Arne L. Kalleberg

Arne L. Kalleberg, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will study flexible staffing arrangements - such as temporary, part-time, and contract work - looking at the quality of such jobs, employers' motivations for creating them, and workers' reasons for taking them. Employers may use flexible staffing to cut costs or to cope with labor shortages. If they aim to cut costs, job quality is likely to be low. On the other hand, if they face a labor shortage, they will have to make flexible jobs more appealing. Kalleberg will use a broad definition of job quality, looking at pay, fringe benefits, and working conditions, which in turn influence job satisfaction, loyalty to the employer, and absenteeism. Kalleberg will draw upon national survey data as well as a set of qualitative case studies from a Russell Sage sponsored project on flexible staffing in health care, public schools, and manufacturing