Globalization and increased competition led organizations to employ various measures to

keep up with the changing landscape of work. Companies use various strategies to ensure

increased profitability by reducing cost, capacitating employees, and redefining or restructuring

employment arrangements (Franco, 2014). One way by which organizations do these is by

employing contract workers or temporary workers under a triangular or tripartite employment

set-up (McKeown, 2003, Coyle-Shapiro, Morrow and Kessler, 2006). These workers, although

employed by one organization, work on site at another organization (client) and are exposed to

the systems and processes of the client organization (Houseman, 2001). This tripartite

employment set-up is common among information technology (IT) workers.

IT workers are considered to be a “special class” of employees (Neiderman & Ferratt,

2006, p. 108) since organizations require immediate access to their specialized knowledge and

skills not usually internally present. As stipulated by Ang and Slaughter (2000), the critical skills

of these professional workers continue to evolve. These workers have the need to upgrade their

skills continuously so as to keep up with the fast-changing environment of their profession (Lee,

2000). IT workers are expected to be knowledgeable in handling hardware and software

technologies. In this study, IT workers are type of workers who are engaged in information

technology work which requires multiple skills (i.e design and develop computer-based systems)

with base knowledge in coding.