go from one to six months or a year depending on the complexity of the activity. This is due particularly to the fact that frequently they execute projects that are funded by an entity (donor) and they hire temporary workers to have the project completed. It happens that employees are rerouted to new projects as they unfold, but most of the time, these employees are terminated upon completion of the project putting them in the situation to find another job (Clinton et al., 2011).
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) relates to these behaviors that are individual, discretionary, and not directly or formally recognized by the reward system, but in the aggregate contribute to the effectiveness of the organization (Organ, 1988; Smith et al., 1983). This construct has captured attention of many scholars who provided further definitions and developed other dimensions. Later, in order to fit with the changing world of organizations, it has been redefined as “contributions to the maintenance and enhancement of the social and psychological context that supports task performance” (Organ, 1997, p. 91). There are many different definitions but they generally are based on the discretionary, the non-formally rewarded
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nature of OCB as well as these behaviors being beneficial to the organization. Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) has been studied extensively and it has been proven essential for profit and non-profit organizations to have people willing to engage in such behaviors. Smith and colleagues (1983) identified initially two types of citizenship behaviors: altruism which is directly linked to intentional interaction with a specific person to provide some help and generalized compliance which refers to behaviors not specifically targeting a person in particular but which indirectly benefit everyone in the system. Different factor structures have been identified across different studies on the psychological properties of OCB. A two-factor structure with altruism and generalized compliance as well as a three-factor structure with altruism items loading on one factor and compliance splitting in different ways have been identified (Organ et al., 2005). Koh, Steers, and Terborg (1995), Organ and Konovsky (1989), Podsakoff, Niehoff, MacKenzie, and Wiliams (1993) reported a three-factor structure in their studies. Podsakoff et al. (1993) identified one factor relating to altruism, another formed by the three negative statements with positive meanings relating to employee effort labelled conscientiousness; and the last referring to attendance which relates to being present at work and punctual. Table 2.2 shows some of the various OCB definitions used in literature.
Table 2.2.
Definitions of OCB
Definition Year Author
Discretionary behaviors which transcend the elementary requirements of the job but beneficial to the organization
2006 Lambert psychological context that supports task performance” (p.91)
1997 Organ
Behaviors that are individual, discretionary, and not directly or formally recognized by the reward system, but in the aggregate contribute to the effectiveness of the organization
1988 Organ
“OCB includes any of those gestures (often taken for granted) that lubricate the social machinery of the organization but that do not directly inhere in the usual notion of task performance”. (p.588)
1983 Bateman and
Organ Note. This table was compiled by the author for the purpose of this study
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Research has therefore identified various other forms of OCB. Review of literature show evidence of many different forms of OCB. Organ et al. (2005) arranged these multiple behaviors identified under seven main categories: Helping which relates to behaviors oriented towards helping others whether with personal or work related matters and also to avoid work-related problems, Sportsmanship which relates to seeing the bright side in difficult situations, organizational loyalty which involves defending the organization, protecting and promoting a good image of it. There is also the organizational compliance where people adopt principles and procedures willingly, individual initiative where people take initiatives voluntarily to better their tasks or the organization’s performance and encourage others to do the same, civic virtue referring to the will to actively focus on benefit of the organization by all means possible such as attending non-mandatory meetings, making suggestions for improvement, and self-development, referring to the will of individuals to better their knowledge, skills and abilities so that they can better perform their job. Each dimension regroups the related OCB constructs studied by scholars. Appendix A shows the grouping of various dimensions as well as their definition as depicted by literature.
Antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors
A review of OCB literature by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bacharach (2000) led them to identify mainly four categories of OCB antecedents from empirical research: individual (or employee) characteristics, task characteristics, organizational characteristics, and leadership behaviors. Extensive studies have been conducted on the relationships between antecedents such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment (Bateman & Organ, 1983; Podsakoff &
Mackenzie, 2005; William & Anderson, 1991), perceived organizational/supervisor support (Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006; Randall, Cropanzano, Bormann, & Birjulin, 1999) perceived fairness (Moorman, Niehoff & Organ, 1993; Organ & Ryan, 1995), leader behaviors (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996; Wayne et al., 1997), work environments (Turnipseed &
Murkinson, 1996) organizational concern, prosocial behaviors, impression management (Rioux
& Penner, 2001; Rosenfeld et al., 1995) as well as dispositional variables (Konovsky & Organ, 1996; Organ & Ryan, 1995) and OCB. Paine and Organ (2000) argue that if employees do not
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feel equity in the performance management in the organization, this might reduce their will to perform OCB. OCB is not understood the same way everywhere as well as what encourage or hinder them as suggested by Paine and Organ (2000). There is a link between culture and performance of OCB, according to Chhokar, Zhuplev, Fok, and Hartman's (2001) study where they examined differences among cultures relating to OCB and equity theory of motivation though it was an exploratory research. Paine and Organ (2000) proposed that cultures differ in the way they understand and perform OCB. Kumar (2005), in response to the need of understanding and measuring OCB in a specific culture developed a measure of citizenship performance for NGOs in India. Farh, Earley and Lin (1997) and Farh, Zhong and Organ (2004), in order to respond to the need of culturally specific OCB measures, explored OCB in Taiwan and China. These studies identified dimensions which appear in the Chinese and Taiwanese societies which are unique to these countries alongside some dimensions common to the western countries. It has been demonstrated that in difficult economic conditions such as in Romania, OCB is present but in a lesser degree than in a better economy (Turnipseed &
Murkison, 2000).
Penner, Midili and Kegelmeyer (1997) advocate that OCB may be performed for various motives other than reciprocation. Consequently, Rioux and Penner (2001) developed the citizenship motives scale (CMS) which investigated the relationship between organizational concern, prosocial values and impression management motives. They found pro-social values and organizational concern as influencing OCB more than impression management motives do.
However this does not exclude the potential influence IM motives may have on OCB. Thus, impression management concerns are not to be overlooked when trying to understand OCB as they might help one in achieving some specific goals (Salamon & Deutsch, 2006). Additionally, this construct has been related to performance appraisal for administrative purposes of promotions and pay increases (Paine & Organ, 2000) because supervisors cannot ignore OCB – also called contextual performance – when conducting performance reviews (Aguinis, 2012).
Supplementary studies on OCB in relation to various other constructs are shown in Appendix B and Appendix C.
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior of Contingent Workers
A variety of studies have covered the importance of OCB as more and more organization have understood its value since they have become conscious that they cannot be effective if employees do not engage at all in those behaviors (Aguinis, 2012). With the changing nature of the workplace, there is a great need of adaptation from the organizations in order to say in the race. For that reason, progressively more organizations are using temporary workers in order to be more flexible and adjust faster to the changing environment. Studies on OCB relating to contingent workers have reported lower levels compared to regular employees such as the research of Van Dyne and Ang (1998) about contingent workers in Singapore, Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler (2002) about workers in the public sector and De Gilder (2003) about contingent workers in the hospitality sector. The findings from Engellandt and Riphahn, (2005) on the other hand say the contrary. They argue that temporary employees provide significantly more effort than permanent employees. According to Gay and Yeh’s (2013) study, of contingent workers’
engage in mainly two types of behaviors: some oriented towards individuals and others towards the organization as shown in table 2.3.
Table 2.3.
Behaviors of Participants with Dimensions, Number of Examples, Percentages and Samples of Behaviors.
Courtesy 15 22.06 Smiling more often, keeping work area tidy Cheerleading 4 5.88 Leave a congratulation note on the desk of
a colleague who deserves it Peacemaking 1 1.47 Avoid situations that would result
in conflicts with colleagues
20 29.41 Respect the hierarchy
20 29.41 Respect the hierarchy