Theoretical Background

Flexicurity and Precarious Work: Legal AspectsFootnote 1

The transformation of political and economic systems produced by globalization has resulted in a fragmentation of the legal regulation of labour relationships, which in turn has accentuated the segmentation of society and, therefore, of the labour market. As a result, the meaning attached to personal life and work experience has been reshaped. Many industrialized countries have experienced an intensive growth of various forms of precarious employment, such as temporary work, staff leasing, self-employed, subcontracting and home-based work. The proportion of the workforce hired with temporary contracts of employment has increased, as organizations turn to a non-permanent workforce as a flexible resource. This is mainly evident in the service sector organizations, of which call centers are an example. The paradigm of post-modernity is in fact flexibility, understood as the continuous search for ever-increasing productive efficiency. The employers and the media often claim that the “flexibility” provided by temporay contracts of employment could be beneficial for workers too, improving their work-life balance as well as their lifestyle.

Accordingly, since the 2000s, the concept of flexicurity emerged at the EU level as a guideline to modernising employment policies and welfare provisions. It is a strategy of labour market adjustment based on a balance between flexible contractual arrangements and social security systems, by means of active employment policies, helping workers and jobseekers to cope with rapid change and ease the transition to new jobs (Carinci 2012). The basic idea was that flexibility and security could be mutually supportive: additional flexibility could be an effective means to manage the challenges of globalized economy as long as higher security policies would aim to protect the employment (and not the job). Yet, flexicurity has become an analytical concept, encompassing different available combinations of flexibility and security. The differences in socio-economic, institutional and historical backgrounds among European Union Member States are responsible for any country-specific pathways of flexicurity (e.g. market flexicurity. state flexicurity, flex-insecurity, as in the cases of Italy and Spain) (Carinci 2012).

Since 2008, two forces have challenged the concept of flexicurity. On the one hand, austerity policies have contributed to diminish both the public provisions for labour active policies, education and social security and the private incentive to invest in human resources. Consequently, the first victims of the crisis have been precisely those workers with flexible contractual arrangements. On the other hand, the concept of flexicurity itself suffered from a lack of consensus driven by the weakness of its underlying theory, but also due to the empirical evidence of increasing precariousness of work (European Commission 2013).

More recently, the EU-2020 strategy has reaffirmed the concept of flexicurity. However, it appears to be less related to the neo-liberal push towards the deregulation of labour markets and more oriented to design “sustainable” work, both for employers (in terms of productivity, efficiency) and workers (in terms of developing skills, ensuring career and employment security, reconciling work and family life) (Eurofound 2013).

Flexicurity and Precarious Work: Psychological Implications

In view of the above, the reality is that little is known about the psychological effects of flexicurity policies in terms of precarious employment. Very little is known on their consequences on working hours and work-life conflict and the evidence that is available is predominantly negative (La Valle et al. 2002; Cousins and Tang 2004; De Cuyper et al. 2008; Morganson et al. 2010; McNamara et al. 2011). Recent research in the field of work and organizational psychology indicates that precarious employment is widely associated with poorer occupational health and safety (OHS) outcomes, including inferior knowledge of OHS standards and entitlements and higher levels of injury, hazard exposure, disease and psychological distress. Several studies confirm the negative correlation between work flexibility and subjective wellbeing (Barling and Kelloway 1996; Gowing et al. 1998; Klein Hesselink and Van Vuuren 1999; de Witte 1999; Kinnunen et al. 1999; Mohr 2000; Sverke and Hellgren 2002; Isaksson and Bellagh 2002). Furthermore, empirical evidences have suggested that temporary staff tend to develop a different psychological contract with the organization than their permanent counterparts (Rousseau 2004; Guest 2004, 2005). Temporary staff will generally develop a transactional contract, with the emphasis upon the economic elements of the contract while permanent staff will tend to develop a relational contract, involving commitment to the organization, and higher job satisfaction. These differences would deeply influence staff attitudes and behavior in terms of identification, participation and organizational citizenship. In this vein, temporary workers could be considered as “permanent newcomers”; due to being always in transition between different organizational contexts they are constantly engaged in socializing with the new hosting organizational context, thus experiencing the difficulty in integrating, namely in making sense of different cultures, behavior, practices. That is why they are (potentially) more vulnerable with respect to their permanent colleagues (Burgess et al. 2013).

Because of this debate, the demand for a new approach to newcomers’ temporary employment management is becoming even more urgent (Burgess and Connell 2006). Indeed, following most strategic HRM theories organizations generally tend to distinguish different types of employees according to their value and availability. Such options often result in an underestimation of the importance of specific HRM practices in relation to temporary employees (Boyce et al. 2007). On the other hand, recent empirical evidences on diversity management has showed that even after the strategic choice for a lean, distanced and uninvolved temporary ‘employment mode’ is made, different operational HRM practices lead to differences in performance (Koene and van Riemsdijk 2005). Then, traditional HRM practices need to be further implemented to foster organizational behavior of temporary workforces and to enhance and their performance (Wheeler and Buckley 2001; Drucker 2002). Accordingly, research in the field has showed that temporary workers tend to be more vulnerable as compared with permanent workers with reference to several factors as for instance perceptions of injustice, exclusion from decision-making, expectations for permanent work, lower age and tenure, lower tolerance for inequity, low levels of commitment, limited motivation and last but not least inadequate socialization (Foote 2004).

Moving from this claim, the aim of the present contribution is to contribute to the investigation of HR management practices in relation to temporary workers. More specifically, the paper argues that organizational socialization practices were mostly important to develop satisfactory psychological contracts and positive adjustment to the new organizational context (job satisfaction and commitment). Through the process of organizational socialization, employees will be supposed to acquire knowledge about organization and adjust to new jobs, roles, and workgroups. Therefore, the process of integration in this new work context will be beneficial to the construction of an effective psychological contract, also enhancing commitment and job satisfaction.

Temporary Work Within the Italian Legal Framework: the Context of Call CentersFootnote 2

Neither before nor after the 2008 global crisis has the flexicurity model found a balanced implementation in Italy, given that the impact of flexibility has grown much faster than the job security measures designed to counterbalance it, accentuating the segmentation of the labour market (Zoppoli 2012; Spinelli 2015). The most common form of temporary employment contracts in Italy, as elsewhere in the EU, are fixed-term and part-time contracts. However, since the 2003 Labour Market Reform (Law. No. 30 and L.D. No. 276) new types of contracts have been introduced, such as job on call and job sharing, which are less protective and targeted to specific groups of workers, especially young people. Temporary agency workers also fall within the category of atypical workers. As part of the Fornero Reform’s strategy (Law No. 92/2012), confirmed by the subsequent Letta Government, other important means of access to the labour market were apprenticeship contracts and traineeships. Indeed, if originally this last reform aimed at reducing the segmentation of the Italian labour market, at providing an universal welfare coverage and at increasing the relevance and the efficacy of labour market policy, in the end it resulted in an incomplete reform that left many problems unresolved. In particular, as far as entry flexibility is concerned, the reform introduced restrictions on the use of fixed term contracts and promoted the apprenticeship. One year later, Law No. 99/2013 amended the Fornero reform so to restore entry flexibility: it removed some restrictions concerning fixed-term contracts and confirmed the promotion of apprenticeship. The new statutory regulation introduced other incentives to those enterprises employing vulnerable workers with long term contracts, thus concretely helping those categories, such as young people, old workers, low skilled workers and women, who highly suffered from the consequences of the economic crisis (Treu 2013).

In Italy, precarious work is common not only among employees, but affects a large number of self-employed people, too. The proliferation of self-employed workers has caused a friction area within Italian Labour Law relating to independent ‘collaborators’, because the similarities with workers hired on an employment contract are so numerous that the former are considered as ‘functional substitutes’ for the latter. A self-employed worker can perform as a dependent worker, and when an individual frequently works for only one or a few clients, their economical dependency on the main client allows that client to undertake almost the same role as an employer. However, the client lacks the control over the worker that characterizes the employer’s contractual powers. This form of independent work, mostly personally performed under coordinated and continuous collaboration contracts, has increased rapidly. In this regard, an important regulation has been provided for by art. 61, ff., L.D. No. 276/2003 that has introduced and disciplined the “lavoro a progetto” contract (coordinated and continuous collaborations contract based on a project work). More precisely, through this contract the legislator aimed at recognising some protections to the workers (proportional pay, measures to prevent health and safety, maternity leave, etc.). These protections are very close, even if not completely coincident, with those granted to employees. Specific protections have been introduced by the Fornero reform for self-employed workers (not “collaborators”) who can be considered, according to the law, economically dependent (Chieco 2013; Cinelli et al. 2013; Persiani and Liebman 2013).

With regard to the context investigated by the current study, call centers can use various forms of “atypical” contracts, “lavoro a progetto” and coordinated and continuous collaboration contracts included. Which one can be chosen depends on the kind of activity the workers are required to perform, whether inbound (customers call to get services) or outbound (customers are called to be offered goods and services). This means that decreasing statutory protections could be applied, even by the same employer, to the workers who are, respectively, long-term employees, short-term employees or self-employed. Outbound call centers are allowed to hire workers under “lavoro a progetto” contracts, because offering goods and services is an activity that can be managed autonomously, according to results to get and time to spend.

In summer 2013 two important and innovative collective agreements have been signed (respectively by Assocall with UGL, on 22 July and Assotelecomunicazioni with SLG-CGIL, FISTEL-CISL, UILCOM-UIL, on 1st August), to introduce better conditions for these workers, regarding in particular payment and protections. These agreements can represent an important step towards fighting abuse in this field.

Recent trends in regulating flexibility at work are too often justified as necessary measures to face the dramatic rise of unemployment. Therefore, analysing the case of working in a call center could represent an interesting context to test these convictions, and to understand to what extent the employment status can play a role in the process of socialization with the new hosting organizational context, as we will further argue through the empirical research results commented in the next sections.

The Study

Psychological Contract Formation During Newcomers’ Socialization Process

In the organizational context, researchers refer to employees’ expectations about what they owe their employers and about what their employers owe them in return, generally using the expression “psychological contract” (Rousseau 1995, 2001). As long as the organization fulfill the psychological contract obligations, employees are more likely to trust the organization, stay with the organization and express a greater commitment to the organization (Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler 2000). These findings suggest that when employees perceive that their employers place a priority on fulfilling their obligations, they become more interested in maintaining that relationship over time because it is a mutually beneficial exchange. Likewise, organizations that fulfill psychological contracts are communicating to their employees that they are a valuable asset, which the organization does not wish to lose. Whereas psychological contract fulfillment raises, in employees, a sense of obligation to the employer, an identity with the organization and a sense of maintenance of employment, we can suppose psychological contract fulfillment is associated with the three dimensions of commitment: affective, normative and continuance.

Newcomers’ psychological contracts are comprised of beliefs about the inducements they have been promised by their employer (e.g., career opportunities, financial rewards, an interesting job content) and the contributions they have promised to take in return (e.g., performance, extra-role behavior, flexibility, loyalty). Some of these beliefs about promises and expectations generally develop before the organizational entry (De Vos et al. 2003). Once embedded in the organizational environment, employees can change expectations and perceived promises made by both parties (themselves and their employer) based on their interpretation of the contributions that are offered (Sturges et al. 2005). Based on sense-making theory, this means that employees change their psychological contract perceptions because of the interpretations of their experiences within the work setting. It suggests that it is mainly during the encounter stage of socialization, i.e., the first months after entry, that newcomers actively test their anticipations against the reality of their new work experiences. During this period, differences between anticipations and experiences become apparent and contribute to a “reality shock” (Louis 1980). Relating this to psychological contract means that this is the period during which perceived promises are most likely to change because of newcomers’ interpretations of their experiences. Therefore, according to some empirical evidence (Haueter et al. 2003) an effective socialization process on three dimensions – task, group and organization – during the encounter stage should play an important role for the adaptation of perceived promises and hence perception to fulfilled commitments. Indeed, organization socialization occurs as newcomers learn the values, goals, rules, politics, customs, leadership style, and language of the organization (Fisher 1986; Morrison 1993; Ostroff and Kozlowski 1992; Schein 1968, 1971). Group socialization occurs as newcomers learn particulars about their work group and the behaviors associated with the group’s rules, goals, and values (Feldman 1981; Fisher 1986; Ostroff and Kozlowski 1992). Task socialization entails acquiring task knowledge, learning how to perform relevant task behaviors and learning how to interact with others in the course of performing specific tasks (Adkins 1995; Chao et al. 1994; Feldman 1981; Fisher 1986; Morrison 1993; Ostroff and Kozlowski 1992). Moreover, socialization entails that employees not only gather factual knowledge about the organization, work group, and task, but they must also adjust and understand how to behave in each of these domains.

Therefore, newcomer socialization and practices foster the perception of fulfillment of commitments and employee adjustment. It may be through the experience of learning about the organization and feeling supported and invested in the job – by group and organization – that individuals may perceive psychological contract fulfillment and consequently develop positive reactions to their organizational experience, such as affective commitment and job satisfaction. A well-fitted socialization may certainly help to facilitate a positive reaction toward the job and the employment relationship.

Based on socialization research about newcomers, this paper addresses temporary newcomers’ socialization behaviors and psychological contract, supposing that these variables might play a central role with respect to affective commitment and job satisfaction. More specifically, we focus on the relationship between dimensions of socialization and inducements temporary newcomers can expect of their employer, arguing that even when temporarily supported in their socialization and thus induced to develop a relational or balanced psychological contract, newcomers may develop affective commitment to the organization and show job satisfaction as well.

The main assumption of the study is that as long as temporary newcomers would positively socialize with the contents and practices of the new hosting working context, they would be able to make sense of their belonging. Actually, they would be able to develop a relational psychological contract that is a representation of the employment relationship mostly based on reciprocal trust and loyalty (Cooper-Thomas et al. 2004). In other words, following the research tradition upon newcomers’ proactive behavior (Morrison 1993; Ashford and Black 1996), the paper claims that by engaging in information seeking behavior to learn about their working environment (e.g. about organization, about task and about group culture) newcomers would show important socialization outcomes such as adjustment, job attitudes, on-the-job performances (Morrison 2002). Therefore, socialization would induce them to develop a positive relational and/or balanced psychological contract that in turn would more probably lead to develop affective commitment and job satisfaction.

In this vein, the first aim of the paper is to investigate the secondary outcomes (i.e. organizational commitment and job satisfaction) of socialization instead of its direct ones (i.e. learning, inclusion and assimilation). Accordingly, many empirical evidences have confirmed that effective socialization can have lasting and positive effects such as enhancing job satisfaction and organizational commitment, besides intentions to stay, Person/Organization fit and performance of employees (e.g., Cable and Judge 1996; Morrison 1993; Ashforth and Saks 1996; Sturges et al. 2005). Based on such evidences, we argue that:

  • H1: Temporary newcomers’ organization, task and group socialization will be positively related to affective commitment

  • H2: Temporary newcomers’ organization, task and group socialization will be positively related to job satisfaction

A second aim of the study is to analyse the contribution of the psychological contract to the development of the above-mentioned organizational outcomes: affective commitment and job satisfaction. Over the past two decades, many scholars have examined the relationships between types of psychological contract and organizational commitment, starting from the assumption that the generic relational and balanced psychological contracts, compared to the transactional one, would be associated with greater attachment to the organization. Robinson and Morrison (1995) stated that individuals with a relational psychological contract would have shown higher levels of organizational trust, compared to those with a transactional contract. In addition, Beard and Edwards (1995) found that individuals with transactional psychological contracts had decreasing levels of organizational commitment. Conversely, Sloboda (1999) found high positive correlations between both transactional and relational psychological contracts and organizational commitment. King (2003), however, identified a strong positive association between relational psychological contract and affective commitment as well as between transactional psychological contract and continuance commitment; at the same time, he found slight positive correlations between relational psychological contract on one side and normative and continuance commitment on the other, and a negative association between transactional psychological contract and affective commitment. In 2009, McInnis, Meyer and Feldman, synthesizing the evidence from previous studies, stated that many studies reported positive associations between relational psychological contract and affective commitment (Hughes and Palmer 2007). On the other hand, the authors found ambivalent results about the relationship between transactional psychological contract and affective commitment (Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler 2000; Hughes and Palmer 2007; Sloboda 1999) as well as evidences about continuance commitment on one side and relational and transactional psychological contracts on the other (Hughes and Palmer 2007; Sloboda 1999). They also found that balanced contract positively predicted affective and normative commitment. These trends are also confirmed for temporary newcomers. Yet, although temporary workers tend to also develop a transactional psychological contract, based on economic and extrinsic elements, during the socialization process, they could develop a relational contract, involving commitment to the organization, and an interest in a satisfying job (McDonald and Makin 2000).

Therefore, psychological contract and organization socialization could be supposed to be significant predictors of newcomers’ adjustment, measured through affective commitment and job satisfaction (Bauer et al. 2007; Zhao et al. 2007). In view of the above, the study argued that:

  • H3: Temporary newcomers’ relational and balanced psychological contracts will be positively related to affective commitment

  • H4: Temporary newcomers’ relational and balanced psychological contracts will be positively related to job satisfaction

Participants and Procedure

As stressed above, one of the main peculiarities of the present study is the choice of the organizational context. Despite, the severe difficulties experienced by most national and international companies because of the recent economic crisis, call centers are among the few booming branches. Historically speaking, call centers remain one of the most active organizational sectors. The industry continues to hire many workers each year because of a highly competitive market strategy (more workers = more contacts = potentially higher productivity). Nonetheless, generally hectic and stressful workflows, frequent and radical changes, time pressure, heavy workload and high turnover rates are the main features of this working context. Moreover, at present, in the South of Italy, this kind of organization generally employs young people, at their first working experience, many of whom consider this opportunity as a merely economical chance to earn money while studying and training for their true professional vocation. Indeed, behind the most frequently cited advantages of such organizations (cost reductions and customer care), from the employee’s perspective, call centers are mostly characterized by high rates of absenteeism and turnover. This is mainly because of the intrinsic features of their job demands (e.g. routine work, low control, time pressure) that often lead workers to dissatisfaction, to decreased performance and in some cases even to impaired health (Dormann and Zjilstra 2003).

Participants involved in the study are a group of 241 employees working in Call Center, located in the industrial zone of Bari. Participants were contacted during lunch and coffee breaks or at the beginning and at the end of their work shift. Questionnaires included a short introduction explaining the main aim of the study. Participants were asked to think about their personal working experience in the company, in the present situation. They were told that the information provided would be dealt with strictly confidentiality, and that the outcomes from the different respondents would be aggregated, and analysed as a whole. Finally, they were told that there were no right or wrong answers, given the fact that the study was concerned with personal perceptions. The response rate is 94.2 %.

The sample encompasses 68 % of men and 32 % of women, whose mean age was 21.53 years old. 29.9 % of them are postgraduates while 69.70 % undergraduates. All participants are newcomers working for the company to the utmost since 1 year: 88.8 % is a contact operator while only 11.2 % of them is team leader. The same distribution refers to workers’ employment status: 88.8 % has a temporary contract while 11.2 % has a permanent contract.

In order to enhance the validity of the study in terms of statistical significance, we decided not to consider separately the working conditions related to each type of employment contract represented in the group of workers interviewed (e.g. fixed term, part time, agency workers, self-employed, etc.). Since the main aim of the study was to investigate if and to what extent organizational socialization practices could be effective in developing a positive psychological contract, in enhancing organizational commitment and job satisfaction, we decided to collect all flexible workers under the unique label of temporary workers. This choice was determined by the need to mainly distinguish them from their colleagues hired with long-lasting employment contracts and thus arguing that all temporary workers share (though with some evident legal difference) the condition of vulnerability and precariousness.

Variables and Measures

Participants fill in a semi-structured questionnaire divided into two subsections; the first one containing socio-biographical information (education, employment status, work tenure and professional role) while the second focused attention on the variables chosen for the study.

  • Organizational Socialization. Following a global approach to the measurement of this variable the Organizational Socialization Questionnaire (Haueter et al. 2003) has been used as a measure. It encompasses 35 items that respectively assess the degree of participants’ socialization with the organization as a whole, with the team and with the task. Sample items are “while working I know how to fulfill the team’s standard” or “I know the organizational hierarchy and how tasks and responsibilities are managed”. Reliability was quite good for the subscales: group socialization (α = .920), task socialization (α = .868) and organizational socialization (α = .959).

  • Psychological contract. We used the Psychological Contract Inventory (Rousseau 2008), that is composed by 28 items. This scale measures the three dimensions of the psychological contract as argued in the theoretical section. In more detail, relational contract was operationalized summing the stability (e.g. “continue to work here”) and loyalty (e.g. “make personal sacrifices for this organization”) subscales, Cronbach’s α is .72. Balanced contract was computed through the sum of external employability (e.g. “build contacts outside this firm than enhance my career potential”), internal advancement (e.g. “make myself increasingly valuable to my employer”) and dynamic performance (e.g. “accept increasingly challenging performance standards”) subscales, Cronbach’s α is .72. Transactional contract included responses to narrow (e.g.“do only what I am paid to do”) and short-term (e.g. “I am under no obligation to remain with this company”) subscales. Cronbach’s α was .61.

  • Organizational commitment. The Italian version (Pierro et al. 1992) of the original scale by Allen and Meyer (1990) was used. In particular, we assessed affective commitment (e.g. “I do not feel ‘emotionally attached’ to this organization”). The subscale comprises 5 items, and Cronbach’s α was .78.

  • Job satisfaction. A single item developed by Wanous et al. (1997) was used to assess this variable (“At present, to what extent are you satisfied with your job?”).

Responses to the scales used were all given on a 7-point Likert scale, with 1 = “completely disagree” to 7 = “completely agree”. The translation/back-translation procedure was used to adapt the scales that had no Italian validated version (Graham and Naglieri 2003). Confirmative factor analysis was run to assess the structure of scales translated. This confirmed the structure of the original studies and showed good values for the Cronbach’s α. More specifically, organizational socialization showed a three-factor structures (59,64 % variance explained); three items were excluded from the scale and the value of the Cronbach’s α for the whole scale was .961 (α value for the subscale were respectively: .805 for organizational socialization, .812 for group socialization and .780 for task socialization). Likewise, the analysis run on the psychological contract scale confirmed the three-factor original structure (51,59 % variance explained). Five items were excluded from the scale and the value of the Cronbach’s α for the whole scale was .831 (α value for the subscale were respectively: .788 for relational psychological contract, .705 for balanced psychological contract and .735 for transactional psychological contract). Validity analysis was not run for the organizational commitment scale since the Italian validated version was adopted.

Data Analysis

Associations between variables are described recurring to means, standard deviations and correlations. To test the proposed hypotheses, that organizational socialization will be positively related to psychological contract, and that both will be further related to affective commitment and to job satisfaction, hierarchical multiple regressions have been conducted. We have chosen this data analysis technique in view of the aims of the study, namely because we aim to investigate if and to what extent organizational socialization and psychological contract could determine affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction in temporary workers. Therefore, hierarchical regression has been used to assess the incremental variance explained by the insertion of these two variables, hypothesizing a different contribution of the two. Demographic data (gender and organizational tenure) have been considered as control variables in order to verify the over and above effect of psychological variables.

Results

Means, standard deviations, and correlations among the study variables are displayed in Table 1. Results of bivariate analysis indicate a significant positive association relational psychological contract and group (r = .524; p < .001), task (r = .499; p < .001) and organization socialization (r = .434; p < .001). Similarly, a significant positive association was highlighted between affective commitment and group (r = .355; p < .001), task (r = .252; p < .001) and organization socialization (r = .382; p < .001) and job satisfaction and group (r = .406; p < .001), task (r = .265; p < .001) and organization socialization (r = .458; p < .001). Finally, relational psychological contract was positively associated with affective commitment (r = .480; p < .001) and with job satisfaction (r = .446; p < .001). Job satisfaction was also positively associated with affective commitment (r = .557; p < .001).

Table 1 Means, standard deviations and intercorrelation matrix (n = 241)
Full size table

The results of hierarchical multiple regressions testing the hypotheses are presented in the following tables.

Table 2 shows the results from regression analysis assessing the relationships between the dimensions of organizational socialization, psychological contract and affective commitment. Model 2 shows that organizational socialization was a significant predictor of affective commitment (F = 7.588; p = .000) but model 3 estimated that this contribution increased when even psychological contract was added (F = 8.842; p = .000). Yet, the change in R2 showed an increase of the predictive power. In this case, the percentage of variability accounted for goes from 14.9 to 23.6 % (∆R2 = .87) Finally, β coefficients for organizational socialization went from .24 to .25 once psychological contract was inserted in the model. Therefore, H1 and H3 were partially confirmed, since only the organizational dimension of socialization (β = .25; p = .01) and the relational dimension of psychological contract (β = .34; p = .000) were significant predictors of affective commitment.

Table 2 Results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis: organizational socialization and psychological contract regressed on affective commitment
Full size table

Table 3 shows the results from regression analysis assessing the relationships between the dimensions of organizational socialization, psychological contract and job satisfaction. Model 2 showed that organizational socialization was a significant predictor of job satisfaction (F = 8.048; p = .000) but model 3 estimates that this contribution increased when even psychological contract was added (F = 10.234; p = .000). Yet, the change in R2 showed an increase of the predictive power. In this case, the percentage of variability accounted for went from 15.6 to 26.3 % (∆R2 = .10). Yet, β coefficients for organizational socialization went from .33 to .35 once psychological contract was inserted in the model. Therefore, H2 and H4 were partially confirmed, since only the organizational dimension of socialization (β = .35; p = .001) and the relational (β = .33; p = .000) and balanced dimension of psychological contract (β = .19; p = .004) were significant predictors of affective commitment.

Table 3 Results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis: organizational socialization and psychological contract regressed on job satisfaction
Full size table

Discussion

This study offers several interesting results, some of which are noteworthy for their concrete implications in Human Resource Management practice.

First, as suggested by our hypotheses, newcomers’ organizational socialization as measured in the study was found to relate to the development of relational and balanced psychological contracts. The domains of socialization investigated are respectively that of organization, group and task socialization. As shown earlier, the first one is linked to newcomers’ acquisition of values, goals, rules, politics, customs, leadership style, and language of the organization (Fisher 1986; Morrison 1993; Ostroff and Kozlowski 1992; Schein 1968, 1971). The second one is related to newcomers learning of particulars about their work group and the behaviors associated with the group’s rules, goals, and values (Feldman 1981; Fisher 1986; Ostroff and Kozlowski 1992). Finally, task socialization entails acquiring task knowledge, learning how to perform relevant task behaviors and learning how to interact with others in the course of performing specific tasks (Adkins 1995; Chao et al. 1994; Feldman 1981; Fisher 1986; Morrison 1993; Ostroff and Kozlowski 1992). Results from hierarchical multiple regressions show that organization socialization is a significant predictor of affective commitment and relational psychological contract is also significantly associated with this specific dimension of commitment. In a similar vein, organization socialization, relational and balanced psychological contract are significant predictors of job satisfaction (Morrison and Robinson 1997; Chen et al. 2008; Sloboda 1999; King 2003; McInnis et al. 2009; Hughes and Palmer 2007; Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler 2000).

In line with most studies in the field (Ashforth et al. 2007; Korte 2009) group and task socialization is generally associated with an affective and interactional dimension of organizational identity, thus concretely showing “how” to behave in the new context. On the other hand, organization socialization could be conceived as the most formal domain of the organizational culture, the one which actually codes the “what”. More simply, group and task socialization represents the practices while organization socialization defines the contents of the process of acculturation and adjustment in the working context. In this vein, as confirmed by the results of the present study group and task socialization are significant predictors of the development of a relational typology of psychological contract, that is of an employment relationship based on broad, long-term obligations, and on the exchange of socio-emotional elements (e.g. commitment, trust). On the other hand, organization socialization is significantly associated with the development of a balanced typology of psychological contract, generally characterized by a more balanced P/O fit, and based on the enhancement of professional abilities and on the development dynamic performances. Generally, relational contract is conceived as a long term or with no term agreement, based on reciprocal trust and loyalty; each benefit and/or reward is not connected with performance rather with mere membership and participation to the organization (Rousseau 2008). This typology of psychological contract is the closest to the concept of lifetime career, according to which the worker might expect to spend his/her own career (or a significant part of it) with the same employer. On the other hand, balanced psychological contract codes a “dynamic and open-ended employment arrangement conditioned on economic success of firm and worker opportunities to develop career advantages. Both worker and firm contribute highly to each other’s learning and development [, while] rewards to workers are based upon performance and contributions to firm’s comparative advantages” (Rousseau 2008, p. 3). To sum up, while relational contract specifies a long duration and not specified terms employment relationship, balanced contract features long duration and specified terms.

In view of the above, the results of the study are particularly interesting if we consider the typology of participants involved: newcomers with short term/temporary employment status and with not specified terms that is what we defined in this frame (potentially) vulnerable worker. Because of the transitory nature of their employment agreement, of the nature of their work in the context of the call center, and according to most of the empirical evidences in the field (Rousseau 2004), this group of workers should have displayed a transactional psychological contract, featured by short term duration and unspecified terms. Nonetheless, this study has contributed to show that as long as even temporary newcomers are well socialized with the contents of their jobs, with the rules and norms of their group and with the main pivots of the organizational culture, they tend to develop a positive relationship with the organization, based on reciprocal trust and commitment.

In addition, these findings highlight that within the current context of investigation, temporary newcomers’ socialization with the values, goals, rules, politics, customs, leadership style, and language of the organization appears to be more important than socialization with the information related to group rituals and task accomplishment. This result is confirmed both for its impact on the development of a balanced psychological contract as well as for the enhancement of affective commitment and job satisfaction. These outcomes could be further investigated by studying the peculiar features of the call center considered as a case study, as their employees are generally requested to spend much of their time alone at their helpdesk (therefore the group dimension within the socialization process is not so relevant as to feel part of the context). Moreover, they accomplish very simple tasks, such as reading a prescribed script to customers and following very narrow indications, (consequently even task socialization is not so important for newcomers to adjust to the company’s culture). In summary, considering these aspects the group of temporary newcomers interviewed for the study confirm the relevance of getting familiar with “the way we do things around here” (Schein 1992) in order to develop an effective (even if transitory) employment relationship.

Limitations of the Study

The main limitation of the present study is the reduced sample size of the temporary workers involved. The sample size had resulted from the aim to examine a specific single case, a professional service organization, which at the same time we consider a strength of the study. Accordingly, the generalizability of the results might be limited. Thus, it is likely that the results from this study could be extended at least to other similar organizations and job functions. Moreover, the similarities between some of the results of the current study and those of previous research in the field suggest that the present findings could be a first attempt to investigate further in this direction.

Another limitation of the study could be the choice of the organizational socialization measures. The scales used are self-report measures that assess socialization looking at the process through the eye of the newcomer. Therefore, the results could be affected by social desirability, which in this case may also be meant as a perverse effect of the self perceived vulnerability of this kind of worker in the current context (e.g. “I have to say that I am well socialized otherwise the company will not renew my contract”). Most of past literature on socialization has generally addressed this topic by measuring the tactics used by the organization to support newcomers’ entry, often associating subjective (self-report scales) to objective reports (supervisors’ report, job attitudes observations). Moreover, most of these studies have predominantly focused on the measurement of secondary outcomes of socialization (e.g., job satisfaction, commitment) instead of investigating its direct outcomes (e.g., learning, inclusion, and assimilation). By choosing this measure, we have attempted at identifying specific learning, behaviors, and attitudes that result as newcomers are socialized. Actually, this choice has been directly connected with the main aim of the study, that is to examine the relationships among the direct outcomes of being “socialized” and some secondary outcomes such as psychological contract, commitment and job satisfaction that alone could be affected by other variables besides socialization, thus providing an incomplete measure of socialization (Klein and Weaver 2000). A comparison between these two kinds of measures is a question, which needs to be further addressed by future research.

Finally, a limitation can be found in the difficulty in investigating any difference in the process of organizational socialization with reference to the typologies of temporary workers employed in the call center: fixed-term and self-employed. This limitation was due to the nature of the case study organization, which is an inbound call center where customers mainly call to complain or to ask information about services. Indeed, the largest group of atypical workers interviewed were short-term workers. Therefore, since no significant statistical comparison was possible, we decided to consider the whole of atypical/vulnerable employment contracts present in the working context of the study under the same label “temporary”. We recommend that future research specifically look to distinguish independent collaborator (self-employed) from other types of atypical workers.

Practical Implications for HRM Practices and Future Research Agenda

In spite of the weaknesses, the results of the present research have contributed to pave the way to further research on temporary newcomers’ socialization and HRM practices, which is a current emergent priority for all kinds of organizations, given the paucity of literature examining temporary work and HRM (Burgess and Connell 2006).

In an attempt to fill this gap, our findings have provided support for the link between these practices and the development of psychological contract and its outcomes (i.e. affective commitment and job satisfaction). Indeed, if we consider newcomers’ socialization as a flexible means of developing an effective psychological contract and thus of achieving P/O fit, its role in managing even a temporary workforce is particularly significant as long as it leads to enhance commitment, job satisfaction and job performance. From a strictly HRM perspective, the results of the study highlight that organizations should invest on temporary newcomers’ socialization as long as they are interested in helping these workers in developing an (even) temporary and situated organizational identity which is functional to an effective organizational behavior and thus to job performance as well (Feather and Rauter 2004). In this vein, as argued also by many scholars in the field (Luthans and Youssef 2007; Luthans et al. 2008; Bakker and Schaufeli 2008), successful organizations are those who adopt a positive and relational approach in workers’ career management, thus overcoming a old-fashioned paternalistic model and supplying them, apart from their employment status, opportunities to develop their psychological capital.

Moving from these findings, future research in the field could concentrate on the impact of different socialization tactics on the development of the P/O relationship of temporary workers at their entry in the new organizational context. Thus, further research is needed to understand the effectiveness of individual rather than collective, formal rather than informal, serial rather than disjunctive, with or without investiture tactics and mentoring practices with reference to the different domains of socialization, namely, organization, group and task. It could be useful to understand how newcomers are concretely socialized both to job contents and to the relational dimension of their being part of the organization, namely, the way in which they interact with tenured employees. To this purpose, longitudinal studies of the socialization process would allow researchers to discern any difference and change following workers’ entry both in psychological contract, as well as in commitment and in job satisfaction comparing temporary employees’ perceived fit with the actual one, namely assessing their met expectations (Wanous et al. 1992; Irving and Meyer 1994).

The investigation of such aspects would allows a better understanding of the supposed vulnerability of temporary newcomers with reference to stable workers, which could be also related to the different intrinsic features of the organizational context investigated (De Cuyper et al. 2008). This is the reason why it is important that future research would adopt a between-organizations design, thus allowing researchers to better study organizational characteristics. To this purpose, the model of organizational culture and the perception of climate could be related both to the adoption of specific socialization practices and to the development of the psychological contract. Finally, organizations could be further involved in future research with regard to their reasons for employing temporary workers. As stated earlier, generally organizations tend to adopt different HRM practices based on the type of workers involved. The investigation of such issues would allow framing of the outcomes of the socialization process with special reference to temporary workers.

In a similar vein, workers’ individual characteristics should be carefully taken into account, since even prior to organizational entry they may hinder or help newcomers’ socialization (Bauer and Green 1994, 1998; Bauer et al. 2007). Beside age, gender and job function, skill levels and reasons for undertaking temp work may prompt further understanding about the expectations, the beliefs and the values implied in the development of successful socialization and then of positive P/O fit.

New Legal Scenarios for Entry-Flexibility in Italy

The findings of the study allow the drawing of some conclusions in a legal perspective, with special reference to the Italian model of flexicurity discussed above.

The results achieved by the research could offer an interesting contribution in order to support some recent law proposals that suggest an alternative regulation for entry-flexibility in the field of dependant work. The common idea is to substitute the various existing form of temporary contracts of employment with a Single Employment Contract. This is an open-ended contract, giving employees increasing rights and protections up to the first 3-years working. The debate on this subject is currently open not only in Italy, but also in France and Spain, highlighting virtues and revealing inherent contradictions of this form of contract (Casale and Perrulli 2013).

If we consider the HRM practices analysed in this research, they could possibly be more successful within this different legal framework. This argument is further supported by most of the empirical evidence discussed in the paper marking the significance of the very first moments after joining the organization in order to adjust positively to the new hosting context. In this vein, both the organization and the newcomers need time to develop an effective employment relationship, to formulate reciprocal expectations, to collect information about the job, about the norms, the rituals and the culture, to establish an effective psychological contract that in turn may lead to positive outcomes such as extra-role behaviour and increased job performance. If this evidence is generally true for permanent and stable workers, it could be much more true for temporary workers who suffer for their transitory (and therefore vulnerable) status and often experience the difficulty of “getting in touch” with the actual organizational life, since they actually have little time (and often little motivation) to do it.

The adoption of the Single Employment Contract paradigm could be a way (1) to allow organizations to plan HRM practices which could better suit (also) temporary workers’ demands and (2) to support temporary workers to positively adjust to the new organizational context that, as the study shows, is not an exclusive prerogative of long-term workersFootnote 3.