مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

The use of a contract workforce has become more prevalent in the technology industry. For instance, N50% of high-tech firms in Taiwan hire contract workers as part of their whole workforce (Wang and Kaarst-Brown, 2014). In the U.S., the number of contract workers in the technology industry has climbed dramatically, rising to N20% of the workforce from nearly 10% a decade ago (Castellano, 2013). The use of contract employment in this industry fundamentally changes the “triangular” relationships among workers, employers, and clients (Boswell et al., 2012; McKeown, 2003). Such relationships are much more complex than traditional employment relationships between permanent employees and their employers. Therefore, it is particularly important for the technology industry to learn about contract workers in depth so as to obtain effective guidelines for firms’ own policies of personnel and industry. Ashford et al. (2008) indicated that much of the literature tends to assume that the traditional ways of engaging with the firm are normal and sustainable in the technology industry, and contract workers in non-standard employment arrangements simply look like permanent workers. To fill this gap in the literature, this study focuses on contract workers in the technology industry to explain how their job performance can be improved.

Firms in the technology industry continue to use contract workers heavily in order to reduce labor cost, enhance operational flexibility, and adjust the number of workers to meet volatile production needs (Burgess and Connell, 2006). For that reason, supervisors must learn to effectively manage their contract workers to achieve high performance (Kraimer et al., 2005). This study focuses on contract workers in the technology industry, because of their importance when technology firms are organizing their workforce so as to achieve great performance (George and Chattopadhyay, 2005). The literature argues that contract workers often show low levels of loyalty, organizational commitment, trustworthiness, and obedience (e.g., McDonald and Makin, 2000; Ang and Slaughter, 2001; Van Dyne and Ang, 1998). It is thus critical for a supervisor to successfully guide contract workers to increase their job performance by exploring key factors that motivate them the most. Hence, this study aims to verify the motivators of job performance among contract workers in the technology industry beyond prior studies based on permanent employees.

The theory of proactivity has indicated proactive commitment as a critical and direct motivator of job performance for contract workers in the technology industry (Pinazo, 2015). Proactive commitment is a key factor desirable for technology firms, because workers with strong proactive commitment are less likely troubled by conflicting situations under high job stressors and can thus endure setbacks and failure (Bianchi and Wickramasekera, 2013; Kulkarni, 2008). The theory of proactivity has suggested that individuals can be motivated to be proactive in many workplace circumstances (Chang and Chou, 2012; Page and Page, 2002). The attributes of proactivity include “acting in advance” and “taking control to create changes,” which are very important for contract workers in the volatile technology industry.