1. Introduction
Hybrid employment has been a go-to choice for organizations to decrease costs and acquire needed talent urgently [
1]. Research has reported that more than 80% of enterprises reorganize their workforces flexibly, and most companies employ more than 40% of nonstandard employees [
2,
3]. The same phenomenon has been found in China, and the proportion of temporary employees in China has continuously increased in recent years. The hybrid employment model, which includes temporary and permanent employees, has created many issues, as demonstrated by practice and research. In recent years, temporary employees in China have displayed several common destructive behaviors, such as changing customer data at random, using unsanitary treatment of ingredients. Despite the suspicion that these workers were declared temporary employees after they made mistakes, two unaddressed questions arise: Are temporary employees really demonstrating more sabotaging behaviors than permanent employees in the workplace? If so, why, and when does it happen? Thus, further verification is required to determine whether there exists a difference between the two types of employees’ engagement in counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and how these behaviors arise.
Previous research has suggested that nonstandard employment models might bring unfavorable outcomes to temporary employees and organizations due to the awful working conditions for nonstandard employees. For instance, contract employees or temporary workers have been associated with deviant behavior [
4]. According to the theory of social exchange, researchers revealed that part-time employees showed lower initiative to launch OCBs than full-time employees in restaurants [
5], both preferred work status and organizational culture play moderating roles in the process of bringing on adverse behaviors. From the perspective of the psychological contract, research on nonstandard employees demonstrated that they show a poorer job attitudes (e.g., lower job satisfaction and affective commitment) and lower psychological well-being [
6]. However, relatively little is known about why atypical employees display certain behaviors and what factors can attenuate their negative effects. Accordingly, it is unclear what constitutes critical moderators and mediators of the employment status effect on behavioral outcomes. Recent reviews have suggested that the potential negative effects of hybrid employment on productivity-related outcomes are still poorly understood [
1,
7]. Especially with improvements in labor legal systems, incluing ‘equal pay for equal work’, temporary workers and permanent employees are increasingly enjoying the same work treatment in China. In this case, will contract workers engage in more CWB?
Reviewing prior research, we contend that there are several critical gaps in the hybrid employment literature that may contribute to this lack of clarity. First, the literature has largely ignored the diversification of current mixed employment situations. For instance, employees of different employment forms working in the same place or even the same job position, and enjoy the same working conditions instead of the poor working environments for nonstandard workers described in earlier literature [
8]. Second, several theories, such as social exchange theory, conservation of resource theory and the psychological contract, were used to explain the behavioral differences between standard and nonstandard employees due to divergent exchange relationships between employees and the organization. Yet, when work conditions and other factors between standard and nonstandard employees are equalized, the assumption of nonstandard employment tends toward the idea that the economic exchange relationship no longer exists. Therefore, it is necessary to applied other perspective to explain the multi-employment relationship and the psychological and behavioral differences between employees in this new situation. In addition, the literature lacks an integrated conceptual framework that explains the unique psychological nature of nonstandard employment. Examinations of theory-based mediators and moderators that unpack when, how, and why nonstandard employees engage in certain work behaviors have been very rare [
9,
10]. Accordingly, theoretical integration is needed to further explicate when, how, and why nonstandard employees engage more in CWB.
This article sets out to investigate the relationship between employment status and CWB by virtue of social identity theory. We first focus on the mediating role of organizational identification, which is defined as “perception of oneness with or belongingness to an organization, where the individual defines him or herself in terms of the organization(s) in which he or she is a member” [
11]. Drawing on social identity theory, when employees perceive that they are part of the organization, they establish their self-concept, subsequently allowing them to identify with the organization and finally improve their positive attitude and constructive behaviors [
12]. Because of the employment status differences between temporary employees and permanent employees, they may show differences in organizational identification and CWB. We then examined the impact of turnover intention on the process of displaying CWB. From the perspective of social identity theory [
13], organizational identification results in a construction process that is affected by many factors. In a multi-employment situation, temporary employees have a high planned turnover intention due to a fixed contract duration [
14]. Those with uncertain jobs will not invest too many personal resources to establish deep employee–organization relationships. When employees conceive of an internal intention to leave, it generates an effect that influences their psychological state and behavior [
15].
This article contributes to the literature in these aspects. First, while some research has explored the relation between employment status and behavior [
16,
17], it remains unclear what affects the divergence in CWB. From the perspective of social identity theory, we explored the important role of employment status in affecting employees’ CWBs by influencing their organizational identification. Second, although there exist studies that explored moderators and mediators between employment status and outcomes [
18,
19], little research has developed theoretically complex models that simultaneously examine the processes and boundary conditions of these linkages [
20]. We extend this field by using social identity theory to explore when and why employment status affects CWB. In doing so, we analyze whether two kinds of employees diverge in terms of organizational identification and CWBs, and whether this divergence is conditional upon their turnover intention. Finally, we probe into employees’ perceptions of their affiliations in the scenario of a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
3. Methods
3.1. Sample and Procedure
Data were obtained from both permanent and temporary employees of a state-owned service company in China. Survey packets were sent separately to respondents and their direct supervisors. Attached to the survey instrument for both supervisors and their subordinates was a notice that explained the objective of the survey and ensured that their participation in the survey was voluntary. Furthermore, we explained to all respondents that their answers would be used only for the purposes of the survey. At time 1, employees were asked to report their post number (to determine their employment status from the human resources [HR] manager), organizational identification, turnover intention, POS, pay satisfaction, and demographic information. Their direct supervisors were asked to report subordinates’ CWB two weeks later.
With the assistance of the HR department, a member of the research team distributed two separate questionnaires to 280 employees and their 126 direct supervisors. We randomly selected 217 employees distributed among various departments, including management, service, marketing, and flight. After deleting some unmatched supervisor–subordinate dyads, we finally obtained 210 completed valid questionnaires.
210 employees and their 116 corresponding supervisory ratings of CWB matched surveys were retained for data analysis. Out of the 210 respondents, 108 (51.43%) were permanent employees with the remaining 102 employees on contract (48.57%). More than half of the participants were male (57.14%). 82.24% of the participants were younger than 35 years (47.14% were 25 years old or below, 38.10% were 26~35, 14.28% were 36 ~ 45, 0.48% were 46 years old and above), with an average job tenure of 6.18 (6.67% have tenure below 1 year, 23.81% were 2–3 years, 13.81% were 3–5 years, 17.62% were 5–7 years, 38.10% were more than 7 years). The respondents were fairly well- educated (7.4% of employees had middle school or lower education, 16.19% had high school and technical secondary school education, 76.19% had college or above education).
3.2. Measure
For all measures, respondents rated the items on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. We translated English scales into Chinese, and then back-translated them, to ensure the equivalence, complete item information can be seen in
Appendix A.
Employment status. Employment status was measured in a dichotomous variable, respondent was required to answer whether they belong to temporary employees (coded 0) or permanent employees (coded 1).
Organizational identification. Organizational identification was measured by six-items scale [
11]. Sample items included ‘When someone praises organization, it feels like a personal compliment.’ and ‘If a story in the media criticized my organization, I would feel embarrassed’. The scale’s alpha reliability in this study is 0.909.
Counterproductive work behavior. A 12-item subscale was used to measure workers’ deviant behavior to organization [
29]. Example items is ‘Taken property from work without permission’. The scale’s alpha reliability in this study is 0.956.
Turnover intention. The three-items scale was used to measure turnover intention [
57]. Sample items included ‘I often think about quitting my job with my present organization’ and ‘I will probably look for a new job within the next year’. The scale’s alpha reliability in this study is 0.880.
Pay satisfaction. We use 18-items to measure employees’ pay satisfaction [
61]. Sample items included ‘the raises I have typically received in the past’ and ‘amount the company pays toward my benefits’, Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was 0.893.
Perceived organizational support. And we use eight-items scale to measure employees’ perceived organizational support [
62]. Sample items included ‘the organization appreciates any extra effort from me’ and ‘the organization takes pride in my accomplishments at work’. The scale’s alpha reliability in this study is 0.907.
Control variables. Following prior research, the demographic control variables measured were gender (1 = male, 2 = female), age (1 = under 25 years, 2 = 25–35 years, 3 = 35–45 years, 4 = 45–55 years, 5 = above 55 years), and income level (1 = under ¥2500, 2 = ¥2500–4500, 3 = ¥4500–6500, 4 = ¥6500–8500, 5 = above ¥8500), education (1 = middle school or below, 2 = high school or secondary school, 3 = junior college, 4 = bachelor degree), we also controlled the length of tenure (1 = within 1 year, 2 = 2–3 years, 3 = 3–5 years, 4 = 5–7 years, 5 = more than 7 years).
5. Discussion
The purpose of this article was to investigate when and why different employment status employees’ (temporary workers vs. permanent employees) behaviors differ in terms of CWB in the Chinese state-owned enterprise context. We first investigated whether and why there exist differences in CWBs amid different employment statuses. The results of the study confirmed our hypothesis that employment status has an impact on employee CWB through organizational identification. Temporary workers’ organizational identification was found to be lower than that of permanent employees, and their CWB was higher. Previous research focused on two employment statuses in the workplace to determine deviations in behavior, mostly from the economic and social exchange perspectives [
4,
19]. For most atypical employees in marginal positions, their working conditions are poor. Their relationship with the organization is transactional, easily causing them to feel unfairly treated, which triggers negative behaviors. For fixed-term contract workers, their career development is very limited. They are difficult to integrate into the company’s core group to build deep employee–organization relationships. When employees are on the edge of the organization, it is difficult to form self-concepts. Thus, they tend to engage in behaviors that deviate from the organization’s values as well as behaviors that betray the interests of the organization.
The results indicate that organizational identification plays a mediating role in the relationship between employment status and CWB. Various employment models result in differences in employees’ identification with the organization, which could exert an influence on their CWBs. The results imply that the reason for temporary employees’ frequent destruction of the workplace is a lack of organizational identification. Employment status communicates to employees’ identity-relevant information related to their status and prospects within the organization because it defines whether they feel valued as members of the organization. Temporary workers are the “second-order members” of an organization compared to permanent workers. Consequently, it seems reasonable to assume that these employees do not feel valued by the organization [
38], which inhibits identity formulation. In addition, for temporary employees, job instability and feelings of powerlessness lead to low organizational identification. As such, they may be less hesitant to display more CWB. Existing research has investigated the critical role of employment status on employees’ behaviors mainly through social exchange theory and psychological contract theory [
5,
63], and we expanded the understanding of employment status’s impact on behaviors by drawing on social identity theory.
Another aim of this article was to explore the boundary conditions in the process by which employment status takes effect in manifesting CWB. The results demonstrated that there is an interaction effect between employment status and turnover intention on CWB. As can be seen in
Figure 2, temporary employees who report intense turnover intentions experience a greater increase in CWBs. Temporary employees with higher turnover intentions who participate in more CWB may do so for the following reasons: first, as the psychological connection between these contract employees and the organization is weak (as can be seen from their high turnover intention), they tend to violate the interests of the organization; second, due to their fixed-term contracts, the probability of actual departures is relatively high, the organization’s constraints of norms have limited influence on them. Once they truly leave, dispensing with responsibilities will also stimulate employees’ motivation to engage in CWB.
Furthermore, turnover intention moderates the relationship between employment status and organizational identification, which in turn affects employees’ CWBs.
Figure 3 shows that temporary employees who have a strong intention to leave experience a bigger decline in organizational identification than permanent employees, which could affect their CWBs. In contrast, permanent employees’ organizational identification and CWB show a gentler change when their turnover intention varies. The reason is that, except for formal status, permanent employees generally experience higher job satisfaction and positive psychological contracts and are treated better than temporary employees in terms of compensation and benefits [
5,
64]. Although they do not plan to be members of the organization in the future, organizational identification built on positive psychological factors will be maintained for the necessary period. For temporary employees, however, inferior treatment may result in their feeling ostracized. Once they decide to resign, their low-level organizational identification deteriorates quickly [
32], which subsequently elicits CWBs.
The analysis results of the moderated mediating effect suggested that when they do not intend to leave, the level of organizational identification and CWB do not differ vastly between temporary employees and permanent employees (β
oi = 0.016, 95% C. I. = [−0.072, 0.104]), as shown in
Table 6, which contrasts earlier literature [
42,
65]. The following three reasons also provide an explanation: (1) Unlike some on-demand employees who work at home, temporary employees in this study usually worked together with permanent employees, so both employees may foster organizational identification to a similar degree; (2) temporary employees who have no intention to leave are always inclined to change their status and transform into regular employees in the organization. This expectation may increase their organizational identification, which is originally slightly lower than that of permanent employees; and (3) Temporary employees may restrain themselves from engaging in deviant behaviors deliberately to obtain a formal position in the current organization. Moreover, it comes back to the previous result that there are differences in organizational identification and CWB between the two employment statuses. The reason may be that temporary employees have a relatively higher turnover intention than permanent employees (which can be seen in
Table 3; the mean value of turnover intention is 2.484 for temporary employees and 2.077 for permanent employees) in our sample. The results confirmed that temporary employees are inclined to have a high level of turnover intention compared to permanent employees.
5.1. Theoretical Implications
Several theoretical implications can be noted. First, previous research revealed the impact of employment status’s impact on employees’ behavior, but mainly from the theoretical perspective of the psychological contract or social exchange theory [
5,
63,
64]. From the angle of social identity, we investigated the emergence of CWB in hybrid employment and verified the completely mediating effect of organizational identification between employment status and CWB. As such, this study extends our understanding of why temporary and permanent employees show different levels of CWB in the workplace.
Second, we uncovered the mechanism by which employment status influences employees’ CWBs. Combining the perspective of employee–organization relationships and social identity, we explored the factors that affect employees’ CWB in hybrid employment. Analysis results showed that organizational identification acts as a cushion in manifesting CWB, especially for temporary employees, which provides empirical evidence that organizational identification is also needed for temporary employees to improve their behavior in the workplace [
1,
66].
Third, we revealed that turnover intention could act as a boundary condition, affecting the relationship between employment status and employees’ organizational identification and CWB. Most research on turnover intention regarding it as an employee behavior outcome has explored factors that could affect it [
67,
68,
69,
70]. This article argues that when employees are in the leave intention state, their psychology and behavior change. The results showed that turnover intention could influence employees’ organizational identification and CWB, which adds to the research on turnover intention. Furthermore, a former study proved that the planned turnover of temporary workers has an inverted U-shaped relationship with unit performance [
14], increasing the costs of operational disruption [
71,
72]. This article provides evidence that the leave intention of temporary workers increases costs for organizations by increasing CWB.
Finally, we provide significant insight into diverse employment models in the Chinese state-owned enterprise scenario. Compared to temporary employees in private enterprises, this group has a longer average tenure and better working conditions, and they even get paid more. Therefore, when they do not have the intention to leave, they can form organizational identification at the same level as permanent employees. As such, exploring specific hybrid employment scenarios is important; otherwise, some key distinctions between temporary and permanent employees may be overlooked.
5.2. Practical Implications
This article proposes three suggestions for management practices. First, employment status has an influence on CWB [
5,
63,
64]. According to the research results, temporary employees still have a greater tendency toward CWB than regular employees. Managers need to pay attention to the psychological behavior of temporary employees to avoid CWBs that bring irreparable losses to the organization.
Second, employment status influences CWB through organizational identification after controlling for other key psychological variables (POS and pay satisfaction). Temporary workers’ commitment or the identification with organization has been overlooked in the past [
1,
72,
73]. If they do not establish proper organizational identification, they may fall into identity anxiety, causing the depletion of cognitive and emotional resources that then leads to counterproductive behaviors. Therefore, in addition to providing proper salaries and a fair working environment, it is important to help temporary employees establish organizational identification. Although it is very difficult to build organizational identification among temporary employees in a short and fixed working time, organizations and managers should make appropriate tradeoffs. Organizations can select nonstandard employees who demonstrate consistency with the organizational core values, provide opportunities for external employees to contact and communicate with the core employees, and help them construct their organizational identity. Our research has implications for the management of other atypical employees, such as independent professionals, agent employees, and freelancers.
Third, turnover intention could accelerate the decline of employees’ organizational identification as well as the increase in CWBs, especially for temporary employees with high levels of turnover intention. Managers must note that, due to fixed-term contracts, temporary employees are in a state of high-level turnover intention. On the one hand, organizations have to trade off gains and costs by using temporary employees. On the other hand, the opportunity for career development in an organization for temporary employees may protect some of them from “planned turnover,” which can slow down temporary employees’ turnover intentions and reduce CWB.
5.3. Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
There are some limitations to this article. First, this article only examined employees’ CWBs against organizations under the influence of factors such as organizational identification and turnover intention. It did not consider CWB against individuals. Future research can remedy this limitation by considering both CWBs against organizations and individuals to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of employment status on employees’ CWB. Second, with a limited sample, it is difficult to probe, except for turnover intention, other external factors that can cause differences between the two types of employees. Third, this study was conducted in a Chinese state-owned company; future research needs to continue exploring hybrid employment in other special scenarios.