| As the nature of work is changing, so too are the forms of employment relationship being engaged to complete this work. More traditional forms of employment have been heavily researched (e.g., Williamson, 1975, 1985) and, due to their origin in other basic relational forms that humans encounter throughout their lives (Fiske, 1992), fairly well understood by those in them. However, alternative employment forms are becoming more popular, with a long-term repeat contracting relationship taking hold as a viable employment option (Army Research Institute, 1999; Goldberg, 1980). I argue that the success of these partner of choice relationships is due to their ability to better support employees' basic psychological needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy (Deci and Ryan, 1985b, 1991; Ryan, 1993) which in turn would lead to greater organizational identification and its associated positive outcomes (Dutton et al., 1994; Mael & Ashforth, 1992, Tyler, Degoey, & Smith; 1996). However, because the partner of choice relationship does not fit neatly into most individual's cognitive constructs of employment relationships, it is often confused and therefore mismanaged, leading to sub-optimal needs support. Two laboratory studies were completed to examine these conjectures. Participants taking on the role of employer or employee from the perspective of a spot contracting, traditional hierarchical, or partner of choice employment form completed a multi-issue negotiation. Employees in these relationships then completed instruments assessing their needs satisfaction and organizational identification with the employing organization. Partner of choice relationships were highly successful in leading to employees reporting high levels of need satisfaction with the current employment relationship. Further, the employee's perspective seems to be the driver of behavior. In cases when these employment relationships do result in psychological need satisfaction, employees are more likely to identify with the employing organization regardless of whether or not they are fully employed by it. The results suggest that companies can take advantage of the benefits of the partner of choice employment form, such as lower fixed costs associated with labor, without giving up the benefits of organizational identification that are often assumed exclusively under the umbrella of secure, full-time employment. |
