Examining the effects of work externalization through the lens of social identity theory

This study examines whether dissimilarity among employees that is based on their work status (i.e., whether they are temporary or internal workers) in fluences their organization-based self-esteem, their trust in and attractio n toward their peers, and their altruism. A model that is based on social i dentity theory posits that work-status dissimilarity negatively influences each outcome variable and that the strength of this relationship varies dep ending on whether employees have temporary or internal status and the compo sition of their work groups. Results that are based on a survey of 326 empl oyees (189 internal and 137 temporary) from 34 work groups, belonging to 2 organizations, indicate that work-status dissimilarity has a systematic neg ative effect only on outcomes related to internal workers when they work in temporary-worker-dominated groups.