Non-traditional Work Arrangements Research Articles

Career identity and organizational identification among professionals with on-demand work

PurposeDrawing upon the social identity theory, the authors argue that professionals' career identities have a positive indirect effect on identification with on-demand organizations through career networking behavior. In addition, the strength of these beneficial effects was also bound by extraversion and collectivism.Design/methodology/approachThe hypothesized moderated mediation model was tested by multisource and time-lagged data about 242 Chinese accountants engaging in on-demand work.FindingsThe results demonstrated that professionals with a career identity tend to engage in career networking behaviors and identify themselves with a client company. In addition, extraverted professionals were more likely to engage in career networking behaviors, and collectivist professionals were more likely to identify with their on-demand organizations.Practical implicationsThis research provides important guidelines on how managers in on-demand organizations leverage gig workers' career identities to establish deep relationships with them.Originality/valueThe authors expanded the traditional framework of identification in the setting of nontraditional work arrangements by establishing a link between career identity and organizational identification for on-demand professionals.

Men and Women Pursue Nonlinear Career Paths, but Impacts Differ: a Cross-Sectional Study of Academic Hospitalists.

BackgroundNonlinear career paths are increasingly common. Women in academia pursuing nonlinear career paths experience negative impacts on career trajectory. No published studies have examined how pursuit of nonlinear career paths might perpetuate gender inequities within academic hospital medicine.Objective(1) Compare the frequency of nonlinear career paths by gender among academic hospitalists; (2) assess the perceived impact of two types of nonlinear career paths—extended leave (EL) and non-traditional work arrangements (NTWA) on hospitalists’ personal lives and careers.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsCross-sectional descriptive survey study of adult hospitalist physicians in three academic centers within the USA.InterventionElectronic survey including closed- and open-ended items assessing respondent utilization of and experiences with nonlinear career paths.Main Outcomes and Measures(1) Associations between EL and demographic variables as well as gender differences in leave length and NTWA strategies using Fisher’s exact test; 2) grounded theory qualitative analysis of open-text responses.Key ResultsCompared with men, women reported taking EL more often (p = 0.035) and for longer periods (p = 0.002). Men and women reported taking NTWA at similar rates. Women reported negative impacts of EL within domains of personal life, career, well-being, and work-life integration whereas men only reported negative impacts to career. Men and women described positive impacts of NTWA across all domains.ConclusionsWomen academic hospitalists reported taking EL more often than men and experienced disproportionately more adverse impacts to personal lives and careers. Surprisingly, men reported taking NTWA to address burnout and childbirth at similar rates to women. Our findings lay the groundwork for additional exploration of cultural and policy interventions, particularly improved paid leave policies.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11606-022-07402-x.

Boomerang independent contractors: an experimental study using a psychological contract approach

The increasing prevalence of nontraditional work arrangements has led to new talent management challenges for organizations. Given independent contractors (ICs) have the potential to bring considerable value to an organization, it is in an organization’s best interest to establish a pool of loyal talent that is willing to return when needed (i.e. as boomerang ICs). Through the lens of the psychological contract, we examine factors that can contribute to retaining independent contractors. Using an international sample of ICs and an experimental research design, we demonstrate that ICs are less likely to return to an organization after a perceived psychological contract breach during a previous project for the same organization. This is especially true if they voluntarily work on a contract basis. Importantly, our results suggest that expectations of both a transactional and relational nature influence independent contractor loyalty to organizations. Our findings extend the limited research on talent management in nontraditional work arrangements, producing important theoretical and practical implications for the management of independent contractors within organizations.

Ethics and Total Worker Health®: Constructs for Ethical Decision-Making and Competencies for Professional Practice.

Work has become increasingly technologically driven and fast paced, with long work hours, new/emerging hazards, and rising health care costs. Threats to worker safety, health, and well-being including non-traditional work arrangements and practices, precarious work, uncertain hazardous exposures, and work organization issues, such as heavy workloads, design of work, uneven work hours, and difficult interpersonal relationships among workers and managers are apparent. Furthermore, the relationship between personal health risk factors and workplace risks and exposures has drawn increased attention and concern. As employer economic pressures continue to build, it is anticipated that ethical dilemmas for practitioners will become increasingly complex. A review of relevant Total Worker Health® (TWH) literature, related ethical constructs and competencies, an examination of codes of ethics for occupational safety and health and health promotion/education disciplines was conducted. A case study for TWH utilizing an ethical decision-making model for the analysis of key ethical issues and solutions was completed. TWH approaches to protecting safety, promoting health, and advancing well-being are increasingly being adopted. These approaches can reveal ethical dilemmas, and ethical constructs are needed to guide decision-making. A core set of proposed ethical competencies for TWH professionals are identified as a transdisciplinary framework to support workplace ethical culture.

Development of the Healthy Work Collaborative: Findings From an Action Research Study to Inform a Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change Capacity-Building Initiative Addressing Precarious Employment

Precarious employment (PE) is a complex problem that affects an increasing number of workers across all economic sectors who experience low wages, hazardous conditions, and few benefits, and results in adverse health outcomes. PE is characterized by nontraditional work arrangements, precluding workplace-based interventions. Policy, systems, and environmental initiatives that engage cross-sectoral stakeholders may be an applicable health promotion approach to address PE. The University of of Illinois at Chicago Center for Healthy Work's Healthy Communities through Healthy Work (HCHW) is an outreach project of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health-funded Center of Excellence for Total Worker Health that conducted a multiphased qualitative action research (AR) study. AR designs may be a novel approach to develop initiatives to address problems like PE. This article reports on HCHW's first AR phase to answer four research questions: (1) What are participants' perceptions of PE? (2) What are participants' perceptions of their roles in addressing PE? (3) What initiatives are under way that address PE? and (4) How can the findings be used to facilitate opportunities for healthy work? Key informant interviews with health (public health and health care; N = 23) and labor sector organizations (worker centers, worker advocacy organizations, and unions; N = 21) were conducted. Data were thematically analyzed alongside a chart-based content analysis, and shared in 11 key stakeholder meetings. Findings revealed an opportunity for the labor sector to improve health sector readiness to address PE in the context of health, and were used to develop the Healthy Work Collaborative, a cross-sectoral health promotion capacity building policy, systems, and environmenta change initiative to address PE.

The Value of Flexible Work: Evidence from Uber Drivers

Technology has facilitated new, nontraditional work arrangements, including the ride-sharing company Uber. Uber drivers provide rides anytime they choose. Using data on hourly earnings and driving, we document driver utilization of this real-time flexibility. We propose that the value of flexibility can be measured as deriving from time variation in the drivers’ reservation wage. Measuring time variation in drivers’ reservation wages allows us to estimate the surplus and labor supply implications of Uber relative to alternative, less-flexible work arrangements. Despite other drawbacks to the Uber arrangement, we estimate that Uber drivers earn more than twice the surplus they would in less-flexible arrangements.

Will More Workers Have Nontraditional Jobs as Globalization and Automation Spread?

Recent research has called attention to alternative employment arrangements that often leave workers without retirement and health benefits and with income instability. At the same time, workers are facing increasing competition from automation and globalization. This competition is of special concern for older workers, who increasingly need longer careers to secure an adequate retirement and jobs with benefits to enable saving and access to affordable health care. The question is: are these “nontraditional” jobs more prevalent in areas more exposed to such competitive pressures and are older workers more likely to hold them? The study uses the 1996-2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to track the share of workers in nontraditional work arrangements – defined based on characteristics of the job including retirement plan coverage, health insurance coverage, and hour or wage instability. It then estimates whether workers are more likely to be in nontraditional arrangements, or transition from traditional to nontraditional work, in areas with greater exposure to trade and automation. The findings suggest that globalization does not have a major effect, but automation does; a 1-standard deviation increase in the use of industrial robots is associated with an 11-percent increase in nontraditional employment. This relationship is even stronger for older workers: a 1-standard-deviation increase in automation is associated with a 17-percent increase in nontraditional work at ages 50-62. As automation continues to increase, jobs that offer retirement savings, health insurance, and stable income may continue to decline, and the impact is likely to be particularly felt by older workers who may need these benefits the most.

Retirement Preparedness and Financial Literacy in Singapore: How Do the Self-Employed Compare?

Policymaker and media attention has recently focused on the rise of the so-called “gig” or freelance employment sector, where workers lack formal long-term relationships with one specific firm. This topic has captured public interest partly because of concern that those engaged in nontraditional work arrangements may lack the opportunity to save in formal retirement plans. This paper examines how the self-employed in Singapore compare to regular employees as well as the unemployed in terms of retirement preparedness, retirement saving, and portfolio diversification. We also investigate the extent to which differences in financial literacy can account for the different behaviors across types of workers. Overall, we find that the self-employed and employees save and invest remarkably similarly. Financial literacy is quite important: respondents scoring one additional correct answer on the FinLit questions have about 3% more net financial wealth, 2% more nonhousing net wealth, and 14% more total wealth than their less savvy counterparts. More financially literate individuals also hold better diversified portfolios over the life cycle.

Contingent Workers and Occupational Health: A Review on the Health Effects of Non-Traditional Work Arrangements​

The goal of this review is to show a relationship between employment arrangements and occupational health of workers, where contingency of employment has a negative, and perhaps, a causal relationship with worker health. To be included in this review, a study must have met the criteria of containing peer-reviewed results and analysis discussion on the relationship between occupational health and employment arrangements. Based on the criteria, the researcher narrowed down 43 articles out of 154 selected for review. Ten of the articles were primary studies that showed a difference between the health exposures of contingent workers versus core workers in the same workplace. The accompanying literature reviews included must have provided conclusive interpretation of data; those not included contained analyses that were essentially redundant to earlier reviews. Search terms included, “occupational health and contingent work,” “occupational health and precarious work,” “worker arrangements,” “occupational health and gig economy,” and “contingent workers.” Although there are many occupational factors that can influence a worker’s health (such as industry and location specifics), trends across industry capacitate the author to claim an overall negative relationship between the use of contingent workers and occupational health.

Qualitative Research on Work-Family in the Management Field: A Review

Despite a proliferation of work–family literature over the past three decades, studies employing quantitative methodologies significantly outweigh those adopting qualitative approaches. In this paper, we intend to explore the state of qualitative work–family research in the management field and provide a comprehensive profile of the 152 studies included in this review. We synthesise the findings of qualitative work–family studies and provide six themes including parenthood, gender differences, cultural differences, family-friendly policies and non-traditional work arrangements, coping strategies, and under-studied populations. We also describe how findings of qualitative work–family studies compare to those of quantitative studies. The review highlights seven conclusions in the current qualitative literature: a limited number of qualitative endeavours, findings worth further attention, convergent foci, the loose use of work–family terminology, the neglect of a variety of qualitative research approaches, quantitative attitudes towards qualitative research, and insufficient reporting of research methods. In addition, implications for future researchers are discussed.

The Value of Flexible Work: Evidence from Uber Drivers

Participation in non-traditional work arrangements has increased dramatically over the last decade, including in settings where new technologies lower the transaction costs of providing labor flexibly. One prominent example of flexible work is the ride-sharing company Uber, which allows drivers to provide (or not provide) rides anytime they are willing to accept prevailing wages for providing this service. An Uber-style arrangement offers workers flexibility in both setting a customized work schedule and also adjusting the schedule from week to week, day to day, and hour to hour. Using data on hourly earnings for Uber drivers, we document the ways in which drivers utilize this real-time flexibility and we estimate the driver surplus generated by this flexibility. We estimate how drivers’ reservation wages vary from hour to hour, which allows us to examine the surplus and supply implications of both flexible and traditional work arrangements. Our results indicate that, while the Uber relationship may have other drawbacks, Uber drivers benefit significantly from real-time flexibility, earning more than twice the surplus they would in less flexible arrangements. If required to supply labor inflexibly at prevailing wages, they would also reduce the hours they supply by more than two-thirds.

The double psychological contracts of temporary agency workers

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.

Information Technology and Non-traditional Work Arrangements: Employee Preferences

Recent developments in information technology provide unprecedented opportunities for companies and employees to explore non-traditional work arrangements. Alongside their benefits in terms of efficiency and productivity, these new work arrangements bring new problems and pitfalls for the employees through increased workload and stress. Drawing on boundary theory, this paper examines employees’ preferences regarding informationtechnology-driven work arrangements, with a focus on relationships between these non-traditional work arrangements and two personal factors, work-family conflict and technology-readiness.

APPEARANCE IS EVERYTHING

Non-traditional work arrangements, such as telecommuting, have effects that are often not recognised, according to Daniel Cable and Kimberly Elsbach. Their research over the last decade shows that merely showing up at the office affects your standing at work.

Creating a Workable Legal Standard for Defining an Independent Contractor

Determining whether a particular worker should be classified as an employee or an independent contractor currently depends heavily upon the specific circumstances of employment. Although current legal approaches are meant to be flexible, the open-endedness of the current tests means that many business owners struggle with fitting their employees into the proper categories. A business that misclassifies employees, whether in good faith or on purpose, will face expensive penalties. Audits for such misclassifications are becoming more frequent, indicating that more and more business owners struggle because of uncertainty in the law. Also, the number of businesses using non-traditional work arrangements is increasing, meaning that this problem is likely becoming more widespread.This article proposes a workable legal standard for defining an independent contractor - the step-back test, based on business practice and on contract law. The next sections of this article summarize current business considerations and legal requirements before turning to the proposed standard. The independent contractor model has been used throughout U.S. history, primarily for its flexibility and cost advantages. In attempting to define the individual’s “degree of control,” current legal requirements often conflate classification with enforcement. These two functions need to be disentangled and focus concentrated on simplifying the appropriate classification of workers.

Can Managers Use Handheld Technologies to Support Salespeople?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose that sales managers use mobile technologies in the working environment to communicate and supportively monitor sales person performance. Design/methodology/approach – A model of supervisor monitoring using mobile technologies is conceptualized that specifies the types of behaviours that promote high-quality working relationships, how mobile technologies increase the likelihood of work-to-nonwork role spill-over that may damage the relationship and why perceptions of supervisor fairness are critical. The paper concludes by presenting strategies for testing hypotheses and for researching mobile technology use by sales managers using qualitative and quantitative methods. Findings – Mobile technology use, supervisory monitoring, and relationship development co-exist in the current workplace. This research heightens awareness of how work-to-nonwork spillover may influence important outcomes of mobile technology usage. Perceptions of quality supervisor-employee relationships are important to retaining and motivating employees. As the workforce ages and skilled workers become more scarce, it is expected that this theoretical examination and ensuing future research will be interesting and important to the twenty-first century manager. Originality/value – This paper aligns research in the areas of leadership, monitoring and ubiquitous or mobile technologies. Previous leadership researches have questioned whether or not the use of different electronic monitoring tools affects the leader's ability to influence others. However, few researchers have examined performance-based monitoring using mobile technologies, although mobile technologies make it easier for sales managers to monitor non-traditional work arrangements (i.e. off-site or contracted work). Furthermore, past research has been inconsistent in explaining how employees view information-gathering or monitoring by their managers.

Labor Markets and Employment Insecurity: Impacts of Globalization on Service and Healthcare-sector Workforces

Global changes in the economies of most developed nations have impacted the way healthcare is organized, even within largely public systems, and the working conditions of healthcare workers. Since the acceleration of globalization in the 1970s, service-sector workers in developed nations have faced high unemployment, increased skill requirements for most jobs, and a rise in non-traditional work arrangements. These secular shifts in service-sector labor markets have occurred against the background of an erosion of the welfare state and growing income inequality. As well, many healthcare systems, including Canada's, were severely downsized and restructured in the 1990s, exacerbating the underlying negative secular trends in the service sector, and worsening the working conditions for many healthcare workers. Globalization has altered the labor market and shifted working conditions in ways that have been unfavorable to many healthcare workers.

Totally Integrated Employee Benefits

Have you ever heard the old cliche, Your employees are the backbone of your company? Well, figuratively speaking, it's true! To be successful, employers must assure their employees a good quality of work life (QWL). Quality of work life, good supervision, good working conditions, good pay and benefits, and an interesting, challenging, and rewarding job. High quality is sought through an employee relations philosophy that encourages the use of QWL efforts, which are systematic attempts by an organization to give workers greater opportunities to affect their jobs and their contribution to the organization's overall effectiveness. That is, proactive managers and HR departments find ways to empower employees so that they draw on their brains and wits, usually by getting the employees more involved in the decision-making process.[1] Actually, employee satisfaction and involvement can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Research has shown that, if your employees are happy and satisfied in the workplace, they will usually be more motivated, more productive, and have positive self-esteem and improved morale. Many of today's workers are experiencing great difficulty trying to juggle both work and responsibilities. Because so many employees are single parents or members of dual-income families, often there is no one available at home during working hours to care for the family. Therefore, a number of companies have begun to institute work and programs as part of a integrated employee benefits in an effort to help employees cope with these problems.[2] Examples of such programs are as follows: The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power instituted the following programs:[3] * reduced cost for child care * care for mildly ill children * parenting support groups * a beeper-alert program (in which employees are loaned beepers when they have an imminent emergency) RJR Nabisco has a time-off program in which parents can take time off to accompany their children on the first day of school or to attend parent-teacher conferences.[4] Stride Rite instituted an interesting concept referred to as an Intergenerational Center (that is a day care for children and elder dependents of employees).[5] In addition to the programs listed, many organizations now offer nontraditional work arrangements, such as telecommuting, flextime and job sharing, to help workers cope with their personal and family-related responsibilities.[6] Most successful organizations realize that, generally speaking, employee satisfaction equals success. Employers beware! Assuming it is economically feasible, organizations of every size should make every effort to offer their employees a integrated benefits system, which should encompass family-friendly benefits. Such work and programs often make good business sense. By helping employees balance work and responsibilities, companies can increase their overall productivity, reduce absenteeism, and better retain valued employees. For instance, as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power found that its work and program reduced turnover and improved recruitment, it estimates that the program yields a return of $10 for each dollar invested.[7] It has been found that even organizations with limited resources are working hard to allow their employees the opportunity to have what is referred to as a integrated benefit system. A totally integrated system permits the employee to strike a proper balance between work and life. Needless to say, having a integrated benefit is definitely becoming the wave of the future in both the private and public sector. In addition, some employers are finding that being a family friendly organization is not only the right thing to do, but it also may be critical to the organizational culture and its viability. …