Organizational and client commitment among contracted employees

This study examines affective commitment to employing and client organizations among long-term contracted employees, a new and growing employment classification. Drawing on organizational commitment and social exchange literatures, we propose two categories of antecedents of employee commitment to client organizations. We tested our hypotheses using a survey collected from employees in four UK contracting organizations delivering a service on behalf of a government entity. The results suggest that perceived client organizational support and attractiveness of the client organization relate positively to employees’ affective commitment to the client organization. Furthermore, affective contractor commitment explained unique variation in client affective commitment beyond that accounted for by the client-based predictors, suggesting that employees’ commitment to their own contracting organization is important to explaining employees’ commitment to the client organization. We suggest that a greater reliance on social exchange theory may provide a basis for understanding commitment in its different forms and foci.