Volition and reasons for accepting temporary employment: Associations with attitudes, well-being, and behavioural intentions

Abstract

The aim of this study was (1) to investigate volition and reasons for accepting temporary employment in relation to various outcomes (job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, life satisfaction, and turnover intention), and (2) to test whether volition and reasons for accepting temporary employment may assist in explaining differences between temporary and permanent workers. Volition reflects the workers' preference for temporary jobs. Reasons for accepting temporary employment relate to free choice, forced choice, and instrumental choice with the view of gaining permanent employment or improving skills. Analyses were based on a sample of 623 Belgian workers from various organizations. The most striking findings were that volition and free choice reasons did not consistently associate with favourable outcomes, and that the relationship between forced choice and instrumental reasons related to skill improvement and outcomes was nonsignificant. By way of contrast, stepping stone reasons were related to job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and turnover intention. Also, we established that volition and reasons for accepting temporary employment may have little potential to improve predictions on differences between temporary and permanent workers.

Keywords:

• Contingent
• Employment
• Contract preference
• Stepping stone

Notes

¹In addition, we checked whether the other control variables (namely, weekly working hours, tenure, family status, and sector) might moderate the relationship between volition and outcomes. As they did not, and for space-saving reasons, we chose not to report all statistics.