Boundaryless and traditional contingent employees: worlds apart

Abstract

We find support for distinguishing between two types of contingent workers: boundaryless and traditional. The existence of these two types helps explain the conflicting views about contingent work in the literature. Using hierarchical cluster and multivariate analysis on a national survey of 614, and a regional sample of 276 temporary employees, we also find that these two types exhibit different work attitudes and behaviors. What distinguishes boundaryless temporaries from others is their preference for temporary work and level of skill and experience. Results also show that the performance of traditional temporaries is more sensitive to attitudes than boundaryless temporaries. After controlling for level of work satisfaction, traditional temporaries reported higher task and contextual performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory development, organization practice and public policy. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.