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Article Excerpt
This introduction presents the five articles selected for this special issue. First, it illustrates how each contribution relates to the social exchange theory, on which this entire special issue is based. The contributions of the five articles are highlighted and their main results are compared with those of previous work conducted on social exchange. The second part of the introduction presents various research perspectives on the employment relationship. The authors recommend avenues for contingent jobs, for a study of the employment relationship from a temporal perspective, and a multi-foci and multi-level approach of the employment relationship. They also recommend the use of longitudinal and quantitative research methods.
Cette introduction presente les cinq articles selectionnes dans ce numero special. Elle montre dans un premier temps comment chaque contribution a un lien avec la theorie de l'echange social, qui sert de fondement a l'ensemble du numero special. Ce faisant, l'apport des cinq articles est souligne et les principaux resultats sont mis en perspective avec les travaux anterieurs sur l'echange social. La deuxieme partie de l'introduction presente diverses perspectives de recherche sur la relation d'emploi. Les auteures suggerent des pistes liees aux emplois atypiques, a l'etude de la relation d'emploi dans une perspective temporelle, et a l'approche multi-cibles et multi-niveaux de la relation d'emploi. Le recours aux methodes de recherche longitudinales et quantitatives y est suggere.
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This special issue of the Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations Journal is aimed at providing research avenues on several current issues surrounding the employment relationship. The employment relationship can be tackled either from an individual or from a more general perspective (labour market, manpower management, etc.), with each perspective allowing a complementary study of the employment relationship (Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2005). The call for papers strongly favoured the individual perspective of the employment relationship. It defined the employment relationship as the relationship an employee or an individual builds with his organization, its representatives and its members. In this context, studying the employment relationship provides answers to a variety of research questions: what type of work relationship binds employees? Has that relationship changed? Are there any new theoretical frameworks to attract and retain employees? Who are the major actors in the relationship the employee establishes with his organization, his work group, his colleagues, his supervisor?
These research questions are certainly of interest to practitioners. One of the major challenges in looking at the employment relationship is understanding the organizational attraction process. Current studies examine the extent to which organizational factors, that is, employment characteristics, make a company attractive to those looking to join it. Such factors act as identifiers for working conditions, allowing a job seeker to anticipate what he can expect if he joins a particular organization (Lievens and Highhouse, 2003). Another current challenge being addressed by researchers relates to employee retention, particularly to the building of a long-term employment relationship between an organization and its members. Much research bas been concentrated on this area over the last fifteen years, and bas generally shown that actions carried out between an individual and the members of his organization are linked to retention variables, and particularly, affective commitment. This result has been obtained both in terms of organizational actions and in terms of actions taken by the supervisor (Dulac et al., in press; Eisenberger et al., 1997, 2001; Wayne, Shore and Liden, 1997). A third challenge in employment relationship studies is the ability to offer an employment relationship that is satisfying for all employees, irrespective of their type of employment, their age, their expectations, etc. In that regard, several studies have looked at the employment relationship among temporary employees, hired directly by the organization or through temporary placement agencies. Empirical studies have not led to consistent results concerning the employment relationship in this employee category. While some studies show that such employees have a more distant perception of their employment relationship (for example, a more transactional psychological contract, Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2002; less affective organizational commitment, Guest and Conway, 1999), some other empirical research studies do not find any differences between temporary and other employees (Feather and Rauter, 2004; McDonald and Makin, 2000), or, in fact, found the opposite effect, with temporary employees being more committed than others (Benson, 1998).
Given all the issues at stake here, this special issue on the employment relationship was greeted with great enthusiasm by researchers, as is evidenced by the number of papers we received: sixteen. Several key factors were taken into account in the publication of this special issue, and played an important role in the choice of the articles selected. The following criteria were used to assess the articles submitted: the innovative dimension of the problem studied as well as its currency, the thoroughness and originality of the method adopted and the richness of the results obtained. Particular attention was also paid to the complementarity of the approaches and topics running through all the articles selected. In all, five of the sixteen articles submitted were retained following a blind review process', representing a 31% acceptance rate. These articles present different facets of the employment relationship. The article by Vandenberghe, St-Onge and Rabineau focuses on the formation of the employment relationship, and examines the attractiveness of different organizational factors and how they relate to candidates' personality traits. The articles by Peyrat-Guillard and by Pihel present the cases of two businesses undergoing major organizational restructuring, and within which the long-term loyalty and employment relationship logics are at play. Peyrat-Guillard uses the social contract concept to study the discourse of two unions facing the shutdown of a plant, and consequently the perceived deterioration in the employment relationship by both unions. Pihel focuses on the "girl exchange" concept to describe how employees can maintain a satisfactory employment relationship, even during major organizational changes. The last two of the five articles selected deal with temporary employees. Manville's article compares perceptions of organizational justice among permanent and temporary employees, while Glaymann and Grima present the diverse range of employment relationships that can be found among temporary employees. Both articles contribute by identifying extremely divergent logics existing among the actors: while Manville's article shines the light on the similarities between temporary and permanent employees, the article by Glaymann and Grima reports that the employment relationship becomes increasingly precarious as temporary employees find themselves unable to change their employment status.
In this introduction, we propose a return, through the social exchange theory, to the underlying theoretical foundations present in all five articles retained in this special issue. We will show how each article centers around this theory, and indicate its contribution and originality versus what is available in existing research. In the second part of the introduction, we will suggest avenues for future research on the employment relationship.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE AROUND THE SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY
The theoretical bases underlying the development of the challenges tackled in the papers in this special issue--attraction, employee retention or the specific case of temporary employees--partly relate to the social exchange theory (Blau, 1964).
Social Exchange and the Individual's Personality
The social exchange theory considers that a relationship established between two parties (for example, two colleagues or an employee and his supervisor) can be described on a continuum between two extremes: economic exchange--including respective obligations that are clear, centered around satisfying one's interests and limited to the exchange of quantifiable resources--and social exchange--which includes unspecified obligations, which are left to the discretion of both parties, both in terms of their contents and of their frequency of exchange--(Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005).
The type of social exchange existing between two parties depends in part on individual dispositions and personality traits. Focusing on the personal disposition perspective, Vandenberghe, St-Onge and Rabineau innovate by looking at the links between the "Big Five" personality traits and the attractiveness of eight organizational factors. They show that once control variables are taken into account, personality traits contribute in explaining a significant additional part of the variance relative to six of eight measured organizational factors. Openness to experience is the personality trait most closely associated with the attractiveness of the organizational factors, followed by agreeableness and by conscientiousness. These results complement previous empirical works which final an association between the "Big Five" personality traits and preferences for a social or economic exchange, measured through the relational or transactional psychological contract (Ho, Weingart and Rousseau, 2004; Raja, Johns and Ntalianis, 2004). Vandenberghe, St-Onge and Rabineau contribute by illustrating that personality traits shape the future employment relationship by directing the individual's choices. Nevertheless, these traits play only a minor role since the explained additional variance is below 7%. While this result might appear to be disappointing, that is hot the case if we consider it in the context of current knowledge on the role dispositions and personality play in building social exchanges: most empirical studies agree in their assessment that individual variables moderate the individual perceptions about the employment relationship, either with respect to general personality traits (Ho, Weingart and Rousseau, 2004; Raja, Johns and Ntalianis, 2004) or to the individual dispositions respecting forms of exchange (Coyle-Shapiro and Neuman, 2004).
Glaymann and Grima's article furthers the research into the links between individual variables and perceptions respecting the employment relationship by focusing on a sample of 80 employees assigned to temporary missions by placement agencies. The value of this article lies in its use of the objective variables listed in a questionnaire to select individuals stuck in temporary employment relationships. Such individuals experience a series of economic exchanges with various organizations to which they are assigned, even though they would prefer to have social exchanges with the organizations instead. There is no fit between individual expectations and the types of exchanges offered by temporary placement agencies. This lack of a fit results in three types of reactions observed by the authors. The adaptation strategy consists in learning positive lessons from one's experiences and developing an affective commitment with the agency. In other words, individuals who use this strategy seek to carry out a social exchange with the agency, due to an inability to do so with an organization. The resilience strategy drives the individual to refuse to remain as a provisional worker and to use temporary assignments as a means of proving his worth. Finally, the resignation strategy is used by individuals who take refuge in a passive and fatalistic approach when faced with an employment relationship they consider to be beyond their control. By describing the experiences of constrained temporary workers, the article furthers the empirical research into the emotional and cognitive effects of psychological contract breaches (feelings of betrayal, of anger, desire to leave the organization, loss of trust in others; Ho, Weingart and Rousseau, 2004; Tekleab, Takeuchi and Taylor, 2005) and into perceptions of organizational injustice (Aryee, Budhwar and Chen, 2002; Konovsky and Pugh, 1994). As Cropanzano et al. note (2001: 42), fair treatment naturally promotes social exchanges; this type of relationship results in the individual feeling obliged to pay his debt to the party who treated him well. The adaptation strategy consists in transferring the perception of a fair and generous treatment to the agency, since the employee is unable to develop a social exchange with traditional foci (the organization, colleagues or the supervisor). This strategy allows an improvement of the perception of a fit between the individual' s expectations and the situation experienced. The other strategies illustrate the effects of a lack of a fit between expectations and the employment relationship in terms of well-being, self-esteem and personal development. This relationship bas been covered in previous studies (for example, Shore and Tetrick, 1994), but very few empirical data...
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