An investigation of the effects of psychological contract and organization-based self-esteem on organizational commitment in a sample of permanent and contingent workers.

For contingent workers, the employer's obligations tend to fall within the realm of the transactional, whereas the salience of relational obligations by employers is more likely to be perceived by more permanent employees (Rousseau & Wade-Benzoni, 1995). McLean Parks et al. (1998) suggested that the dimensions of psychological contracts, more so than content, are more generalizable across contingent work arrangements than other types of jobs. In other words, the temporally bounded or transactional aspect of the psychological contract may be more predictable across the work situation than it would be based on workers' perceived obligations owed to them by the client organization. The relational aspects of the psychological contract may be predicted in a similar manner. McDonald and Makin (2000) published the first empirical test of this relationship between employment status and the differential obligations. This study is, in part, an extension of their work. Having presented the above arguments, we thus advance Hypotheses la and 1b:

Hypothesis 1a: Contingent, contract workers will indicate higher levels of transactional obligations to their employer than do full-time, permanent employees.

Hypothesis 1b: Full-time, permanent employees will indicate higher levels of relational obligations to their employer than do contingent, contract workers.

Organizational Commitment

Job attitudes (i.e., organizational commitment) are important predictors of workplace outcomes such as turnover, lateness, absenteeism, and performance (Harrison, Newman, & Roth, 2006). In the aggregate, strong positive relationships have been found between organizational commitment and desirable work outcomes, such as performance, adaptability, and job satisfaction (Angle & Perry, 1981; Mowday et al., 1979). Porter et al. (1974) reported that organizational commitment was a better predictor of turnover than was job satisfaction. Other studies have found negative relationships between organizational commitment and negative work outcomes, such as absenteeism and turnover (Angle & Perry, 1981; Horn, Katerberg, & Hulin, 1979).

Over time, the construct of organizational commitment has been developed through a variety of definitions and operationalizations. One frequently cited definition is the strength of one's identification with and involvement in a specific organization (Porter et al., 1974), which was proposed to contain three psychological factors: (a) desire to remain in the organization, (b) willingness to exert considerable effort on its behalf, and (c) belief in and acceptance of its goals and values.

In measuring organizational commitment, there are differing opinions about the number of dimensions that compose it. Originally, Porter et al. (1974) developed the unidimensional Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). Later, scholars focused on the multidimensionality of organizational commitment, such as Meyer and Allen's (1984) three-component model and Mayer and Schoorman's (1992) two-component model.

Allen and Meyer's (1990a) three-component model consisted of continuance, normative commitment, and affective commitment. All three factors were presumed to increase a member's likelihood to remain with an organization, but the reasons for doing so differ, thus the distinction between the factors. For example, organization members with high affective commitment remain because they want to, whereas those with high levels of continuance commitment remain because they must. Members with high normative commitment simply feel that they should have to remain.

Despite considerable validation of Meyer and Allen's scale (Allen & Meyer, 1990a, 1990b; K. Lee, Allen, Meyer, & Rhee, 2001; Meyer, Bobocel, & Allen, 1991), there is only limited evidence tying these factors to the behavioral outcomes predicted by the theory (see also Meyer, Paunonen, Gellatly, Goffin, & Jackson, 1989).

Mayer and Schoorman (1998) considered the value of the March and Simon (1958) framework in the development of their two-factor model. March and Simon used two dimensions of commitment antecedents and labeled them as decisions to participate (continuance commitment) and decisions to produce (value commitment). In doing so, they clarified the relationships between antecedents to organizational commitment and the two dimensions. This framework was then used to validate the two-dimensional organizational commitment measure (Mayer & Schoorman, 1992). Value commitment is a "belief in and acceptance of organizational goals and values and a willingness to exert a considerable effort on behalf of the organization" (Mayer & Schoorman, 1992, p. 673). Continuance commitment is exchange based and is the cost that members associate with their departure from the organization (Angle & Perry, 1981).

In this article, we have employed Mayer and Schoorman's (1992) measure of value and continuance commitment. Angle and Perry (1981) and Caldwell, Chatman, and O'Reilly (1990) previously found support for the two-dimensional model with factors that aligned closely with the continuance and affect-based factors. Furthermore, there is differentiation between the two factors, as validated by Mayer and Schoorman.

Mayer and Schoorman (1998) posit that the two-factor model is the only multidimensional commitment measure that has differentially predicted important outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction). Furthermore, managers who desire to increase their workers' organizational commitment should focus on one dimension, because their interventions will probably not affect both. For example, Mayer and Schoorman suggested that a manager might employ citizenship behaviors (e.g., helping behaviors or modeling loyalty to the organization) to increase workers' value (affective) commitment to the organization and to not simultaneously attempt to increase the costs of leaving the organization (continuance commitment).

It is likely that workers with different obligations to their employers will have differing levels of commitment depending on their employment status. For example, contingent workers may not share the same affective attachment to the organization as that of more permanent workers. In fact, Gallagher and McLean Parks (2001) suggest that there is, theoretically, no reason that contingent workers should develop levels of affective commitment to their host organizations. When we consider the transactional nature of contracts (legal and psychological) of contingent workers, they may simply be committed to stay (continuance) with the host organization only long enough to fulfill the contract (McLean Parks et al., 1998). By focusing on the fulfillment of obligations most relevant to a worker's employment status, managers can arguably elicit the appropriate level of commitment.

There is prior research to support this notion. Gallagher and McLean Parks (2001) presented the relationships between psychological contract and commitment in contingent work arrangements. Beard and Edwards (1995) developed a model in which the transactional obligations of the psychological contract, among other processes, negatively affected commitment and other attitudes of contingent workers. In a test of Beard and Edwards's (1995) propositions, Sloboda (1999) discovered high correlations between both transactional and relational contracts and affective organizational commitment.

In light of the preceding evidence, we advance the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2a: Positive perceptions of a relational psychological contract will have a larger positive relationship with organizational value commitment than continuance commitment, regardless of employment status.

Hypothesis 2a1: Permanent, full-time employees will reveal a stronger relationship between relational psychological contract obligations and value commitment than will contingent, contract workers.

Hypothesis 2b: Positive perceptions of a transactional psychological contract will have a larger positive relationship with organizational continuance commitment than with value commitment, regardless of employment status.

Hypothesis 2b1: Contingent, contract workers will reveal a stronger relationship between transactional psychological contract obligations and continuance commitment than will permanent, full-time employees.

OBSE

Many organization-based variables, related to organizational commitment, are more under the control of the firm employing contingent workers and not their contract agency (Gallagher & McLean Parks, 2001). For example, managers and coworkers in the client organization assign the work, supervise the completion of the work product, and work alongside of the contingent workers as if they were of the same status. Furthermore, environmental antecedents of organizational commitment include managerial communication (Gallagher & McLean Parks, 2001). An example of an environmental construct related to this discussion is OBSE.

The global concept of self-esteem is not new to the organization sciences. Stepping beyond the individual worker, there have been attempts to apply self-esteem specifically to consideration of its effects on the organization.