Differences between part-time and full-time employees in the financial services industry.

Although part-time employees account for approximately 17% of the workforce, how, or if, they differ from full-time employees is still unknown. This study addresses the question of whether part-time and full-time employees differ on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job involvement, role ambiguity, role conflict, and inclusion. Additionally, the respondents were from the financial services industry, which has been underrepresented in the part-time employment studies. Part-time employees were found to have lower levels of job involvement and inclusion.

Keywords: financial services; partial inclusion; part-time employees

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Rotchford and Roberts (1982) called part-time employees "missing persons" in organizational research. Although in the years since their call for more research on part-time employees, more research has been conducted on part-time employees (cf. Barling & Gallagher, 1996; Thorsteinson, 2003), differences between part-time and full-time employees are still not fully understood. Part-time employees account for 17% of the workforce (see Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site, www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm#empstat). This percentage is sizeable enough to merit attention in the field of management. Feldman (1990) asserted that research on part-time employees is critical because (a) of their sheer volume; (b) of their emergence as an important labor supply for entire industries such as service and retail industries; and (c) part-time work is an important employment opportunity for three major demographic groups in our society: younger workers, older workers, and female workers. T.W. Lee and Johnson (1991) provided additional reasons to study potential differences between part-time and full-time employees, including that if differences exist between part-time and full-time employees, existing theories may need to be adapted to account for those differences and different managerial practices may need to be directed to each group.

All too often, employment status (i.e., part-time, full-time) is not one of the variables considered in organizational research. Findings are often generalized to all employees, without regard to the appropriateness of generalizing from one type of employee to another. Given the increasing role part-time employees are playing in organizations and that managerial decisions and actions may be based on research on full-time employees, it is appropriate to address the question of whether there are significant differences between part-time and full-time employees on variables of interest to organizational research. As noted by Miller and Terborg (1979), if important differences exist between part-time and full-time employees, future research should differentiate between the two groups.

The need to understand the underlying theoretical foundation for expecting differences between part-time and full-time employees has also been discussed (Feldman, 1990; Rotchford & Roberts, 1982). Thorsteinson (2003) identified four possible theoretical reasons that have been mentioned by researchers to explain differences between part-time and full-time employees: frame of reference, demographic differences, person-job fit, and partial inclusion theory.

According to Thorsteinson (2003), the frame of reference explanation is loosely based on equity theory. If part-time employees compare themselves to full-time employees, they may experience more dissatisfaction than if they compare themselves to other part-time employees. Feldman and Doerpinghaus (1992b) found evidence that most part-time employees do use other part-time employees as their referents. Eberhardt and Moser (1995) found that approximately half of the part-time employees used part-time employees as their referents, whereas the other half compared themselves to full-time employees.

The demographic difference explanation refers to the differences in sex and age between part-time and full-time employees, with part-time employees typically having a higher percentage of females and both young and older employees (Nardone, 1986; Thorsteinson, 2003). One difficulty in exploring the viability of this explanation is that many studies do not control for demographic differences. Two studies that controlled for demographic differences found either no differences between part-time and full-time employees (Vecchio, 1983) or found a difference for only job involvement between part-time and full-time employees (McGinnis & Morrow, 1990).

Person-job fit examines whether the employee's work status is preferred or nonpreferred (Thomsteinson, 2003). In other words, there may be differences in the satisfaction levels of employees who are part-time and want to be part-time versus those who are part-time but desire full-time status. Burke and Greenglass (2000) found that employees whose work status was congruent with their preferred work status had higher job satisfaction than those employees with a nonpreferred work status. However, other studies have not supported the person-job fit explanation (Keil, Armstrong-Stassen, Cameron, & Horsburg, 2000; Krausz, Sagie, & Bidermann, & Morrow, McElroy, & Elliot, 1994).

Partial inclusion has been identified by many researchers as an important concept to examine in future research of part-time employees (Feldman, 1990, Katerberg, Horn, & Hulin, 1979; Martin & Hafer 1995; Miller & Terborg, 1979; Peters, Jackofsky, & Salter, 1981; Tansky, Gallagher, & Wetzel, 1997; Wetzel, Soloshy, & Gallagher, 1990). Partial inclusion is thought to explain potential differences in part-time and full-time employees because part-time workers are present at work less and may not be included in the activities at work to the same extent as full-time employees. Although it is an often cited post hoc explanation for differences between part-time and full-time employees, it has not been empirically studied. This article will empirically measure the extent to which the employees experience inclusion and determine its usefulness in explaining differences between part-time and full-time employees.

Additionally, the sample for this study is from the financial services industry, which employs a large number of part-time employees but has been under-represented in the part-time literature. Most studies comparing part-time to full-time employees have concentrated on retail or health care settings, whereas only one previous study we reviewed has used financial services employees (Conway & Briner, 2002). By using the financial services industry, this study expands the type of industry in which differences between part-time and full-time employees are examined and enhances the present literature on part-time and full-time employees by going beyond the retail and health care industries. M. D. Lee, MacDermid, and Buck (2000) noted that organizational context is important when examining part-time work experiences.

Review of the Literature

As previously noted, part-time employees have been called the "missing persons" of organizational research (Rotchford & Roberts, 1982) because although part-time employees make up nearly one fifth of the workforce, relatively little empirical research has focused on part-time employees. Additionally, the research that has been conducted has often had contradictory findings with conclusions ranging from "the differences between part-time and full-time salespeople seem substantial" (Darden, McKee, & Hampton, 1993, p. 12) to "part-time and full-time workers are more alike than different" (McGinnis & Morrow, 1990, p. 94). These contradictory findings lead to the necessity of more research to determine if differences exist or in what circumstances the differences exist. The literature review looks at the studies that have been done using part-time and full-time employees on the variables of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job involvement and also reviews other studies that have been conducted looking at differences between part-time and full-time employees.

Job Satisfaction

The majority of studies that examined part-time employees have focused on the differences in the levels of job satisfaction between part-time and fulltime employees. However, there have been mixed results regarding levels of job satisfaction. Logan, O'Reilly, and Roberts (1973) and Levanoni and Sales (1990) found that part-time and full-time employees had about the same overall level of job satisfaction; however, when the facets of job satisfaction were examined separately, it was found that part-time and full-time employees differ in their patterns of satisfaction. For example, according to Logan et al., part-time workers placed more emphasis on the social aspects of their job than did full-time employees, whereas full-time employees placed more emphasis on aspects such as promotional opportunities. Hom (1979), Dubinsky and Skinner (1984), Krausz et al. (2000), Lewis (1998), McGinnis and Morrow (1990), and Wetzel et al. (1990) found no difference between the levels of job satisfaction for part-time and fulltime employees.