Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Dissertation - Rollins Access Only

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

Advisor(s)

Dr. Robert Prescott

Second Advisor

Dr. Robert Ford

Abstract

The combination of opportunities created by the socio-technological evolution in the last decade and the negative impact of the 2008 global economic recession has caused many professionals to seek employment relationships that diversify their streams of income in the pursuit of their life’s aspirations. These professionals joined the contingent workforce to primarily find the desired autonomy, flexibility, or freedom, as well as other inducements this study refers to as job-specific inducements. At the same time, the growing and unsatisfied demand for talented and skilled professionals in the permanent workforce caused organizations to increase their use of the contingent workforce to fulfill their talent needs. Moreover, there is a growing recognition that it is an advantage for organizations to retain such talents for as long as needed. For organizations to retain contingent professionals, they have to offer inducements that fulfill the psychological contract expectations of the contingent professional.

Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was to identify those inducements that fulfill the contingent professionals’ psychological contract expectations. To achieve this purpose, an online survey was administered to contingent professionals who live and work in the United States. An 82-item instrument named “Contingent Professionals’ Inducements Survey (CPIS)” was developed based on seven inducements identified in the research literature. The seven inducements are Autonomy (Auto), Flexibility (Flex), Freedom (Free), Organizational Support and Trust (OST), Learning and Development (L&D), Manager-Employee Relationship (MER), and Total Rewards (TR). At least 169 participants provided useable data. The reliability of the scale was assessed to be .977 using Cronbach’s α. The factor analysis did not support the proposed seven inducements research model. The factor analysis revealed three factors, two of which were inducements namely Organizational Support and Development (OSD), and Compensation and Benefits (CB) were independent variables. The third factor was Intent to Leave (ITL) which was the dependent variable.

Regression analysis revealed that perceived availability of CB and the importance of OSD are unique and significant predictors of ITL. Though the strength of the relationships between the OSD and CB with ITL were moderate, participants gave their primary reason for becoming a contingent professional as “the need to develop new expertise.” Contingent professionals also indicated that Compensation, Benefits, and Flexibility were mostly, the inducements organizations offered them to stay for the longterm, and these same inducements were the top three inducements contingent professionals indicated organizations could offer them to consider staying on a long-term basis.

One of the limitations of the study is the inability to precisely target the study population due to overlaps in the various types of contingent work arrangements, contingent workers performed. Therefore, the study had to rely on self-identification as a contingent professional. The practical implication of this study for organizations is to ensure their strategies for encouraging contingent professionals to work for the organization on a long-term basis should include offering competitive compensation, provision of benefits and flexibility, and the best way to get this done is to offer the contingent professional a full-time permanent employment.

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