The spillover effect of a part-time job experience on the performance of subsequent full-time job: Empirical evidence from Hungary

Abstract

To mitigate the ever-increasing expenses for maintaining livelihood, as well as the intention to earn some extra money, numerous people are getting involved in dual or multiple jobs: one full-time and one part-time or two part-times. Using the “spillover effect” of multiple job holding and “Self Determination Theory”, this qualitative study made an attempt to investigate the tentative impact of a part-time job experience on the regular (full-time) job performance on the basis of self-reported perceptions in Hungary. This qualitative study was conducted based on the self-reported perceptions of 150 participants, who have two jobs simultaneously: one full-time and one part-time. The study used the focus group discussion (FGD) technique to obtain perceived feelings from the selected participants. The participants reported that pleasant or enjoyable experiences on a day of the part-time job increased the next-day performance of the full-time job, and vice versa. In addition, the participants reported to feel less stress even by doing two jobs while having positive experiences in their part-time jobs. As there is an acute lack of research regarding two jobholders’ perceived experience, it is expected that the findings of this qualitative study will assist in further experiments and enrich academia.