Title: Temp workers: why be loyal?

Authors: Isabelle Galois; Juliet F. Poujol; Pascal Paillé

Addresses: Chambery Graduate School of Business, Grenoble Research Center (CERAG), Savoie Technolac, 73 381 Le Bourget du Lac Cedex, France. ' MRM – Montpellier Research Management, INSEEC Business School, 27, avenue Claude Vellefaux, 75010 Paris, France. ' Management Department, Laval University, G1K 7P4, Québec (QC), Canada

Abstract: This paper addresses workers' loyalty towards a temp agency. Loyalty reduces contact and management costs, so temp agencies attempt to retain valuable workers. The study therefore focuses on factors that attach workers to their temp agency. This study offers an interdisciplinary approach, according to which the temporary worker is both an employee and a client of the agency. It highlights important factors that determine temp workers' loyalty to the agency, using a relational perspective. A hybrid model, based on social exchange theory, integrates services marketing and human resource management literature to explain the attachment of temporary workers to an agency. Social exchange theory offers an integrative framework for explaining a person's loyalty to an organisation (employer or supplier), based on reciprocity.

Keywords: temporary workers; temps; loyalty; social exchange theory; services marketing; perceived organisational support; organisational attachment; reciprocity; temp agencies; temping.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEM.2012.047041

International Journal of Services, Economics and Management, 2012 Vol.4 No.2, pp.93 - 103

Published online: 15 Nov 2014 *

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