‘Interaction’ With Contract Workers: Extending The ‘Approach’

Authors: Donelda S. McKechnie; Sandra Hogarth-Scott

Fundamental to the Interaction Approach are four factors identified by Hakansson (1997). This paper explores interactions with contract workers using the four factors, which focus on issues of (1) active participation (2) duration, closeness and complexity of the association (3) participant roles and expectations and (4) continuity of resource supply. Data to support the paper is taken from an in-depth study involving respondents grouped across 4 distinct employment categories: limited company contractors ? agency hire, limited company contractors ? direct hire, pay as you earn (PAYE) contractors and full-time staff. The qualitative findings indicate the most notable differences in the responses: workers who interact with the organization under contingent conditions engage in transaction scenarios whereas those who are tied to the organization as full-time staff and pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) contractors engage in exchange only to a limited extent, according to their employment contracts. This suggests that the interaction approach to the study of interorganization exchange may be extended to the intra-organization buy-sell situations between the organization and its contract workers. This paper sets out to explore this shift in the theoretical perspective of the interaction approach.

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Publish Year: 2003

Conference: Lugano, Switzerland (2003)