Motives for accepting temporaryemployment: a typology

Jeroen de JongTilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

Nele De Cuyper and Hans De WitteKatholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Inmaculada SillaCIEMAT-UVEG Research Group, Barcelona, Spain, and

Claudia Bernhard-OettelStockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to offer a typology of temporary workers, based on their motives foraccepting their work arrangement, which includes voluntary, involuntary and stepping-stone motives,and relate this typology to various individual and work-related variables.

Design/methodology/approach – Latent class analysis of 645 European workers was used toconstruct a typology of temporary workers. Variation of individual and work-related variablesbetween types of temporary workers was analyzed using ANOVA.

Findings – The analyses suggest that there are three types of workers: involuntary temporaryworkers highlight the involuntary motive and the stepping-stone motive; the stepping-stone typestresses the stepping-stone motive only, and the non-involuntary group disagrees with all threemotives. Moreover, the groups differed significantly on important work-related variables such asoccupational position, tenure, employability, and work-involvement. However, differences inindividual variables were limited.

Research limitations/implications – The research puts forward a more complex typology oftemporary workers than is usually suggested. Moreover, the study shows a non-involuntary group forwhich temporary employment can become a trap, and hence these workers should be targeted byfuture policy and interventions.

Originality/value – The research offers a typology of temporary workers, which is founded onmotivation theory, and existing research on motives for accepting temporary employment.

Keywords Europe, Temporary workers, Motivation (psychology)

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionTemporary employment has increasingly become part of the labor market in the EUand its member states, with an average incidence of about 13 per cent in 2000 (OECD,2002; for detailed information, see, e.g. de Cuyper et al., 2005) and about 16 per cent in2005 (De Jong et al., in press). Temporary employment refers to jobs for which theindividual does not have a contract for long-term employment at the organization in

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-7720.htm

The fourth author (Inmaculada Silla) acknowledges the support of Research GrantSEJ206-14086/PSIC from the Spanish Ministry of Education.

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Received 22 February 2007Revised 20 September 2007Accepted 4 November 2007

International Journal of ManpowerVol. 30 No. 3, 2009

pp. 237-252q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0143-7720DOI 10.1108/01437720910956745

which one is currently employed (OECD, 2002, p. 170). Both European and US studiesindicate that the majority of the temporary workforce would prefer permanent totemporary employment (e.g. Amuedo-Dorantes, 2000; DiNatale, 2001; Morris andVekker, 2001; Remery et al., 2002). These workers are usually referred to as“involuntary temporary workers”, as opposed to “voluntary temporary workers” whoprefer their short-term arrangement (e.g. Krausz, 2000). Research has frequentlyreplicated this voluntary-involuntary dichotomy, and it has highlighted its importancein predicting work-related attitudes and behavior (e.g. Ellingson et al., 1998; Tan andTan, 2002; Silla et al., 2005).

However, this dichotomy may not capture the meaning and diversity of reasons thatplay a role in accepting temporary work arrangements. First, temporary workers mayhave several motives for accepting temporary employment, which are not easilyclassified under the headings “voluntary” or “involuntary”. For example, acceptingtemporary employment as a potential stepping-stone towards permanent employmentmay be neither involuntary nor voluntary. Second, the choice for temporaryemployment may not be a dichotomous process. Rather, it may be explained by a widerarray of motives.

Therefore, the aim of the present study is to elaborate on the voluntary/involuntarydichotomy by offering a more diverse set of motives that may be relevant in acceptingtemporary employment. The particular contribution of this paper is that it constructs atypology of temporary workers based on the main motives for accepting temporaryemployment, while going beyond the voluntary-involuntary dichotomy. Furthermore,we aim to show that the typology accurately distinguishes between types of temporaryworkers by investigating possible relations with individual and work-relatedbackground variables.

The heterogeneity of motivesIn general, motives for accepting temporary employment are mostly grouped intoinvoluntary and voluntary reasons (e.g. Ellingson et al., 1998), or into relateddichotomies such as forced/by choice (Bendapudi et al., 2003), push/pull (McKeown,2003), and economic/non-economic (Polivka, 1996; DiNatale, 2001). Voluntary motivesinclude reasons such as freedom, flexible hours, and variety. “Difficulties in finding apermanent job” is the most often cited involuntary reason (Ellingson et al., 1998; Tanand Tan, 2002).

Although the voluntary-involuntary dichotomy of motives has been frequentlyused, some authors have emphasized the heterogeneity of motives for acceptingtemporary employment. For example, Tan and Tan (2002) describe six categories tostructure motives for accepting temporary employment: family (e.g. flexibility inscheduling time, spending more time with family), economic incentives (e.g.opportunity to supplement my family’s income), self-improvement (e.g. gain newskills, opportunity to do different types of work in different organizations), personalpreference (e.g. less stress), a means to get a permanent job (e.g. filler between jobs),and inability to find permanent employment (e.g. inability to find a permanent full-timejob that is satisfactory). These motives are also identified in the studies by Hardy andWalker (2003) and Morris and Vekker (2001), with the exception of the motive“personal preference”. Also, de Witte et al. (2001) in their Belgian study mention similarmotives. However, they do not replicate the factor structure; instead, they find threefactors. The first factor groups items that refer to the inability to find permanent

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employment. In the second factor, the exploration motive is highlighted, with itemssuch as “gaining experience”, and “exploring the labor market”. Factor 3 includes itemsrelated to the possibility of combining temporary work with non-work roles, or itemson the preference for short-term commitments. These studies suggest that temporaryworkers may not perceive their status as voluntary or involuntary, but rather as theresult of a broader set of motives for accepting temporary employment.

There have been some attempts at constructing typologies of temporary workersbased on the voluntary-involuntary dichotomy (e.g. Marler et al., 1998, 2002;Bendapudi et al., 2003), mostly along a two by two table. In this vein, thevoluntary-involuntary dichotomy is combined with various measures of employability(e.g. low skills versus high skills). However, Marler et al. (2002) in their exemplarystudy find evidence for only two types of temporary workers, namely traditionalversus boundaryless temporary workers: traditional temporary workers generally donot prefer their temporary employment arrangement, and they tend to be less skilled,while boundaryless temporary workers combine a high preference for temporaryemployment with high skills. Boundaryless temporary workers are comfortable withhaving multiple employers, because these provide opportunities for growth anddevelopment (Arthur and Rousseau, 2001). Still, this classification may perhaps notadd to the earlier distinction between voluntary and involuntary temporary workers.Possibly, a broader set of motives may sharpen the typology.

Therefore, three motives are included in the present study; namely, the voluntarymotive, the involuntary motive, and the stepping-stone motive. These motives areselected based on motivation theory (e.g. self determination theory): specifically, thevoluntary and the involuntary motive are considered as two extremes within the choicedimension, consistent with self-determination Theory that basically distinguishesbetween autonomous and controlled choices. The voluntary motive is assessed, byreferring to the possibilities for freedom that temporary work may offer (Tan and Tan,2002). This resembles autonomous motives as described by Ryan and Deci (2000), inthat the authors suggest that this activity is accepted because of its value to the pursuitof personal goals. For example, workers may prefer their temporary arrangementbecause it allows combining work with study or family obligations. The involuntarymotive, in its turn, is addressed by referring to the difficulty of finding permanentemployment. In this case, temporary employment is a way to avoid unemployment(Tan and Tan, 2002; Heinrich et al., 2005). In the terms of self-determination theory, thecontrolled motive represents a forced acceptance of an activity to avoid anotherundesired activity (Gagne and Deci, 2005), as in the case of a bad labor market thatforces workers into temporary employment.

However, motivation theories such as self-determination theory, allow for possiblecombinations of autonomous and controlled choices (e.g. Deci and Ryan, 1985; Ryanet al., 1996), which would reflect the stepping-stone motive in this study: acceptingtemporary employment as a means to gain permanent employment (stepping-stonemotive; Natti, 2000) may reflect the combination of voluntary and involuntary motives.Formulated in the terms of self-determination theory, the combination of autonomousand controlled motives would involve an activity that leads to attaining a certain goal.The activity, however, is not necessarily in line with the workers’ values, and theworkers are dependent on the activity to obtain their goals. Following thevoluntary-involuntary classification, the stepping-stone motive could be bothpartially voluntary and involuntary in nature. This is illustrated in the study byTan and Tan (2002): items referring to “a means to get a permanent job” cross-load on

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the factor that includes items such as “to gain work experience and new skills”, and “toenrich resumes”. In addition, the stepping-stone motive clearly includes the goal ofpermanent employment, and workers either voluntarily or involuntarily rely ontemporary employment to obtain that goal.

Accordingly, we expect that a typology of temporary workers may involve morethan two groups: some temporary workers may highlight voluntary motives, whileothers may stress involuntary motives. Still others may, however, combine theseextremes with the stepping-stone motive. This is summarized in P1:

P1. A typology of temporary workers based on their motives includesinvoluntary temporary workers, voluntary temporary workers and workerswho highlight voluntary or involuntary motives in combination with thestepping-stone motive.

Motives and specific groups of workersSome authors have suggested that the heterogeneity of motives is also reflected in thevariation across individual characteristics, most notably age, gender, and familysituation. As to the age variable, younger workers are more likely to prefer temporaryemployment (Bernasek and Kinnear, 1999; Morris and Vekker, 2001). This relates tothe observation by Tan and Tan (2002) that younger workers are more likely to stressthe self-improvement motive, which is assumed to be-voluntary in nature.Accordingly, we expect that younger workers compared with older workers aremore likely to agree with the voluntary motive and stepping-stone motive to getintegrated into the labour market.

Several studies find that women are over-represented in the temporary workforce(Casey and Alach, 2004), which may be explained by their motives. In this regard,Russo et al. (1997) find that the majority of female temporary workers, unlike males, donot want a permanent job because of family and personal motives. In contrast, men aremore likely to accept a temporary job owing to the difficulty of finding a permanentjob, or they may consider it as a means to gain permanent employment (Casey andAlach, 2004). This suggests that females will be dominant among the voluntary type oftemporary worker, while males will dominate the group of involuntary workers,possibly in combination with the stepping-stone motive.

Some studies mention the influence of family situation on the decision to accepttemporary employment. For example, Bernasek and Kinnear (1999) find thattemporary workers who have never been married are more likely to prefer temporaryemployment. This finding is supported by Tan and Tan (2002), who show that maritalstatus is related to personal preference for temporary employment. This would suggestthat singles compared with married or cohabiting workers are more likely to stress thevoluntary motive, for example due to fewer private commitments. We havesummarized the potential relationships between the types of temporary workers andindividual background variables in P2:

P2. The typology of temporary workers is related to individual backgroundvariables including age, gender, and family situation.

Other authors have linked motives to work-related factors. For example, the specificcontract type may be an important factor affecting motives. In general, temporaryagency workers have a clear preference for permanent employment (Cohany, 1996;Polivka, 1996; Cohany, 1998; Miedema and Klein Hesselink, 2000): their motives

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primarily relate to bad labor market conditions, and they are oriented towards gainingpermanent employment. While the majority of direct hire, fixed term contract workersalso have a clear preference for permanent employment, they are somewhat more likelyto voluntarily accept their work arrangement, and their motives are more diverse(Miedema and Klein Hesselink, 2000; de Witte et al., 2001). This suggests thattemporary agency workers compared with fixed term contract workers are more likelyto be in the involuntary group, while fixed term contract workers compared withagency workers are somewhat more likely to be in the voluntary group.

Surprisingly, few studies have investigated the relationship between motives andwork-related factors other than contract type. For example, occupational position maydistinguish between voluntary and involuntary temporary workers, and it may beparticularly important when the stepping-stone motive is concerned: particularly forwhite-collar workers, temporary employment is often used as an efficient tool forselection (Feldman et al., 1994; Houseman, 2001). This may suggest that thestepping-stone motive is highly relevant among white-collar workers. In contrast,temporary blue-collar workers are often hired to meet peaks in demands, which mayreduce chances of obtaining permanent employment. Also, organizational tenure maybe important, in that higher tenure is more likely to result in permanent employmentdue to recent European and national measures to improve employment protectionconcerning temporary work (Vigneau et al., 1999; McColgan, 2003). Recent studies haveindicated that since these legal changes took effect, tenure of temporary workers hasincreased, as well as the opportunities to obtain permanent employment (Antoni andJahn, 2006; Knegt et al., 2007).

Finally, little analysis has focused on work involvement, employability and relatedmeasures such as education in relation to motives for accepting temporaryemployment. Here, boundaryless career theory (Arthur and Rousseau, 2001) mayoffer useful suggestions. Boundaryless temporary workers are typically considered tobe-voluntary temporary workers (Marler et al., 1998, 2002; Silla et al., 2005). Theyperceive their job as an investment in the future through skill accumulation that willeventually lead to high labor market value. These characteristics would suggestassociations between boundaryless temporary workers and both voluntary andstepping-stone motives. By way of contrast, traditional temporary employees maycombine the involuntary and stepping-stone motive, as they typically representinvoluntary temporary employees with limited skills who are hoping to find permanentemployment (Marler et al., 2002). When comparing these types of temporary workers,Marler et al. (2002) finds that boundaryless workers are more likely to holdhigh-positioned jobs, which are likely to require a high educational level, and that theyalso perceive to have more job alternatives. Moreover, it is argued that boundarylesstemporary workers may identify more with their work compared with traditionalworkers (Marler et al., 1998), which would suggest differences in work involvement.These potential relationships between types of temporary workers and work-relatedvariables are summarized in P3:

P3. The typology of temporary workers is related to work-related backgroundvariables such as educational level, contract type, occupational position,tenure, employability and work involvement.

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MethodSampling context and procedureData were gathered in Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. Organizationswere recruited in two private sectors to enhance possibilities to generalize from thefindings and to guarantee similar samples across countries, which, in turn, allowedmerging the data: manufacturing and retail. All organizations willing to participate, andhaving a minimum number of five temporary workers, were included in the sample,totaling 64 organizations (NBelgium ¼ 15;NNetherlands ¼ 23;NSweden ¼ 10;NSpain ¼ 16).The sample covered day-to-day contracts, on-call contracts, fixed-term contracts,agency work, seasonal employment, probation or training contracts, andsubcontracting. Participants completed confidential questionnaires during workingtime or at home. Participation was voluntary. Response rates were maximized bycarefully informing the respondents about the aim of the research. Data were gathered in2004, and among permanent and temporary employees. Given the specific focus of thisresearch, however, the sample was limited to temporary workers.

Sample characteristicsTotal sample size was 645 workers: 171 respondents lived in Belgium, 182 in TheNetherlands, 94 in Sweden, and 198 in Spain. In total, 331 respondents were employedin the manufacturing sector; the remainder of 314 was employed in the retail sector. Ofthe respondents 50.2 per cent were blue-collar workers, and 49.8 per cent was employedas a white-collar worker. Average tenure was 20 months. The majority of respondents(65 per cent) worked under a fixed-term contract. A total of 13.4 per cent wereemployed by an agency. The remainder of 21.6 per cent was employed under othertemporary contracts, including on call employment, seasonal employment, probation,and subcontracting. There were about as many males (48.4 per cent) as females (51.6per cent). Average age was 28 years. Of the sample 39.5 per cent were married or livedtogether with a partner. The majority of the sample (51.1 per cent) completed highschool. A total of 41.1 per cent went to college or pursued higher education, while 7.9per cent did not complete high school.

MeasuresMotives for accepting temporary employment: respondents were asked to rate theimportance (1 ¼ not at all important; 5 ¼ very important) of three motives foraccepting temporary employment: “It gives me more freedom”, which measured thevoluntary motive (see also Hardy and Walker, 2003), “it is difficult for me to find apermanent job” which assessed the involuntary motive as was done in earlier work(Ellingson et al., 1998; Tan and Tan, 2002), and “This way, I hope to gain a permanentemployment contract”, which addressed the stepping-stone motive (Morris andVekker, 2001).

To assess differences across types of temporary workers, the following individualvariables were used: age (years), gender (0 ¼ female, 1 ¼ male) and family situation(0 ¼ married or cohabiting; 1 ¼ single). Educational level was measured using thenational ISCED classification (OECD, 1999). Afterwards, they were recoded incategories ranging from 0 (pre primary education) to 6 (second stage tertiary education)to fit a European perspective. Less than 5 per cent of the respondents were students,and thus, the specific category for students was not included in the study’s analysis.

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Work-related variables were in turn measured as follows: contract type wasdummy-coded with 0 for fixed term contracts, and 1 for agency contracts. Other typesof temporary contracts were excluded from the analyses of the potential importance ofspecific temporary contract type because their number was too small to allow forreliable analyses. Occupational position was also dummy-coded (0 ¼ blue collarworker; 1 ¼ white collar worker). Tenure (months) was measured as a continuousvariable. We defined employability as “an individual’s chance of obtaining a job in theexternal labor market”, with perceived ease of switching jobs as a crucial dimension(Forrier and Sels, 2003). Employability was measured using four items. A sample itemwas “I could easily switch to another employer, if I wanted to”, with answeringcategories ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) (a ¼ 0:90). Finally,three items (e.g. “Work should be considered central to life”) developed by Kanungo(1982) were used to measure work involvement. Reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) equaled0.70. Respondents had to indicate their agreement with each of the items on a scaleranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Both employability and workinvolvement were found to have single factor structures.

Information about means, standard deviation, and correlations between variables isshown in Table I.

AnalysesLatent Class Analysis was used to construct a typology of temporary workers. Inparticular, we recoded responses to the motives into three categories: “not at allimportant” and “not very important” were coded as 1, “of some importance” was codedas 2, and “quite important” and “very important” were coded as 3[1]. Using latent classanalysis, clusters were based on membership probabilities estimated directly from themodel. This probability-based classification represented a major advantage of latentclass analysis as compared to more traditional techniques (Vermunt and Magidson,2000). For recent applications of latent class analysis in the domain of work andorganizational psychology, see, for example, De Cuyper et al. (in press) and Notelaerset al. (2006). Using ANOVA, we analyzed whether types of temporary workers differedon individual and work-related variables. Bonferroni post-hoc tests were used tofurther explore possible differences.

ResultsTypology of temporary workers and their motivesLatent Class Analysis yielded the best fit for a three-cluster model (L2 ¼ 18.43,BIC ¼ 259, DF ¼ 12), based on the L2, the BIC statistic, and the statistic forclassification error (Vermunt and Magidson, 2000). The L2 statistic should not besubstantially larger than the degrees of freedom, while the BIC statistic should be assmall as possible. Additionally, the statistic for classification error equaled 0.12, whichis similar to the statistic for a 2-cluster model (L2 ¼ 41.61, BIC ¼ 261.62, DF ¼ 16,error ¼ 0.12), and lower as compared to the classification error statistic of a 4 2(L2 ¼ 14.43, BIC ¼ 237.19, DF ¼ 8, error ¼ 0.15) and five-cluster model (L2 ¼ 9.52,BIC ¼ 216.28, DF ¼ 16, error ¼ 0.23). Also, it was close to 0, as recommended.

Table II summarizes the membership probabilities. Cluster 1 included 51 per cent ofthe respondents. Respondents in this cluster had a rather high probability ( p ¼ 0.60) offinding the voluntary motive not at all or not very important. They tended to rate thestepping-stone ( p ¼ 0.60) and involuntary ( p ¼ 0.55) motive as quite or very

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Table I.Means, standarddeviations andcorrelations betweenvariables

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important. Cluster 2 respondents had a relatively high probability of rating all motivesas unimportant. This was especially true for the involuntary motive ( p ¼ 0.98), and toa lesser extent for the stepping-stone ( p ¼ 0.55) and voluntary ( p ¼ 0.41) motives. Thiscluster included 27 per cent of the respondents. Cluster 3, with 22 per cent of therespondents, included respondents who had a probability of 0.90 of finding thevoluntary motive unimportant and a probability of 0.86 of finding the involuntarymotive unimportant. These respondents were likely to find the stepping-stone motivequite or very important ( p ¼ 0.98).

Respondents in cluster 1 rated both the stepping-stone and the involuntary motiveas important. They may intend to use temporary employment as a stepping-stone topermanent employment to escape from bad labor market conditions. Accordingly, wewill refer to this cluster as to the involuntary cluster. Cluster 2 respondents were mostsimilar to respondents traditionally classified as voluntary temporary workers, withabout one in three rating the voluntary motive as important. However, theircommitment to the voluntary motive as well as to the other motives was quite low, and,in fact, most respondents did not agree with any of the motives. The Cluster 2respondents appeared to be rather passive or ambivalent in their choice towardstemporary employment, although they did not collectively reject the voluntary motive.Therefore, this cluster was labeled as “non-involuntary”. Respondents in cluster 3 werelabeled as “stepping-stone” because of their high rating of the instrumental motive.They intended to use temporary employment to gain permanent employment.However, this was not combined with the involuntary or the voluntary motive.

Differences between clustersFollowing our second research question, differences between types of temporaryworkers on various individual and work-related variables were analyzed (Table III).The clusters did not differ significantly on the following variables: age, gender, familystatus, education, and specific contract type (fixed term versus agency work). However,there were significant differences on the other variables: for example, the involuntarygroup and the stepping-stone group differed significantly with respect to occupational

Involuntary Non-involuntary Stepping-stone

Cluster size 0.51 0.27 0.22

It gives me more freedom (voluntary)Not at all/not important 0.60 0.41 0.90Of some importance 0.22 0.25 0.08Quite/very important 0.18 0.35 0.02

This way, I hope to gain a permanent contract (stepping-stone)Not at all/not important 0.18 0.55 0.00Of some importance 0.22 0.23 0.02Quite/very important 0.60 0.22 0.98

It is difficult for me to find a permanent job (involuntary)Not at all/not important 0.11 0.98 0.86Of some importance 0.34 0.02 0.13Quite/very important 0.55 0.00 0.01

Table II.Cluster size and

membership probabilities

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status, but they did not differ significantly from the non-involuntary group in thisrespect. In particular, the involuntary group included 45 per cent white-collar workers,compared with 58 per cent in the stepping-stone group. The non-involuntary groupwas situated in between with 52 per cent. Furthermore, the average tenure of thenon-involuntary group was 27 months, which was significantly higher than the tenureof both the involuntary group and the stepping-stone group. Finally, the groupsdiffered significantly on employability and work involvement. The non-involuntarygroup (m ¼ 3:39) scored higher on employability as compared to the involuntary group(m ¼ 3:08). These groups did not differ significantly from the stepping-stonegroup (m ¼ 3:20). The non-involuntary group (m ¼ 2:45), however, was lower on workinvolvement, as compared to both the involuntary group (m ¼ 2:64), and thestepping-stone (m ¼ 2:66) group.

DiscussionIn this study, we explored why temporary workers accept their work arrangement, andwhether this may be helpful in capturing the heterogeneity of temporary workers interms of possible clusters, and in terms of differences on important variables, bothwork-related and individual. This might advance research on temporary employment,for it responds to a major thesis in literature that the heterogeneity of the temporaryworkforce is of crucial importance in analyses of temporary employment (e.g. deCuyper et al., 2005). Using latent cluster analysis, three types of temporary workerswere identified. The first cluster included more than half of the respondents: they werelikely to mention both the involuntary motive and the stepping-stone motive, whichsuggests that these workers accepted temporary employment involuntarily to obtain apermanent job. Cluster 2 respondents were labeled the non-involuntary group, as theywere likely to rate the various motives as unimportant. Cluster 3 respondentsattributed importance to the stepping-stone motive only. Cluster 2 and 3 included aboutone respondent out of four. This pattern of results provided only limited support forP1: contrary to expectations, we did not find a group of respondents who agreed only

Involuntarycluster 1

Non-involuntarycluster 2

Stepping-stonecluster 3

Age 29 27 27 F(2, 614) ¼ 2.32Male 0.49 0.51 0.47 F(2, 624) ¼ .28Single 0.57 0.60 0.67 F(2, 624) ¼ 2.07Education 3.32 3.63 3.46 F(2, 620) ¼ 2.84Agencyworker

0.20 0.16 0.14 F(2, 488) ¼ 0.96

White-collar 0.45 0.52 0.58 F(2, 608) ¼ 3.91 * * 1– 3

Tenure 18 27 18 F(2, 622) ¼ 3.56 * * 2– 1, 3

Employability 3.08 3.39 3.20 F(2, 629) ¼ 5.49 * * 2– 1

Workinvolvement

2.64 2.45 2.66 F(2, 627) ¼ 3.46 * * 2– 1, 3

Notes: *p , 0:05; * * p , 0:01

Table III.Differences betweenclusters

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with the involuntary motive. Instead, the involuntary motive was combined with thestepping-stone motive in the first cluster of respondents. Furthermore, while cluster 2respondents bore some resemblance to voluntary temporary workers, their attitudetowards temporary work was clearly more ambivalent. Finally, in the third cluster, thestepping-stone motive was highlighted, however, without reference to either thevoluntary or the involuntary motive.

Perhaps the most difficult cluster to interpret was the so-called non-involuntarycluster, with respondents who were most similar to workers traditionally considered asvoluntary. However, we did not find evidence that these respondents made an overallpositive choice towards temporary employment based on freedom advantages. In fact,the majority of respondents in this non-involuntary cluster did not affiliate with any ofthe motives. One interpretation could be that this cluster represented a “resigned group”:their very long tenure and their relatively low score on work involvement may suggestthat temporary employment for these respondents is a trap rather than a bridge topermanent employment, which is particularly problematic given their relatively highscore on perceived employability. This might indicate that they feel that they haveenough alternative job options, but these alternatives may be of poor quality. Anotherinterpretation could be that this group does not attach much value to work in general,regardless of the specific job or contractual arrangement, which would align with theirlower scores on work involvement. This could mean that this group is disengaged, ratherthan resigned. If so, respondents in this cluster may be particularly vulnerable, asdisengagement has frequently been related to muted voice (Van Dyne et al., 2003) andabuse (Meares et al., 2004). Finally, the non-involuntary group may question theexhaustiveness of our set of motives: there might perhaps be other motives with whichnon-involuntary group would agree. Future research could test additional motives andcharacteristics to better explore this potentially important group of temporary workers.

Similarly, the involuntary group and the stepping-stone group may not only make anegative choice, as both groups are likely to value the stepping-stone motive. Theserespondents may consider temporary employment as a transition stage. This may beespecially the case for the stepping-stone respondents, who were likely not to find theother motives important. This group included the highest number of white-collarworkers, for whom a temporary contract might often be used as a selection tool, or whohave rather long probation periods. Moreover, the stepping-stone group may morerealistically reflect a “voluntary” group, as they deliberately choose their temporary jobto gain permanent employment. This would suggest that few temporary workers arepurely motivated by voluntary motives and a personal preference for temporaryemployment. This might have important implications for research on contractpreference: most researchers define voluntary temporary workers as those scoringhigher on volition (Ellingson et al., 1998). Voluntary acceptance of temporaryemployment does not necessarily imply a positive attitude towards temporaryemployment: rather, it might reflect perceptions of future or permanent jobopportunities. Voluntary temporary employment may therefore better fit thedescription of Krausz (2000), who suggests that the voluntary group largely consistsof workers accepting temporary work for the time being, but with the aim of eventuallygaining permanent employment.

With respect to P2, our typology did not replicate the importance of individualvariables (e.g. gender, age, educational level, family status) and specific contract typein distinguishing between the three groups of temporary workers. These variableswere found important in many earlier studies comparing temporary and permanent

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workers (for a review, see De Cuyper et al., in press), and in some previous studiescomparing voluntary and involuntary temporary workers (e.g. Bernasek and Kinnear,1999; Casey and Alach, 2004; Morris and Vekker, 2001; Tan and Tan, 2002). Oneexplanation for the inconsistent results may relate to differences in the sample designor context: for example, in many studies, US respondents are sampled. However,temporary employment in the USA is defined differently than in Europe. Yet, anotherexplanation may be that earlier studies focused on the dichotomyvoluntary/involuntary, while our study focused on a set of three motives. Thiswould suggest that there are considerable differences between dichotomous measuresand more elaborated measures.

Our results highlighted important differences on work-related variables such asoccupational position, tenure, employability, and work-involvement (P3). Overall, theresults suggest that the non-involuntary cluster was the most distinct one: theserespondents were highest on tenure and employability, but lowest on workinvolvement. Unlike previous studies that relate tenure to increased chances ofobtaining permanent employment, the present study suggests that tenure may becomea trap hindering permanent employment. This relates to the observation ofGagliarducci (2005) on the non-linear relationship between tenure and chances togain permanent employment: the probability of finding permanent employment firstincreases but then rapidly decreases over time. The high score on employability issomewhat puzzling: it could be that this relates to the particular measure ofemployability, namely as the chance to find employment elsewhere. Especially thenon-involuntary group may have a long history of temporary employment, and thus,these workers may perceive no problems in finding alternative employment. Theymay, however, experience problems in finding high quality employment, and settle forlower quality jobs due to their low work involvement. Testing this hypothesis wouldrequire a longitudinal design, which could identify and follow trapped temporaryworkers and their job related attitudes. Finally, the main difference between thestepping-stone and the involuntary group related to the percentage of white-collarworkers, which was substantially higher in the stepping-stone cluster. This may relateto the observation that temporary employment is often used as a HR tool for selection,particularly among white-collar workers (Feldman et al., 1994; Houseman, 2001).

LimitationsFirst, even though the different organizational contexts may offer some goodpossibilities to generalize from the findings, the samples were not representative. Forexample, we included the manufacturing and retail branches, as these covered theindustrial and the service sector. These sectors, however, represented multiplebranches, each with specific regulation and labor policies. Also, we did not include thepublic sector: the contracts in this sector were difficult to compare with those in theprivate sector. A related issue concerns the focus on European temporary workers. Asnoted earlier, temporary employment is understood differently in the USA and inEurope. For example, US temporary workers have generally shorter contract durationand lower tenure compared with European temporary workers. Accordingly, ourresults should be interpreted with considerable caution when applied in anon-European context. Still, we are confident that this study may highlight theimportance of specific motives for accepting temporary employment. We would like toinvite researchers to further explore this issue using representative datasets.

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Second, we used cross-sectional and self-reported data. This means that we are notsure how respondents would have responded before accepting their temporaryarrangement, and how this may change with prolonged contract duration. This isparticularly important for the non-involuntary cluster: it could be argued that theserespondents highlighted some of the motives at the start of their career.

Third, our sample included many fixed-term contract workers, and a considerablenumber of agency workers. Even though this reflected current trends, it did notrepresent the heterogeneity of the temporary workforce. This may have influenced theresults. For example, the number of subcontractors in our sample was limited. Thisgroup has the highest preference for temporary work, suggesting that ourclassification may not fit this specific contract type.

Finally, we used a set of three motives, while there may be more motives that arerelevant in deciding to accept temporary employment. This suggests that a moreextensive measure of motives should be applied in future research.

ConclusionBased on this study, one could argue that the dichotomy involuntary/voluntarymotives may not accurately capture the diversity of motives for accepting temporaryemployment and their meaning. Similarly, the distinction between involuntary andvoluntary temporary workers may not fully describe the heterogeneity of thetemporary workforce. The involuntary temporary workers do not only haveinvoluntary reasons to accept temporary employment, they may also value thestepping-stone motive. Surprisingly, our data did not point to an overall voluntary typeof temporary worker; instead, we found evidence for a non-involuntary group, who didnot find any of the motives to be of importance. It might be that especially this group oftemporary workers should be targeted by policies or interventions, as temporaryemployment might have become a trap for these workers or may signaldisengagement. Future research may want to further explore the meaningfulness ofthis classification, and its interpretation, for example by relating types of temporaryworkers to employees’ wellbeing.

Note

1. Latent class analysis is based on cross-tabulation of observed discrete variables, meaningthat with each additional response category, the number of potential cells increasesubstantially. Given our sample size, we chose to reduce the number of response categoriesfrom 5 to 3 to avoid too many empty cells.

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About the authorsJeroen de Jong is a PhD student and lecturer working in the department of Organisation Studiesat Tilburg University, The Netherlands. He was involved in the European research projectPSYCONES on psychological contracts and temporary employment. His main research interestsinclude the psychological contract, fairness, job insecurity, trust, temporary employment, andstrategic decision making. His PhD focuses on causes and consequences of fair treatmentperceptions among temporary workers. Jeroen de Jong is the corresponding author and can becontacted at: j.p.dejong@uvt.nl

Nele De Cuyper is working as a PhD student at the Research Centre on Work, Organizationand Personnel Psychology, K.U. Leuven, Belgium. She was involved in the European researchproject PSYCONES (PSYchological CONtracting across Employment Situations) onpsychological contracts and temporary employment. Her main research interests includetemporary employment, job insecurity, employability and the psychological contract as well asattitudes towards work and wellbeing in general.

Hans De Witte is full professor at the Department of Psychology of the KatholiekeUniversiteit Leuven, Belgium. He teaches work (and organisational) psychology and is a memberof the Research Center work-organizational and personnel psychology (WOPP) of hisdepartment. His research includes the study of the psychological consequences of job insecurity,unemployment, temporary employment and downsizing, as well as mobbing and stress versusengagement at work.

Inmaculada Silla has a PhD in social psychology and has been working as assistantresearcher in the Department of Social Psychology at the University of Valencia. She hascollaborated on several research projects focused on temporary work, job insecurity andpsychological contract. Currently she is working in the Sociotechnical Research Unit atCIEMAT-UVEG research institute. She is currently involved in several projects on safetymanagement in high reliability organizations, safety culture and leadership for safety.

Claudia Bernhard-Oettel is a PhD candidate working in the Department of Psychology atStockholm University, Sweden. Her main research interests concern psychological consequencesof relations between individuals and organizations. More specifically, her research includes thestudy of temporary and part-time employment contracts, psychological contracts and employees’well-being and work-related attitudes and behaviour.

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