HR attributions and the dual commitment of temporary agency workers and outsourced workers

Temporary agency workers and outsourced workers establish two simultaneous employment relationships: one with their contractor and another with the client organization where they are placed. However, these two types of contingent employees are placed at the client under very different contractual arrangements and they are managed differently. Furthermore, we expect that due to the different contractual arrangements, employees’ HR attributions may be different. We hypothesize that the different management practices and the different HR attributions translate into distinct mechanisms underlying their dual employment relationships. We explore the construct of HR attributions (Nishii, Lepak & Schneider, 2008) for the first time in relation to low-skilled contingent employment. We focus on its relationships with affective organizational commitment to the contractor and to the client, as well as self-rated performance. Survey data from 365 manufacturing workers was analyzed through multiple group analysis showing clear differences between the outsourced and the temporary agency workers. For outsourced workers, affective commitment to the contractor mediated the positive relationship between commitment-focused HR attributions and performance. For temporary agency workers, affective commitment to the client mediated this relationship. Furthermore, for both groups, affective commitment to the contractor positively related to affective commitment to the client. Research and practical implications of these findings are discussed.