Why Do Contractors Contract? The Experience of Highly Skilled Technical Professionals in a Contingent Labor Market

By Gideon Kunda, Stephen R. Barley, James A. Evans. 2002

383 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Public Administration, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/40b4701ab3f6a1ce36acbe74c582f860567d2dc9

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In General Health Professions

In Public Administration

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Identity As Narrative: Prevalence, Effectiveness, and Consequences of Narrative Identity Work in Macro Work Role Transitions (2010, background): “Rao et al. (2003), for example, demonstrated how identity movements create institutional gaps and give rise to new logics that are dissemi nated via models and stories, and Kunda et al. (2002) described the emergence of a new script to explain the trend toward freelance work in tech nical workers.”
Divided Workers (2004, background): “In other cases, highly skilled contingent workers with a strong occupational identity seek short-duration work on more favourable terms than those usually received by the client firm’s employees (Kunda et al., 2002).”
Boundaryless and traditional contingent employees: worlds apart (2002, background): “In the case of the boundaryless types the lower relative wage may represent the value placed on non-monetary aspects of the employment arrangement such as greater flexibility and autonomy, which Kunda et al. (2002) found in their case studies of higher skilled independent contractors.”
How satisfied are they and why? A study of job satisfaction, job rewards, gender and temporary agency workers in Australia (2010, background): “Kunda et al. (2002) find that contractors seek non-standard work to escape the bureaucracy of permanent jobs and similar arguments have been made for agency workers as well (Hoque and Kirkpatrick, 2008).”
Beach Time, Bridge Time, and Billable Hours: The Temporal Structure of Technical Contracting (2004, background): “Although their reasons ranged from making more money to escaping boredom, 54 percent told us that they had gradually become frustrated with organizational politics, incompetent management, and inequities in the employment relationship (Kunda, Barley, and Evans, 2002).”
The ‘bounded' career: An empirical study of human capital, career mobility and employment outcomes in a mediated labour market (2005, background): “However, there may be a further set of skills that are needed to provide a credible signal of core occupational capability (Kunda et al., 2002).”
Volition and reasons for accepting temporary employment: Associations with attitudes, well-being, and behavioural intentions (2008, background): “Debates on potential consequences of temporary employment for employees' attitudes, well-being, and behavioural intentions are hotly polarized (Kunda, Barley, & Evans, 2002 ).”
Unpacking Personal Adaptability at Work (2008, background): “In their study of contract workers, Kunda et al. (2002) reported the comments from one interviewee: “You’re having to figure out a new culture every time you change jobs” (p. 250).”
Contingent labor as an enabler of entrepreneurial growth (2003, background): “Lepak and Snell (1998) argue that competitive forces increasingly require firms to seek both greater flexibility and greater cost control in the area of workforce management, and the use of contingent labor may help with both of these concerns (c.f. Abraham, 1990; Davis-Blake & Uzzi, 1993; Kunda et ”
Working on my own: Measuring the challenges of gig work (2021, background): “, 2020), while other gig workers, such as IT contractors, have gigs that can last months or years (e.g., Evans et al., 2004; Kunda et al., 2002).”
Job Insecurity and Health-Related Outcomes among Different Types of Temporary Workers (2005, background): “…experience poor working conditions – low wages, no benefits, negligible job security, little training and no possibility of advancement – and are forced into temporary employment by circumstances that make it difficult for them to find permanent jobs (Kunda et al., 2002; Segal and Sullivan, 1997).”
Literature Review of Theory and Research on the Psychological Impact of Temporary Employment: Towards a Conceptual Model (2008, neutral): “They argue that risks may be formulated as opportunities and vice versa (Garsten 1999; Kunda et al. 2002).”