Human resource attributions and commitment of highly skilled outsourcing workers: psychological contract fulfillment as a mediator

Background: The use of contingent workers has become a part of many organizations’ business models. Contingent workers establish two different employment relationships: one with the outsourcing company and the other with the client company where they daily work. Attributions that employees make about the reasons why management adopts the human resource practices that it does may have consequences for their attitudes towards both organizations. Aim: We proposed that human resource positive attributions were positively related to affective commitment, and that this relationship is mediated by the psychological contract fulfillment. The opposite would occur for human resource negative attributions. Methods: These predictions were tested on a sample of 185 highly skilled contingent workers from the Information Technologies sector. Results: Data showed that employees attributing positive meanings to human resource practices have a greater organizational affective commitment with both the outsourcing and the client companies. This significant positive relationship is mediated by the perceived fulfillment of balanced and relational psychological contracts, by both organizations. Negative attributions relate negatively with affective commitment with the outsourcing company and this relationship is mediated by the perceived non-fulfillment of its relational psychological contract. Conclusion: This study develops implications for contingent employment and human resource management research.