Search

Assembly line worker assignment and balancing problem (ALWABP) is an important research topic originated from sheltered work centres for disabled, in which workforce is assumed to be heterogeneous due to their disabilities. Since the employment of disabled workers may sustain higher absenteeism rates due to their health, especially under COVID-19, employing temporary workers to fill labour shortage is a crucial issue. In addition, in practice, the movement of workers between stations on assemble lines can increase the flexibility of worker assignment. In this study, we investigate a new risk-averse ALWABP with uncertain disabled worker availability, limited temporary workers and moving workers. The objective is to minimise the risk-averse weighted sum of the cycle time and the number of employed temporary workers. For the problem, a risk-averse two-stage stochastic programming model is formulated. The first stage assigns specific tasks (called fixed tasks) to stations, while the second stage assigns workers and remaining tasks (called flexible tasks) to stations. A genetic algorithm combining K-means clustering approach and variable neighbourhood search (GAKV) is designed. Experiment results show the superiority of the GAKV in terms of solution quality and computation time compared with sample average approximation (SAA). In addition, managerial insights are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mundo Agrario is the property of Universidad Nacional de La Plata and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The current pandemic with its associated economic downturn has intensified the pressures on companies to produce quality offerings with an increased pressure on cost controls. Across industries companies have reduced their costs by enhancing their ability to operate flexibly, through increasing the use of temporary workers. However, such a reliance on temporary workers is generally associated with deteriorating quality. In order to untangle the relationship between quality and temporary workers we address the following research questions: (1) What are the quality performance implications of employing temporary workers? and (2) Can process capabilities eliminate the potential quality performance deterioration that are due to temporary workers? Process capabilities are conceptualised through the plant's level of of-the-art manufacturing processes technology. To address our research questions, we utilise survey data collected through the Global Manufacturing Research Group. The results suggest that an increased usage of temporary workers significantly increases reject rates and customer returns. Furthermore, we identified that managers cannot rely on their processes to safeguard them from quality performance deterioration, when employing temporary workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research has documented occupational health disparities, including higher rates of work‐related injuries, among temporary workers compared with workers in standard employment arrangements. According to guidance from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), both staffing companies and host employers are responsible for protecting the occupational safety and health (OSH) of temporary workers. To date, there has been little qualitative research on temporary worker OSH in the United States and a lack of evidence‐based OSH programs designed to meet the needs of temporary workers. The aim of this study was to better understand the barriers to and facilitators of temporary worker OSH from the perspective of US staffing companies. Methods: In‐depth interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of representatives from 15 US staffing companies. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed through a three‐step process. Results: Commonly mentioned barriers to temporary worker OSH include differential treatment of temporary workers by host employers; lack of understanding among host employers and staffing companies of joint OSH responsibilities; and workers' fear of job loss or other negative repercussions if they report an injury or illness or voice OSH concerns. Commonly mentioned facilitators of temporary worker OSH include conducting client assessments and site visits and fostering strong communication and relationships with both host employers and temporary workers. Conclusions: These findings can help inform the tailoring of OSH programs to promote health equity in temporary workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To monitor trends in alternative work arrangements, the authors conducted a version of the Contingent Worker Survey as part of the RAND American Life Panel in late 2015. Their findings point to a rise in the incidence of alternative work arrangements in the US economy from 1995 to 2015. The percentage of workers engaged in alternative work arrangements—defined as temporary help agency workers, on-call workers, contract workers, and independent contractors or freelancers—rose from 10.7% in February 2005 to possibly as high as 15.8% in late 2015. Workers who provide services through online intermediaries, such as Uber or TaskRabbit, accounted for 0.5% of all workers in 2015. Of the workers selling goods or services directly to customers, approximately twice as many reported finding customers through off-line intermediaries than through online intermediaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effects of temporary workers and works councils on process innovations at manufacturing sites. The impact of temporary workers, commonly viewed as a means of operational flexibility and cost savings, on firms' ability to innovate is underexplored. Works councils represent and help integrate temporary workers, but are often equated with unions, which have been criticized as barriers to innovation, especially in the US. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use secondary data collected by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) of the German Federal Employment Agency. Specifically, the authors conduct a series of regression analyses using 11-year panel data covering the period 2009–2019 with 11,641 manufacturing site-year observations. Findings: The results suggest that the use of temporary workers initially promotes process innovation, but at too high a level, it impairs firms' ability to innovate. Furthermore, the results suggest that works councils have a positive impact on innovation and dampen the curvilinear effect found with respect to temporary workers. Originality/value: Research has largely focused on the cost and flexibility benefits of temporary workers. The authors analyze the effectiveness of temporary workers in terms of innovativeness. By including works councils, the study also consider the contextual environment in which temporary workers are employed. Finally, the results reject the assumption that works councils have a similar negative impact as unions on innovation; in fact, the authors find the opposite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between temporary employment and firms' financial performance in Chinese manufacturing firms. Using two waves of large social survey data, the empirical results reveal (1) the proportion of temporary workers has a significant inverted-U-shaped relationship with a firm's financial performance, (2) a firm's human resource treatment disparity between permanent and temporary workers (HR treatment disparity) strengthens the negative relationship between temporary employment and performance, and (3) the innovation-oriented firm strategy in conjunction with a higher proportion of temporary workers is associated with poorer firm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the impact of employment protection legislation on firm-level outcomes such as employment and profitability in South Korea. The 2007 Act on the Protection of Temporary Workers restricted the use of specific types of temporary contracts to a period of two years. Exploiting the fact that the impact of the reforms was greater for establishments that intensively used the affected temporary workers, the authors apply a difference-in-differences framework. Their results show that businesses responded to the Act by reducing the use of temporary contracts protected by the reforms and partially substituting them with permanent and other unprotected temporary contracts. As a result, the reform decreased overall employment level of establishments. Furthermore, the authors find that the newly introduced regulations had a limited negative impact on firms’ profitability. Evidence suggests that establishments also improved their capital intensity and their labor productivity in response to the labor reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The various rhetorics of 'agile', 'agility', and 'agile working' (AW) set an agenda for new ways of working and have recently gained traction in popular management discourse, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet conceptually, these rhetorical varieties of 'agile' are underdeveloped in the academic literature. In this article we examine the stream of AW as being a particularly influential rhetoric. AW is critically evaluated by first identifying separate streams and rhetorics of 'agile' in the literature, and AW is then situated within this typology. To understand the particular version of reality being mainstreamed by the AW rhetoric, we then examine AWs conceptualisation as 'a new way of working', as promoted by dominant actors within the UK work context. We then consider existing studies of worker experiences under different employment arrangements that can be subsumed under the heading of 'AW practices'. Our analysis highlights voids between what may be considered as mainstream HR practice when applied to standard employees compared to a spectrum of 'non-standard' workers. The implications for the role of HR in the implementation of AW and in managing the worker experience are discussed and future avenues for this under-researched area are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporary workers already represent a relevant percentage of the total workforce in several European countries. This type of employment is usually associated with more precarious contractual and working conditions. This situation can lead to several negative outcomes in terms of workers' physical and mental health. According to Job Demands-Resources (JD-R), the precarious situation of temporary workers can reduce the number of available resources and lead to mental health problems. This research aims to examine the importance of personal resources—in the form of resilience—with burnout and its three dimensions (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal fulfillment), as a consequence of the job strain generated by this employment. The empirical study follows a quantitative, correlational, and cross-sectional approach. A sample of 2050 individuals participated in the study. Responses were collected through an online questionnaire for Portuguese temporary workers in March 2021. The questionnaire was sent to active temporary workers registered in temporary agencies The hypotheses established through a structural model were tested by the Partial Least Square method. The results show that resilience, as a personal resource, is related to the three dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal fulfillment). As such, personal resources can be considered an important aspect to take into account when managing temporary agency workers' burnout levels. Theoretically, this research contributes to understanding the role of personal resources, especially resilience as an important inhibitor of negative effects on workers' mental health, such as burnout. Empirically, this study contributes to the discussion of the mental health challenges of temporary agency workers, reinforcing the importance of developing strategies to strengthen personal resources as a way to improve mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fitting duration models on an inflow sample of jobs in Germany starting in 2002 to 2010, the author investigates the impact of employers’ use of temporary agency work on regular workers’ job stability. In line with dual labor market theory, the author finds that nontemporary jobs are significantly more stable when employers use temporary agency workers. The rise in job stability stems mainly from reduced transitions into nonemployment, suggesting that nontemporary workers are safeguarded against involuntary job losses. The findings are robust to controlling for unobserved permanent employer characteristics and changes in the observational window that comprises the labor market disruption of the Great Recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the agrarian roots of social capital. I show that Italian areas exhibiting a higher share of temporary agricultural workers in the Post-Unification period register lower civic capital today. Spatial analysis and IV estimates using malaria as a source of exogenous variation indicate that the effect is robust even after controlling for social-property relations being not randomly determined. Finally, I demonstrate that institutions affecting the benefits and costs of cultural norms generate persistent effects. I investigate the role of "industrial districts" as a mechanism to transmit the cultural trait of cooperation through time. Since they developed where temporary workers were relatively rare, I find those municipalities exhibiting high civic capital to have a higher propensity to belong to an industrial district. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differences in temporary and permanent workers' risk-benefit appraisals need to be investigated due to its potential relationship with incurred risk and occupational risk-taking behaviours. A total of 158 temporary and 158 permanent workers were recruited and exposed to information on eleven different hazardous job contexts, the description of the required tasks, inherent occupational hazards, and suggested salaries. They were asked to report their perceptions on how hazardous the jobs are, their satisfaction with the accompanying salary, and their willingness to take the job for eleven different job contexts. Temporary workers reported lower job security, lower perceived control, and were more satisfied by salaries than their permanent counterparts; however, there was no difference in perceptions of hazard associated with the jobs. Temporary workers also reported greater willingness to take job opportunities. Temporary workers experience a unique array of stressors and may agree to hazardous work opportunities, not due to a lack of acknowledged safety and health risks, but rather a greater satisfaction from salaries. These findings need to be considered in the safety management of temporary workers, as organizations can improve safety and facilitate self-regulatory engagement in safer and healthier behaviours for both permanent and temporary employees with this appraisal system in mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the skills and competence acquisition of migration entrepreneurs in the H-2 visa programme, a U.S. temporary worker scheme. This programme, which nowadays largely recruits Mexicans, is managed by a migration industry of labour contracting agencies, recruiters, document processors, and transporters. This article focuses on recruiters, in charge of selecting workers, and document processors, responsible for completing visa application forms. Hailing mostly from the rural working class, recruiters derive expertise from membership in the social world of the migrant. The competences of document processors closely track their belonging in the urban middle class, reflecting experiences of formal education which prepare them to deal with the bureaucratic interface of the programme. These migration entrepreneurs also acquire skills by cooperating and competing with colleagues, migrants, contracting firms, employers, advocates, and government officials – interactions that expose them the risks and benefits of a more expansive role in the brokerage apparatus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A small but increasing number of studies have examined the risk of injury among temporary workers compared to that among workers in permanent employer arrangements. The purpose of this study was to conduct a comparative analysis of injury risk among temporary and permanent employer workers using a large dataset of workers' compensation (WC) claims of injury. Methods: Over 1.3 million accepted WC claims in Ohio during the years 2001 to 2013 were analyzed, including 45 046 claims from workers employed by temporary services agencies. General descriptive statistics, injury rates and rate ratios (temporary to permanent workers) were calculated by injury type and event, industry group, and industry manual classes. Results: Injured temporary workers were younger and had less tenure compared to injured permanent workers. Temporary workers had higher injury rates, and lower lost‐time and medical costs. Differences in injury rates between temporary and permanent workers varied by injury event, industry, and manual class. Conclusion: Temporary workers had higher overall injury rates than permanent workers, controlling for industry manual class. These differences were pronounced for certain industries and injury events. We were not able to control for age and tenure of the worker, so it is not clear how these factors affected observed results. These findings were mostly similar to those from other studies using WC data from the states of Washington and Illinois. Together, these studies provide insights to improve injury prevention among temporary workers, however, additional research is still needed to improve safety and health programming for this group of workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of two-tier firm-level collective agreements on firms' propensity to use temporary employment, accounting for the process of self-selection of firms into different bargaining levels in the Italian context. It further examines which firm-level characteristics drive this process of selection. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical analysis uses a panel data set of Italian firms for the years 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2015. Estimations are produced and compared through ordinary least square regression, random-effects and fixed-effects models. Findings: Results show that enterprises adopting two-tier firm-level agreements (TTFA) are associated with lower levels of temporary workers. However, a longitudinal analysis suggests that introducing a TTFA does not impact firms' propensity to employ temporary workers. This novel finding highlights the presence of a selection process based on firm-level time-constant characteristics. The paper argues that these characteristics refer to management orientation toward high-road rather than low-road employment strategies. Further evidence is brought in support of this claim, showing that firms' propensity toward the provision of training for their labor force partially explain the process of selection. Originality/value: The study is the first to analyze the impact of secondary-level collective agreements on firms' reliance on temporary employment, offering new evidence on the causes of the expansion of temporary employment. It further highlights the relevance of employers' strategies in shaping the impact of the bargaining structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Online gig labor platforms bring together a global and fast-growing workforce to complete highly granular, remote and decontextualized tasks. While these environments might be empowering to some workers, many others feel disenfranchised and removed from the final product of their labor. To better understand the antecedents of continued participation in forms of crowdsourced digital labor, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between worker's ability to create a narrative of their work mattering regardless, and their continued work engagement (WE) in these work setups. Design/methodology/approach: The authors approach the relationship between individual mattering and digital WE through a longitudinal study among workers on the crowdworking platform Amazon Mechanical Turk. The authors further provide qualitative insight into individual perceptions of mattering based on essay data. Findings: The authors develop a measure of mattering in crowdworking with four dimensions: reliance, social recognition, importance and interaction. Reliance is the most pronounced dimension, followed by interaction, importance and social recognition. In the final longitudinal model, only importance affects WE positively, while the other three mattering dimensions do not have a significant effect. Originality/value: The findings indicate that individuals who feel that they themselves and their work "count" and "make a difference" will be more engaged in their digital labor. By clarifying the dimensionality of mattering in crowdwork and studying its differentiated effect on WE, the paper makes a contribution to research on crowdwork and the future of work. Beyond the theoretical contributions, the finding that perceived importance fosters WE has important implications for task and platform design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: High-quality employee motivation can contribute to an organization's long-term success by supporting employees' well-being and performance. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research concerning how organizations motivate workers in non-traditional work contexts. In the algocratic context of the gig-economy, the purpose of this paper is to understand the role that technology can play in motivating workers. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on the self-determination theory, job-characteristic theory and enterprise social media research, this conceptual paper explores how the architecture of the digital labor platforms underlying the gig-economy (and the characteristics of jobs mediated through these IT artifacts) can impact key antecedents of self-motivation. Findings: Combining theory and empirical evidence, this paper develops a mid-range theory demonstrating how organizations can support the self-motivation of gig-workers through the thoughtful design of their digital labor platforms and the integration of two social media tools (namely, social networking and social badging). Research limitations/implications: This paper answers calls for psychologically-based research exploring the consequences of gig-work as well as research studying the impacts of advanced technologies in interaction with work contexts on motivation. In theorizing around a large set of social-contextual variables operating at different levels of analysis, this paper demonstrates that individual-level motivation can be influenced by both task-based and organizational-level factors, in addition to individual-level factors. Originality/value: The proposed theory provides novel insight into how gig-organizations can leverage widely accessible social media technology to motivate platform workers in the absence of human supervision and support. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Advances in information technology have enabled new ways of organizing work and led to a proliferation of what is known as the "gig economy." While much attention has been paid to how these new organizational designs have upended traditional employee–employer relationships, there has been little consideration of how these changes have impacted the social norms and expectations that govern the relationship between workers and consumers. The purpose of this paper is to consider the social norm of tipping and propose that gig work is associated with a breakdown of tipping norms in part because of workers' increased autonomy in terms of deciding when and whether to work. Design/methodology/approach: The authors present four studies to support their hypothesis: a survey vignette experiment with workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk (Study 1), an analysis of New York City taxi data (Study 2), a field experiment with restaurant employee food delivery drivers (Study 3) and a field experiment with gig-worker food delivery drivers (Study 4). Findings: In Studies 1 and 2, they find that consumers are less likely to tip when workers have autonomy in deciding whether to complete a task. In Study 3, they find that restaurant delivery employees notice upfront tips (or lack thereof) and alter their service as a result. In contrast, in Study 4, they find that gig-workers who agree to complete a delivery for a fixed amount that includes an upfront tip (or lack thereof) are not responsive to tips. Together, these findings suggest that the gig economy has not only transformed employee-employer relationships, but has also altered the norms and expectations of consumers and workers. Originality/value: The authors present four different studies that consider the social norm of tipping in the context of gig work. Together, they highlight that perceptions of worker autonomy have driven the decline in tipping norms associated with gig work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using unique panel data on the temporary movement of Chinese workers to 191 economies during 1992–2015, I investigate the patterns and determinants of labour mobility in the services trade. I estimate a gravity model of labour mobility in two categories, namely overseas labour services and overseas contracted projects. I find that distance (proxy for migration costs) and income are not the most important determinants of the latter. For overseas contracted projects, the dispatch of workers is not driven by their pure economic aims but by the Chinese government's policies and strategies such as its overseas project promotion policy. Furthermore, I employ the difference‐in‐differences estimation method to investigate the impact of this policy upon labour mobility. The results show that the policy of promoting overseas contracted projects has causal and positive effects on labour mobility in construction‐related sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Diversité Urbaine is the property of Chaire BMO en diversite et gouvernance and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether labour market entry via temporary work has any (persistent) effects on labour market outcomes.Design/methodology/approach Using unique data on several cohorts of graduates from the German apprenticeship system, the authors interpret labour market entry via temporary work agency (TWA) work as a treatment and apply propensity score matching and the control function approach to investigate corresponding effects.Findings The results indicate a pronounced wage gap but no significant wage disadvantage in the medium term for graduates who switch to regular employment. Nevertheless, approximately 30 per cent of the graduates do not manage to leave the temporary help sector and, as a result, suffer persistent wage penalties.Originality/value The numerous studies that investigate the consequences of TWA work on individual labour market performance have not considered the specific situation of young workers after graduation. The rapidly increasing percentage of TWA jobs and the above average share of young workers among temporary workers call for corresponding evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Temporary workers face increased risk of injury as compared to permanent workers in similar occupations. This study explores the role played by several potential risk factors. Methods Injured temporary and permanent workers, matched by industry, tenure and demographic characteristics, were interviewed to isolate the association of temporary employment with several injury risk factors. Results Temporary workers had higher workers' compensation claims rates than their permanent worker-peers. In interviews temporary workers a reported a lower frequency of exposure to hazards. However, they also reported being less likely to be equipped to cope with hazards by such countermeasures as experience screening, safety training and task control. Conclusion Policies are needed to improve screening and training of temporary workers to assigned tasks, to discourage job-switching, to improve temporary workers' hazard awareness, to protect their right to report unsafe conditions. The responsibilities of agencies and host employers for ensuring the safety of their temporary workers need clarification in regulatory policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish to what extent temporary contract and participation in decision making impact on employees job satisfaction and to propose a model whereby participation in decision making mitigates against the negative impact that temporary work has on job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use data for a representative sample of 14,778 employees in 23 European countries. In order to test the hypotheses, the authors use regression models and the Chow test. Findings – The results show that while temporary contracts decreases job satisfaction, participation in decision making increases it. However, autonomous teams, job autonomy, and job involvement buffer against the negative effect that temporary contract has on job satisfaction. Research limitations/implications – The use of secondary data and the non-longitudinal nature of the data set. Practical implications – The effect of participation in decision making in job satisfaction is greater for temporary workers than for permanents. Participation in decision making should not be restricted to permanent workers. Originality/value – Participation in decision making and temporary contracts has been considered incompatible practices. The paper contributes to enrich the understanding of the relationship between these practices and job satisfaction. Sample representatives support the results obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the notion of precarious work and addresses the temporal, historical and analytical weaknesses manifest in many accounts by proposing a political economy synthesis.Design/methodology/approach The discussion takes place through a political economy theoretical lens that takes seriously the structures and institutions of capitalism and the agency of workers individually and collectively.Findings The paper concludes that precarious work is intrinsic to capitalism and therefore the precariat cannot be understood as a class-in-itself. The implications of this for activists are that solidarity needs to be forged between all groups of workers in order to organise for decent and stable employment.Originality/value First, it is argued that two key structural influences on precarity are the spatiality of capitalism and its endemic tendency to crisis. Second, temporal and institutional “shapers” of precarity are discussed in historical and comparative context. Third, the agential influence on precarity is examined with regard to the possibility of the self-organisation precarious workers and their potential for forging solidarity with other groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2008, Warehouse Workers United (WWU) has organized thousands of low-wage warehouse workers in Southern California’s Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, many of whom are temporary, subcontracted, and immigrant workers. Warehouse Workers Resource Center (WWRC), formed in 2011, has provided additional legal services and other resources to warehouse workers. Combining protest tactics, a legal and media strategy, and a commodity chain organizing strategy, WWU and WWRC helped warehouse workers to win back millions of dollars of stolen wages and to pass new regulatory legislation for employers of warehouse workers. In coalition with other labor organizations, they also obtained an agreement by Walmart to improve its workplace safety standards. This case study, based on field research and interviews with key informants, provides important lessons for those seeking to organize marginalized workers in other industries and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that blending temporary and standard workers in workgroups is negatively associated with the extent to which standard workers perceive that the organization provides them inducements. This effect is proposed to be mediated by the negative effects of blending on standard workers’ tasks and relationships in the workgroup. Data from 176 standard workers in blended workgroups in a large research organization shows that a higher proportion of temporary workers is associated with an increase in standard workers’ informal administrative work, decrease in their quality of workgroup relationships, and subsequently lower perceptions that the organization provides them inducements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a vehicle relocation problem for one-way carsharing systems in which vehicles are relocated by temporary workers during the night. The goal is to develop a method for constructing employment plans and work schedules simultaneously to minimize the total relocation cost. An integer programming model is proposed, which incorporates employment planning, return restrictions and ride sharing of temporary workers. An iterative optimization approach is developed to address large-scale rebalancing problems. The unbalanced stations are clustered based on their relocation demands. Considering a new employment limit in each rebalancing model, the optimization procedure iteratively solves a set of cluster relocation problems and an inter-cluster relocation problem until a convergent solution is obtained. Numerical experiments based on data from a carsharing company in Chengdu reveal two interesting findings: (1) Employing temporary workers from understocked stations costs less than that from overstocked stations; (2) Using a time-based salary contributes to 49.1% reduction in the working hours and 33.8% in the relocation costs. • A relocation problem with employment planning and ride sharing of temporary workers. • An integer programming for the worker employment plan and working time schedule. • An iterative optimization algorithm for large-scale overnight relocation problems. • We identify two factors that can lead to a reduction in the cost of the relocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The notion of worker vulnerability is often seen as synonymous with disadvantage in discussions of nonstandard work. The purpose of this paper is to separate and examine these two notions by considering economic, social and psychological perspectives and exploring the reality as experienced by agency workers. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 178 Australian clerical agency workers employed by eight agencies completed a mail questionnaire. Personalised responses were subjected to computer-assisted template analysis. Findings – Sample characteristics revealed a gendered and heterogeneous workforce. Findings showed evidence of economic, psychological and social vulnerabilities although favourable features were also reported. This apparent contradiction suggests linkages between the features of nonstandard work, worker preferences, individual characteristics and the experience of worker vulnerability. Research limitations/implications – The notion of varying degrees of worker vulnerability offers a new lens to investigate agency work. The relatively small sample size, focus on clerical work and features of the Australian context may limit generalisability. Practical implications – Findings demonstrate the nature and extent of agency worker vulnerability which allows us to offer policy interventions for governments, agencies and user organisations and insights for prospective agency workers. Originality/value – The widespread use of agency workers provides an imperative for frameworks to assess the nuances of the agency work experience. This study presents the reality of agency work as experienced by the workers and reveals the good and bad aspects of agency work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade literature has found that the impact of globalization on the domestic labor market depends, among other factors, on the sourcing country's income level, the education level of domestic workers, and the occupations involved. This paper investigates another factor that might determine the effects of globalization on the domestic labor market: the worker's contract type (i.e. permanent vs. temporary contract). We pay particular attention to wages and examine whether the contract type influences the impact of offshoring. Individual-level wage data from the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study during 1999-2007, linked to industry-level offshoring data from the World Input-Output Database are used to answer this question. Even after controlling for individual worker and employer characteristics, industry, and occupation, we find that South Korean manufacturing workers' wages increase as offshoring increases, but this impact is significantly weaker for temporary workers. Thus, our findings support public concern that globalization exacerbates inequality and shows that one potential channel of growing inequality is the contract type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to investigate how temporary agency workers' job attitudes are influenced by the fulfilment of the psychological contract; a set of employees' expectations, formed with the temporary work agency and its client: the host organisation. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper estimated moderated regressions with data collected through an online survey of 352 temporary agency workers employed by a large temporary work agency in Switzerland. Findings -- Results suggest that temporary agency workers' job satisfaction, commitment towards the host organisation, and intentions to stay with the temporary work agency relate positively to the fulfilment of the psychological contract by both organisations. Additionally, reported spill-over-effects imply that the fulfilment of the psychological contract by one organisation moderates job attitudes towards the other organisations. Research limitations/implications -- Results of the explorative study reveal that future research should consider the interrelated nature of psychological contracts in working arrangements when multiple employers are involved. However, for more generalisable results, a greater international sample, including different temporary work agencies, would be favourable. Practical implications -- Findings will help temporary work agencies to better understand how they rely on host organisations to fulfil the temporary agency workers' psychological contract to attract and retain temporary agency workers. Originality/value -- This paper contributes to the literature in the understudied field of non-traditional work arrangements as one of the few to examine these spill-over-effects both empirically and theoretically. Paper type Research paper [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The H-2A temporary agricultural worker program is a large-scale governmental program that is touted as a legal and documented avenue for nonimmigrant foreign workers to gain temporary employment in the USA. This paper historically situates the H-2A program within the larger history of American temporary work programs and argues that the H-2A program has inadequately curtailed the exploitation of temporary agricultural workers by focusing on documenting immigration through a lengthy application process and complex classification system, while failing to properly document the employment conditions of temporary agricultural workers once they have arrived in the USA. The analysis of the federal government's documentation and classification practices exposes how discursive practices are legitimized through the legal codes of two statutory regimes, labor and immigration law, and exposes how these discursive practices create rigid worker classifications that largely structure the debate on immigration and the rights of documented and undocumented workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to approach a new aspect of the assimilation of immigrants in Spain. In particular, it is analyzed the effect of the type of contract on immigrant wages. The data used in this analysis come from the Spanish National Immigrant Survey, which was conducted by the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE) between 2006 and 2007. Design/methodology/approach – First, the methods and econometric specifications applied develop a wage model where the variable “contract type” is considered as an endogenous regressor. Second, the average wage gap between temporary and permanent workers is decomposed between a portion attributable to differences in characteristics and another to differences in coefficients. Findings – It is found that workers with a permanent contract received a wage premium with respect to temporary workers even for equal work and equal productivity. Social implications – Results indicate the importance of job stability for the integration and assimilation of immigrants in Spain, and offer an economic argument to support labour policies that encourage stable employment relationships. Originality/value – This paper takes a novel approach of the assimilation of immigrants in the Spanish labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the HR practices of mature born-global firms from 29 emerging economies. Through an examination of large scale survey data the paper questions the extent to which firm size impacts the employment of temporary workers, the employment of skilled workers and the extent of employee training. Findings suggest that as firm size increases the use of temporary workers decreases, the number of skilled workers increases and the number of employees receiving training also increases. The paper highlights how born-global firms are able to shift away from externalized, market-based approaches towards more internalized, commitment-based approaches in order to survive, adapt and grow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of the contingent workforce presents many challenges in the occupational safety and health arena. State and federal laws impose obligations and rights on employees and employers, but contingent work raises issues regarding responsibilities to maintain a safe workplace and difficulties in collecting and reporting data on injuries and illnesses. Contingent work may involve uncertainty about the length of employment, control over the labor process, degree of regulatory, or statutory protections, and access to benefits under workers' compensation. The paper highlights differences in regulatory protections and benefits among various types of contingent workers and how these different arrangements affect safety incentives. It discusses challenges caused by contingent work for accurate data reporting in existing injury and illness surveillance and benefit programs, differences between categories of contingent work in their coverage in various data sources, and opportunities for overcoming obstacles to effectively using workers' compensation data. Am. J. Ind. Med. 57:764-775, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that social comparison processes take place within social exchanges, this field study examines the relationship between the differences in organizational treatment of a diverse workforce and psychological contract (PC) fulfillment. With a focus on the provision of performance-related pay and training programs for 748 temporary and 1432 permanent employees in the food manufacturing, retail and educational sectors, the study covers 78 organizations in seven countries. Hierarchical linear modeling with polynomials for both human resource practices showed a significantly positive association of incongruence in training distribution with PC fulfillment, but not for performance-related pay. Permanent employees' PCs benefit more from this incongruence than do temporary employees'. Training incongruence that derives from tailoring those programs to the needs of the specific employee group is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Psicologia. Organizacoes e Trabalho is the property of Sociedade Brasileira de Psicologia Organizacional e do Trabalho and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose |!|#8211; The purpose of this paper is to verify whether higher education increases the likelihood of young Italian workers moving from non-standard to standard wage contracts. Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; The authors exploit a data set on labour market flows, produced by the Italian National Statistical Office, by interviewing about 85,000 graduate and non-graduate individuals aged 15-29 in transition between five labour market states: standard wage employment; non-standard wage employment; self-employment; unemployment; inactivity. From these data, an average six-year transition matrix was constructed whose coefficients can be interpreted as probabilities of moving from one state to another over time. Findings |!|#8211; As the authors find evidence for the so-called stepping stone hypothesis (that is, a higher probability of moving to a permanent job for individuals starting from a temporary job), the authors expect graduates to be more likely to pass from non-standard to standard wage contracts than non-graduates, because the signalling effect of education is enhanced by the stepping stone effect of non-standard wage contracts. Nevertheless, the authors find that non-standard wage contracts of graduates are more likely to be terminated as bad job/worker matches. Originality/value |!|#8211; This paper adds to the empirical literature on the probability of young workers moving from non-standard wage contracts to a permanent job. By separating graduates from non-graduates, it was found that education reduces the likelihood of passing from non-standard to standard wage contracts. The authors interpret this result as evidence of the changing labour market that makes it more difficult to infer the productivity of graduates as opposed to non-graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of training to explain affective commitment and exhaustion of temporary agency workers (TAW). There is a general assumption that training relates with a social exchange relationship where employees exchange positive outcomes, not only with inducements received by training but also with the expectation of prospective inducements that will emerge from the fulfilment of promises made by the organization. Design/methodology/approach – The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 393 Portuguese blue-collar TAW using structural equation modeling. Findings – The hypotheses were supported. Training was positively related to workers' affective commitment and negatively to workers' exhaustion. Psychological contract fulfilment partially mediated these relationships. Research limitations/implications – The study is limited due to the nature of the sample (TAW in industrial sector with similar training opportunities as permanent workers) and the lack of longitudinal design. Neither does it provide implications for other types of commitment that may be relevant for TAW (continuance commitment, for example). Practical implications – An important implication of this research is that employers should not assume that training is an investment without return from TAW. Developmental opportunities, while important to all employees, were positively related to TAW' affective commitment towards the organization and negatively to TAW' exhaustion. Originality/value – The findings highlighted the importance of training in developing positive employment relationships with TAW and the role of psychological contract fulfilment as a mechanism that contributes to explain such relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This study aims to examine how temporary employment and organizational size moderate the effect of human capital on firm performance. The authors also analyze the overall effect of human capital, temporary contracts and organizational size on firm performance. This enables them to identify which combination of these three variables leads to the highest levels of profitability. Design/methodology/approach – From a sample of 1,403 Spanish firms, the authors carry out a comparative analysis of the impact of human capital on labor productivity and return on sales among small and large companies with high and low use of temporary employment. Findings – The positive effect of human capital on return of sales is greater in large firms with low temporary employment than in small firms with high temporary employment. In addition, this positive effect is not universal because in some scenarios it is not significant. The most beneficial context is that of large companies with a high level of human capital and a low use of temporary employment. Research limitations/implications – The results should be interpreted within the Spanish manufacturing sector. Practical implications – Decisions about investment in human capital and the use of temporary workers should be taken jointly by personnel managers, in accordance with the size of the firm. If this holistic view is ignored, a full understanding of the impact of human capital on firm performance will be obscured. On the other hand, a common feature that large and small firms share is an incompatibility between human capital and temporary employment. Originality/value – Growing interest has been shown in the degree to which investment in human capital contributes to firm performance; yet limited research attention has been paid to the contextual conditions that moderate this relationship. Investment in human capital can be more beneficial in some scenarios than in others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore whether temporary jobs are a port of entry into permanent employment and to argue that the answer crucially depends on the type of temporary contracts being considered. Design/methodology/approach – The paper bases its empirical evidence on a longitudinal sample of labour market entrants in Italy and estimates dynamic multinomial logit models with fixed effects to allow for the non-random sorting of workers into the different types of contracts. Findings – The authors show that the transition to permanent employment is more likely for individuals who hold any type of temporary contract than for the unemployed, thus broadly confirming the existence of port-of-entry effects. Yet, not all temporary contracts are the same. An order among non-standard contracts with respect to the probability of taking an open-ended job emerges, with training contracts at the top, freelance work at the bottom, and fixed-term contracts outperforming apprenticeships. Strong SSC rebates, lack of training requirements, and low legal constraints concerning renewals result in poor port-of-entry performance, as in the case of freelance contracts. Instead, mandatory training and more binding legal constraints on the use, extension, and renewals of training contracts tend to enhance the probability of getting a standard job. Originality/value – Most of the existing empirical literature aggregates temporary contracts in a single category, thereby ignoring a relevant source of heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of psychological contract breach on the commitment and behaviors of temporary workers engaged in a multiple agency relationship. Specifically, it aimed to measure the influence of contract breach by the employing agency and the client organization on temporary workers' trust and affective commitment to the respective party, and on their adoption of discretionary behaviors at the client site. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study was performed using a sample of agency workers from the banking sector, which was composed of 186 worker-supervisor dyads. Findings: The results suggested that contract breach by the agency and the client was negatively related to temporary worker's affective commitment toward the respective party. This relation was mediated by workers' trust in each organization. The results also indicated that only commitment toward the client organization influenced the adoption of discretionary behaviors. Implications: Understanding of the potential influence of the multiple psychological contracts of temporary workers helps to fully understand the reactions of these workers. As organizations rely heavily on these workers, this study shows how both the client and the agency can foster conditions conducive to the adoption of discretionary behaviors at the client site. Originality/Value: This is the first study to provide evidence of the effects of psychological contract breach by each organization that temporary workers associate with on their attitudes and behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporary work continues to stimulate research and debate in many developed countries. This research provides contemporary data on temporary work agency employment in the Australian hotel industry. Findings reveal that an absence of regulation governing the temporary work agency industry in conjunction with strong migrant labour supply and extremely active agency-client firm interactions has entrenched TWA employment and restructured the labour market in a coercive fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine temporary workers' differential extra-role behaviors (ERBs) towards their client and employer; if this varied with the motivation of the worker for being temporary, whether these ERBs are affected by firms' relationship management practices; and whether the ERBs aimed at the client and the employer impact subsequent outcomes. Results showed that temporary workers' motivations are differentially related to agency and client directed ERBs. Agency ERBs were related to longer tenure with the agency, while client ERBs were associated with faster wage growth and more hours worked per week. Organizational relationship management practices elicit different client and agency directed ERBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which compares the workers' compensation experiences and occupational injuries of temporary employed workers with those in standard employment arrangements in Washington. The Washington State Fund data on workers' compensation claims from January 1, 2003 to June 30, 2006 were analyzed. It concludes that temporary employees have higher claims than regular employed workers, and ratios are twofold higher in manufacturing and construction industry sectors.

The temporary workforce is a small but increasing proportion of the labor market in most industrialized countries. It has been argued that the competitive advantage of temporary work agencies will be increasingly determined by their capacity to retain a committed workforce of temporary agency workers. Hence, we investigated temporary agency workers' commitment to their client organization and also their temporary work agency. Normative and affective commitments were predicted by perceived organizational support (POS) in the case of both entities, supporting the idea that these types of commitment are governed by a social exchange relationship. Continuance commitment was not associated with POS or placement-related variables. Unexpectedly, agency temps' commitments did not differ across the two entities. The results suggest that client organizations and temporary work agencies can each strive to achieve greater affective and normative commitments from agency temps, through POS-related activities, without compromising agency temps' commitments to the other entity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics between management approach, human resource systems and practices, and responses of seasonal workers. Design/methodology/approach - After reviewing literature on contingent workers focusing on seasonal workers in particular, this paper presents a case study of how seasonal work is managed in a specific organisational context. Findings - There is a noticeable gap between the organisation's initial approach to human resource management (during recruitment and induction) and the way employees are actually managed during the course of their employment. While seasonal employees may have low levels of organisational commitment as a consequence, nevertheless their commitment to colleagues, supervisors, and in some cases, clients has side-benefits for the organisation. Research limitations/implications - The research is based on a single case study and has illustrative value. The characteristics of seasonal work described in the case reflect a specific industry and organisational context. Practical implications - The findings suggest that employers of seasonal workers should consider the influence of human resource management systems and practices on the expectations and experience employees have of work. Originality/value - The paper makes an empirical contribution as seasonal work has received little attention to date. Moreover, as seasonal work potentially combines short-term finite employment with longer-term relational aspects, we are able to highlight the relevance of cyclical time to an understanding of how employees perceive and experience work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- This paper aims to offer a typology of temporary workers, based on their motives for accepting 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 to construct a typology of temporary workers. Variation of individual and work-related variables between types of temporary workers was analyzed using ANOVA. Findings -- The analyses suggest that there are three types of workers: involuntary temporary workers highlight the involuntary motive and the stepping-stone motive; the stepping-stone type stresses the stepping-stone motive only, and the non-involuntary group disagrees with all three motives. Moreover, the groups differed significantly on important work-related variables such as occupational position, tenure, employability, and work-involvement. However, differences in individual variables were limited. Research limitations/implications -- The research puts forward a more complex typology of temporary workers than is usually suggested. Moreover, the study shows a non-involuntary group for which temporary employment can become a trap, and hence these workers should be targeted by future policy and interventions. Originality/value -- The research offers a typology of temporary workers, which is founded on motivation theory, and existing research on motives for accepting temporary employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]