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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/82015
Description
Title
Contingency of Work as a Psychological Construct
Author(s)
Bergman, Mindy Elyse
Issue Date
2001
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Drasgow, Fritz
Department of Study
Psychology
Discipline
Psychology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Psychology, Industrial
Language
eng
Abstract
Organizations have begun to rely on alternate work arrangements (e.g., hours worked per week, hiring source of the employee, permanence of the position in the organization) to a greater degree over the past few decades. However, little is known about the way that individuals view their work arrangements or the factors that people consider when discussing their work arrangements. This research examines the job perception space surrounding workers' views of their work arrangements. It builds on organizational role theory (Katz & Kahn, 1974), suggesting that employees both take on roles in an organization as well as conceive of their own roles (Graen, 1976). In this research, workers with a variety of work arrangements (tenure-track assistant professors, visiting faculty members, temporary agency workers, manufacturing plant workers who had converted from temporary to permanent work) were interviewed. Their comments revealed a four-dimensional job perception space surrounding work arrangements (career issues, family issues, freedom, and viewing the job as permanent). Interview responses were used to generate items for a new scale measuring these four perceptual domains. The measurement properties of this scale were examined in a sample of temporary and non-contingent workers. Results showed that the measure represented the four constructs well; the measure also demonstrated measurement equivalence across the temporary and non-contingent samples. Additionally, construct validation was begun by embedding the new measure in a model representing part of the nomological network surrounding work arrangements. The research demonstrated that the scale generally functioned as expected for both samples. Additionally, the items of the new scales were equally representative of their underlying constructs across the two work arrangements included in the study. Further, each of the four perceptual domains were significantly related to organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job withdrawal, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Theoretical implications for our understanding of how work arrangements affect individuals are discussed.
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