Between cooperation and competition - external workers in knowledge-intensive employment fields

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Birgit Apitzsch; Professorin Dr. Caroline Ruiner; Professorin Dr. Maximiliane Wilkesmann, since 6/2020
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 384705290

Over the past two decades, the German labor market has witnessed an increase in temporary agency workers and solo self-employed workers who can be described as external workers. Particularly in knowledge-intensive employment fields such as IT services and medicine, external workers are employed at the core of organizations and work directly with the organization's permanent employees. In most cases of an integration of external workers into core organizational processes, however, members of working groups differ in terms of their working conditions, the modes of their negotiation, and the representation of interests.The planned project addresses the impact of (highly) skilled external employees on the cooperation within the organizational core and on labor relations beyond the organization. Specifically, we are interested in exploring the extent to which differences or similarities between external employees such as solo self-employed workers, temporary agency workers and permanent employees at the strategic level can be observed. Moreover, the tension between cooperation or competition among these different groups on knowledge transfer processes will be investigated.With the help of a mixed-method design, we aim to gain insights into the possibilities of conflict and cooperation by investigating similarities and differences between external workers and permanent employees, in particular with regard to knowledge transfer processes and organizational strategies of enhancing or limiting knowledge exchange. The empirical investigation includes (1) expert interviews at the organization's strategic level and with representatives of worker's interest representation, (2) participant observations (including interviews), and (3) problem-centered interviews with employees of different employment status. The qualitative results will be (4) generalized with the help of quantitative surveys, by analyzing perceived patterns of cooperation between solo self-employed workers, temporary workers and permanent employees.The investigation of competition, cooperation, and group formation processes in flexible labor markets as well as their prerequisites is not only relevant for organizational research (in particular employment strategies, boundary spanning processes and organizational justice) but also highly relevant for research in the context of the sociology of work and organizations as well as for the research on (the transformation of) industrial relations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemalige Antragstellerin: Professorin Dr. Nicole Burzan, from 11/2018 until 6/2020