Project info
Work package
- Work
Sustainability threat
- Spillovers
Challenge
- Reconfiguring-roles-and-relationships
- Reshaping organizational forms
Study info
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Description of Study
This paper studies how organizational leaders’ early private-sector leadership experiences impact adopting a contested organizational practice, temporary employment, in public organizations. We employed unique organization/year-level register panel data on the executive careers of the directors of Dutch public organizations and the prevalence of temporary employment in organizations they lead. Fixed-effect regression analyses of 29,031 organization/year observations between 2006 and 2019 show greater use of temporary employment in public organizations when directors have early private-sector executive experience. We found a similar impact of leaders’ imprinted experiences in “fully” public and “hybrid” organizations that combine public and private sector elements. We discuss implications and suggestions for future studies on organizational leaders’ role in contested practice adoption in the public sector.
Study research question
How did the use of temporary employment practices emerge and spread in the public sector, despite the practice being contested in this institutional environment?
Collection provenance
- External data
Collection methods
- Archival
Personal data
Yes
External Source
Source description
The micro datasets we use are composed of i) tax records, ii) company registers of the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce (KVK), iii) population administration.
File formats
- SPSS
- Stata
Data types
- Structured
Languages
- Dutch
Coverage start
Coverage end
01/01/2006
31/12/2019
Spatial coverage
The Netherlands
Collection period start
—
Collection period end
—
Variables
Unit
Unit description
Sample size
Sampling method
Individuals
Employees, and citizens of municipalities.
No sample size
Register data from CBS
Organizations
Organizations in the public sector
No sample size
Register data from CBS
Hypothesis
Theory
A higher proportion of directors in a public organization’s board who had their early executive experience in the private sector leads to a higher proportion of temporary employment contracts.
Diffusion of contested practices, sector switching, imprinting, institutional entrepreneurs
Organizational hybridity moderates the relationship between the proportion of directors in a public organization’s board who had their early executive experience in the private sector and the proportion of temporary employment contracts.
Diffusion of contested practices, sector switching, imprinting, institutional entrepreneurs
Variable type
Variable name
Variable description
Dependent variable
Proportion of employees with a temporary contract
From 2006 onwards, SSB microdata registers the type of employment contract (fixed-term, permanent), and the start and end dates of these jobs, of all Dutch employees. We calculate the proportion of temporary contracts per organization. In addition, we calculate the proportion of temporary employment contract that convert into a permanent contract vs. jobs that did not change or were dissolved.
Dependent variable
Hybrid organization
We created a dummy (0 = fully public, 1 = hybrid) indicating a hybrid organization. We identified public and hybrid organizations through a detailed, 53-category sector code that combines organizational activity (e.g., government, financial institutions, education) and ownership of the firm (public, private, foreign) (see Statistics Netherlands definitions in Chi, 2016).
Independent variable
Director first managerial experience
Using information from the KvK (Chamber of Commerce), for every public director, we created a dummy indicating whether the first managing job they had was in a private organization (0 = no, 1 = yes). Aggregating this information to the organizational level, we created a variable measuring the proportion of directors in the board who had their first managing job in the private sector each year.
Control variable
Relative amount of women in the board
We created a dummy indicating the director’s gender (0 = male, 1 = female) and calculated the proportion of female directors per year per public organization.
Control variable
Maximum tenure on the board
We calculated the number of years each public director worked at their current organization. The variable reflects the number of years of the board member with the longest organizational tenure on the board.
Control variable
Board size
We counted the number of directors per public organization
Control variable
Organization size
We defined organization size as the number of employees.
Control variable
Organizational events
We created dummies (0 = no, 1 = yes) for four organizational events: (1) birth of an organization, meaning that the organization first appeared that year; (2) death/collapse/combination birth and death of an organization, meaning that the observed year is the last time this organization appeared in the records (0 = no, 1 = yes); (3) the organization splits, merges with another organization, or is taken over by another organization; (4) the organization restructures.
Discipline-specific operationalizations
Conflict of interest
Data packages
n.a.
Data package DOI
—
Description
A dataset on the organizational level, containing Dutch public organization. Per public organization, the dataset contains information on: director composition, employee contracts, organizational characteristics
Accessibility
Restricted Access
Repository
CBS RA environment
User license
Retention period
Publications
Imprinting and contested practices: The impact of public directors’ private-sector experience on temporary employment in Dutch public organizations
Wiersma, S., Lippényi, Z., & Wittek, R. Imprinting and Contested Practices. The Impact of Public Directors’ Private‐Sector Experience on Temporary Employment in Dutch Public Organizations. Public Administration Review.
Documents
Filename
Description
Date
Ethics
Ethical assessment
No
Ethical committee