Temporary Agency Workers’ Perceptions on Organizational Supports and Affective Organizational Commitment

Abstract

Temporary agency workers have become a global trend in the contemporary work forces, under the pressure of cost effectiveness through employment flexiblility. Temporary agency workers keep unique dual ralationships with the user firm and the agency and also show different level of organizational commitment to the user firm and to the agency. Organizational commitment play an important role in terms of an organization’s overall productivity as well as an individual’s job satisfaction and well-being. Especially, affective organizational commitment, i.e. an employee’s voluntary emotional attachment to an organization, is known as the strongest dimension related to job satisfaction, well-being and job productivity.

In this thesis, I aimed to investigate temporary agency workers’ dual affective commitment particularly in the South Korean institutional settings. My analysis implied that: (1) temporary agency workers’ affective organizational commitment to the user firm and to the agency would be cooperative rather than competing in general; (2) temporary agency workers would show higher level of affective organizational commitment to the user firm than to the agency; (3) perceived organizational supports from the user firm and from the agency respectively would have a significantly positive relationship with affective organizational commitment to the user firm and to the agency, which was consistent with the social exchange theory. Above all, my analysis suggested that an organization’s non-financial supports would do more effectively influence temporary agency workers’ affective organizational commitment than financial supports.