Changes in the mid-1970s created conditions that led to countries, organizations, and workers searching for greater flexibility in employment (Cappelli, 1999). As a consequence, nonstandard employment relations such as part-time employment, day labor, temporary-help agencies, and contract-company employment (Kalleberg, Reskin, & Hudson, 2000) have become increasingly prominent ways of organizing work.

Chinese enterprises are hiring an increasing number of nonstandard employees, the majority of whom are agency workers. According to the Research Report of Domestic Agency Workers published by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions in March 2012 (Li & Chen, 2012), the total number of agency workers is more than 60 million, accounting for 20% of all workers in China. Employing agency workers can reduce cost and increase efficiency and flexibility, but it poses great challenges for staff management. Historically, nonstandard workers such as agency workers have been employed in low-wage, low-impact positions (Kalleberg et al., 2000), but they are increasingly being used in highly paid, highly skilled, high-impact jobs (Davis-Blake, Broschak, & George, 2003). The question of how to motivate agency employees to work hard and to show a high level of commitment to the organization is of concern to managers and scholars, and is an issue worthy of further exploration.

We consider the style of transformational leadership to be a key factor in the motivation of agency workers. However, transformational leadership is, to a large extent, neglected in existing research of nonstandard employment groups, especially in regard to its influence on the organizational commitment of agency workers. The role of transformational leadership in increasing employees’ organizational commitment can be regarded as a motivational process (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993), because transformational leaders provide constructive feedback, encourage followers to exert extra effort and to think creatively about complex problems, and build commitment to the organization’s mission, objectives, and strategies (Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006; Yukl, 1989).

Our purpose in this study was to examine how transformational leadership influences the organizational commitment of agency workers, and we proposed an integrative model to explain the effects of transformational leaders on the organizational commitment of agency workers. The proposed model is rooted in social exchange and social information processing theories. This is the first study in which the mediating effect of perceived organizational justice and job characteristics on the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment is reported, and light is shed on effective ways to motivate agency workers.

Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

Transformational Leadership and Agency Workers’ Organizational Commitment

Organizational commitment is the relative strength of an individual’s identification with, and involvement in, a particular organization (Steers, 1977). There is considerable evidence that transformational leadership is positively associated with organizational commitment in a variety of organizational settings and cultures (Avolio, Zhu, Koh, & Bhatia, 2004; Bono & Judge, 2003). In particular, agency workers receive less pay from organizations and they have less positive work attitudes than do regular employees (Van Dyne & Ang, 1998). Transformational leaders are able to motivate agency workers to get more involved in their work, recognize the individual needs of each employee to achieve his or her potential (Avolio, Bass, & Jung, 1999), and emphasize the links between effort and goal achievement, resulting in higher levels of organizational commitment (Walumbwa & Lawler, 2003).

The Mediating Effect of Perceived Organizational Justice on the Relationship Between Transformational Leadership and Organizational Commitment

Justice and fairness are key concerns to almost all agency workers, who gauge whether or not the rewards they receive match their contributions to the organization or the rewards received by regular workers (Judge & Colquitt, 2004). Perceived workplace fairness is an organizational variable that may be related to a high level of organizational commitment (McFarlin & Sweeney, 1992), and Lemons and Jones (2001) proposed that perceived supervisor fairness leads to a high level of organizational commitment because a social exchange relationship develops between employees and supervisors. The core of social exchange theory is the principle of reciprocity (Blau, 1964), in which it is stated that if supervisors treat employees fairly, the employees will respond with actions that are conducive to the organizational goals, that is, using their positive working attitude and behavior as a social exchange (Konovsky & Pugh, 1994).

Many researchers have suggested that employees who work with transformational leaders feel more comfortable and empowered to perform the activities required for successful task accomplishment (Avolio et al., 1999; Walumbwa, Wang, Lawler, & Shi, 2004). Agency workers who are supervised by transformational leaders will have strong perceptions of being treated equally and, in return, will work harder and develop commitment towards their organizations. Empirical researchers have supported the link between transformational leadership and perceived organizational justice (Bass, 1999; Pillai, Schriesheim, & Williams, 1999), and in studies both in China and overseas scholars have found that perceived organizational justice can increase employees’ organizational commitment (Lowe & Vodanovich, 1995). This suggests that perceived organizational justice may mediate the effect of transformational leadership on the organizational commitment, and we hypothesize that this will be the case with regard to agency workers.
Hypothesis 1: Organizational justice will mediate the relationship between trans- formational leadership and agency workers’ organizational commitment.

The Mediating Role of Perceived Job Characteristics on the Relationship Between Transformational Leadership and Organizational Commitment

Perceived job characteristics reflect employees’ perceptions of the characteristics of their assigned working tasks (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Job characteristics theory is aimed at identifying conditions under which employees are intrinsically motivated to perform a job (Hackman & Oldham, 1976).

According to the social information processing theory, individuals adapt attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs to their social context and to the reality of their own past and present behavior and situation (Pollock, Whitbred, & Contractor, 2000). In this theory it is suggested that one can learn the most about an individual’s behavior by studying the informational and social environment within which that behavior occurs and to which it adapts (Pollock et al., 2000; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). The personal characteristics and behaviors of leaders are an important aspect of the working context, and can influence subordinates’ attitudes, behavior, and beliefs towards their jobs (Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). Transformational leadership can influence job perception, and Shamir et al. (1993) suggested that leaders who exhibit trans- formational behaviors can use verbal persuasion and clear communication of the value of the organization’s mission to influence how employees judge a work environment. Bono and Judge (2003) also point out that transformational leaders can, through their own actions, influence subordinates’ perception of their jobs. Agency workers have a low level of knowledge and skills and are less likely to experience job training compared with regular workers (Davis-Blake et al., 2003). If agency workers understand the importance of their work and realize the essential value of their tasks, they may view their jobs as more significant and develop positive working attitudes, which, in turn, will enhance their level of organizational commitment. This is supported by researchers who have found that employees who derive a greater sense of meaning from their work have higher levels of organizational commitment (Avolio et al., 2004; Kanter, 1983), and suggests that the perception of job characteristics can mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment of agency workers.
Hypothesis 2: Agency workers’ perceptions of job characteristics will play a mediating role in the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment.

Method

Participants were 357 randomly selected agency workers from a foreign enterprise mobile phone manufacturing plant in China. Of these, 300 (94 men, 206 women) provided valid responses for an effective response rate of 84%. Three quarters of participants were aged between 25 and 30 years. Their service tenure ranged from 0.5 to 6.5 years, and was between 1 and 3 years for 67% of participants. The education level of 79% of the agency workers was high school or senior vocational school.

Measures

Self-evaluation questionnaires were used to evaluate organizational commitment, transformational leadership, perceived organizational justice, and perceived job characteristics. All items were rated on a 7-point Likert scale, with responses ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Organizational commitment. A 25-item scale developed and established by Ling, Zhang, and Fang (2000) for use with Chinese employees was used to evaluate organizational commitment. The scale (Zhang, Fang, & Ling, 2001) is used to evaluate five dimensions of organizational commitment: affective commitment, normative commitment, ideal commitment, economic commitment, and choice commitment. We adopted this scale because it was developed and established as an instrument aimed at Chinese employees, and it has been proven to have good psychometric properties (Zhang et al., 2001). The Cronbach’s alpha reliability of this scale in the present study was .882.

Transformational leadership. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 1990) is widely used in transformational leadership research, to evaluate four factors that reflect transformational leadership: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Each factor is assessed with 10 items. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability of this scale in the present study was .923.

Organizational justice. The Justice Questionnaire (Colquitt, 2001) was used to evaluate organizational justice. It consists of 20 items to measure four dimensions of justice: distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice, and informational justice. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability of this scale in the present study was .933.

Job characteristics. The Work Design Questionnaire (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006) was used to evaluate job characteristics. It consists of 21 items to measure the five core work characteristics proposed by Hackman and Oldham (1976): variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient of this scale in the present study was .882.

Demographic statistics. Gender, age, and service tenure were also measured in this study. However, the Pearson’s correlation coefficient indicates that these variables are not significantly correlated to organizational commitment. Hence, these demographic statistics were excluded from the control variables in the model.

Data Analysis

Data were analyzed using SPSS version 18.0 and LISREL version 8.8 software. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to analyze the structures of the factors. The severity of bias caused by common methods variance (CMV) was evaluated using Harman’s one-factor test, as proposed by Podsakoff and Organ (1986), and by assessing the change in model fit after controlling for the effects of a single unmeasured latent method factor (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003).

Results

Descriptive Statistical Analysis

Table 1 presents the mean and standard deviation of the score, the internal consistency coefficient of each subscale of each measurement instrument, and the Pearson’s correlation coefficient between subscale scores.

Hypotheses Testing

There was good fit between the data and the theoretical model (Figure 1, χ² = 408.37, df = 147, confirmatory fit index [CFI] = .97, incremental fit index [IFI] = .97, normed fit index [NFI] = .96, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = .078). Figure 1 presents the structural equation modeling results for the theoretical model, which explained 57% of the variance in organizational commitment. In order to control the influences of CMV, we controlled the effects of a single unmeasured latent method factor and introduced an assumed common method factor into the theoretical model. The results of this modified model indicated that there was no change in any of the positively correlative path coefficients or significance levels, further illustrating that CMV does not confound the results of this research. Results of the Sobel test (Preacher & Hayes, 2004) indicated a significant mediating function of organizational justice (t ≥ 6.04; p < .001) and job characteristics (t ≥ 3.57; p < .001), supporting our research hypotheses.

The assumed four-factor model had a good fit (χ² = 392.19, df = 146, CFI = .97, IFI = .97, NFI = .96, RMSEA = .08), indicating good discriminant validity among the factors. The CFA fit indices of Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986) were poor (χ² = 2046.53, df = 152, CFI = .87, IFI = .87, NFI = .85, NNFI = .85, RMSEA = .21), indicating little CMV among the four variables. When a common method variation factor was added into the four-factor model, there was little change in the fit indices (χ² = 274.54, df = 127, CFI = .98, IFI = .98, NFI = .97, RMSEA = .06). Although χ² decreased significantly (Δχ² = 117.65, Δdf = 19, p < 0.001), the improvement in RMSEA, CFI, IFI, NFI, and NNFI was small (.01–.02), indicating little improvement in the model’s fit indices after the addition of one CMV factor. Together, these results indicate that there was no significant CMV.

Discussion

In this study we introduced and tested a model using social exchange theory and social information theory to explain the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment in agency workers. We reasoned that transformational leaders would manage reciprocity by transforming the aspirations, identities, needs, preferences, and values of their employees; would enhance the self-efficacy, confidence, and self-determination of their employees (Avolio et al., 2004); and would manage meaning by using language and imagery to frame the job experiences of their employees (Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978).

We believe that the mediating roles of organizational justice and job characteristics on the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment are important, because these variables are related to intrinsic motivation. Perceived organizational justice allows employees to experience the pleasure and satisfaction inherent in the work (Janssen, 2001), and enhanced perception of job characteristics increases intrinsic motivation by creating challenging, important, and autonomous jobs (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Piccolo and Colquitt (2006) pointed to the importance of intrinsic motivation, suggesting that individuals whose actions were powered by self- generating, internal rewards would be more effective employees. Our results support this assertion, as both organizational justice and job characteristics, which refer to intrinsic motivation, were significantly associated with the organizational commitment of agency workers.

Theoretical and Practical Contributions

The marriage of transformational leadership, organizational justice, and job characteristics in the proposed model opens up a new domain of potential mediators of the effects of transformational leadership on organizational commitment. Our findings indicate that intrinsic motivation may be one of the factors that drives the organizational commitment of agency workers, in addition to the leader-based mechanisms such as monitoring and psychological empowerment that have been explored in past research (Avolio et al., 2004; Pillai et al., 1999). Our focus on the perception of organizational justice and job characteristics complements the content of other research in which scholars are beginning to explore the processes by which organizations can motivate agency workers.

In most existing studies of organizational commitment researchers only consider standard workers (McDonald & Makin, 2000; Van Dyne & Ang, 1998), and the current study is the first in which the organizational commitment of agency (nonstandard) workers was examined. Cappelli (1999) argued that it was difficult for nonstandard employees to develop organizational commitment, yet our results indicate two mechanisms by which the organizational commitment of agency workers can be targeted, and which have practical implications for company development. First, transformational leadership is conducive to the development of agency workers’ organizational commitment, suggesting that transformational leadership development should become part of the selection criteria and training programs for the supervisors in companies that use a high number of agency workers. Second, the model proposed in this study can be used to guide the management style of supervisors who deal with a high number of agency workers. To enhance the organizational commitment of agency workers, supervisors should be sensitive to the workers’ perceptions of organizational justice, and enable them to understand the essential meaning and importance of their work.

Some employers in China have achieved better results than others in motivating nonstandard employees. For example, Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery Co., Ltd. (ZPMC) employs a large number of agency workers and not only provides these employees with good working and living conditions but also pays attention to the motivation of these employees by providing career development paths, honors and awards, extra allowances based on skill level, and organized clubs. This has enabled these agency workers to identify with the ZPMC mission statement, which is “where there is a port, there are port cranes produced by ZPMC.” This high level of organizational commitment has helped ZMPC to occupy three-quarters of the world port cranes market.

Limitations and Directions for Further Research

The study participants were agency employees from a single foreign-enterprise mobile phone manufacturing plant in China. Therefore, the extent to which these results can be generalized to other work settings or other types of organizations is not clear and should be examined in future research. In addition, our model was focused on organizational commitment, and future researchers may also consider work attitudes and work behaviors such as in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors to gain a deeper understanding of how to motivate agency workers.

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This work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Foundation of China (project numbers 70672003 and 71121001).

Lin Ma, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Shunde Building 327, Haidian, Beijing 100084, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]