CONTRACTOR PERFORMANCE - HOW GOOD ARE CONTINGENT WORKERS AT THE PROFESSIONAL LEVEL

''Contractors,'' sometimes called ''job shoppers,'' are temporary work ers from an agency ''A'' who perform professional work at client site ''B'' under the direction of the client's employees. The authors surve yed 96 managers in six high-technology settings about their overall pe rceptions of contractor performance, finding that respondents perceive d it to rival that of comparable employees, Such perceptions of contra ctor performance were unaffected by the amount of time the contractor spent in the client workgroup, Also, perceived overall contractor perf ormance was unaffected both by aggregated client measures against coem ployment risk and by existence of a forced-departure rule.