Employability and Temporary Workers’ Affective Commitment: the Moderating Role of Voluntariness

Abstract

The development of either internal or external employability of temporary workers has been considered a mechanism of protection since it ensures that employment can be maintained. According to the social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, when temporary workers perceive that the training promoted by the organization furthers employability, they are inclined to feel obligated to reciprocate with positive attitudes toward the organization. With a sample of temporary agency workers from three distinct industry organizations (N = 279), the current study investigated the relationship between training that promotes both internal and external employability and affective commitment as well as the role of voluntariness as a moderator of these relationships. The hypotheses were tested by using regression analysis. The results indicated that the perception held by temporary workers that the training they received is a promoter of their internal employability is positively correlated with their affective commitment towards the organization. Furthermore, the data revealed that this relationship is weaker for the group of temporary workers with high voluntariness. On the other hand, there was not a significant relationship between the training that promotes external employability and the affective commitment of temporary workers. Likewise, voluntariness did not moderate this relationship.

Going beyond workplace stressors: Economic crisis and perceived employability in relation to psychological distress and job dissatisfaction.

“…High performance work systems refer to a set of HR practices designed to enhance organizational performance by enhancing employee capability and commitment. Thus, managers might invest in training as a way of giving the opportunity to develop new skills and promoting employability, which is a protective mechanism that can buffer the stress experienced by the financial difficulties of the labor market (see also Espada & Chambel, 2013). Moreover, according to the social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, training can stimulate employees’ positive attitudes toward the organization (Shore, Tetrick, Lynch, & Barksdale, 2006).…”

Is What’s Past Prologue? A Review and Agenda for Contemporary Employability Research

“…Employers offer an array of employability-enhancing investments, such as job design (learning value of the job, job quality), aspects tied to the supervisor (e.g., LMX, attitude towards older workers, leadership, support for training and development, and general support), overall climate (general, age-supportive, employability culture, learning climate), as well as career management. Employees, in turn, make various contributions in the form of positive attitudes, such as job satisfaction (De Cuyper et al, 2009), affective organizational commitment (Chambel et al, 2015;De Cuyper et al, 2009;Espada & Chambel, 2013;Philippaers et al, 2017), workgroup commitment (Philippaers et al, 2017), as well as desirable employee behaviors-in-role performance (Camps & Torres, 2011;Hahn & Kim, 2018;), extra-role efforts (Hahn & Kim, 2018), and reduced counterproductive work behaviors (Philippaers et al, 2017).…”

Job insecurity, employability and satisfaction among temporary and permanent employees in post-crisis Europe

“…These paradigms emphasize employability as the new security mechanism: security can be found across jobs and organizations (Direnzo and Greenhaus, 2011). Temporary employees are seen as exemplary of this idea of boundarylessness, which has induced the idea that the feeling of being employable is more important to temporary employees and thus more closely associated with their attitudes (Chambel and Sobral, 2011; Chambel et al, 2015; Espada and Chambel, 2013; De Cuyper et al, 2010; Kinnunen et al, 2011; Kirves et al, 2011): perceived employability provides temporary employees with a sense of control over their career, which then promotes positive work attitudes and satisfaction in particular. Perceived employability is less important to the experience of permanent employees as they typically seek security in their current job and with the current employer rather than in the external labour market (Chambel et al, 2015; Kirves et al, 2011).…”