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Reviewed by:
  • The Good Temp
  • David S. Pedulla
The Good Temp By Vicki Smith and Esther B. Neuwirth Cornell University Press. 2008. 248 pages. $29.95 cloth.

The rise of the temporary help service industry and its consequences for organizational dynamics, worker outcomes and labor market insecurity have been central [End Page 355] concerns for sociologists. We have learned much about temporary workers themselves — their demographic makeup, wage levels and access to employer-provided benefits. We also know the correlates of firms' utilization of alternative employment relations, including workers from temporary help agencies. However, we know much less about the ways in which the THS industry actively reinvented temporary work over the past five decades and how the industry's daily practices continue to perpetuate that new image and role. Smith and Neuwirth's The Good Temp addresses this gap in the literature and makes a valuable contribution to social scientific knowledge on contingent work and employment relations.

The core of the authors' analysis draws on the social constructivist perspective in sociology, thereby levying an important critique of much of the existing literature on the THS industry. Smith and Neuwirth refuse to accept temporary workers as ahistorical entities, an assumption that underlies much of the academic literature on temporary workers. Rather, the authors convincingly demonstrate the active creation of "the good temp" through years of effort by the THS industry. This perspective — that the meaning of temporary work and the role of temporary workers are constructed through historical and social processes — needs to be built into future analyses of the THS industry.

In addition to their important theoretical contributions, the authors also provide valuable empirical analyses. They employ a content analysis methodology to analyze the growth and development of the THS industry in the latter part of the 20th century. Drawing on 263 articles from personnel and business magazines between 1960 and 1990, the authors argue that the THS industry actively tried to shape the labor market for temporary workers. The THS industry demonstrated the ways that it was different from what it was in the past, articulated the "hidden" costs of permanent employees, provided templates for using temporary workers well, found the most capable temporary workers, and identified new occupations, industries and tasks where temps could be employed. The insights of Smith and Neuwirth's content analysis provide strong empirical support for the theoretical insight that "the good temp" is a historical and social construction of the THS industry.

While there are many important insights offered in The Good Temp, there are also some limitations in the analysis. Much of the book relies on data from 1,400 hours of participant observation conducted by Neuwirth at two temporary help agencies. While the authors describe the basic aspects of their fieldwork, the rich detail that ethnographic observation provides was missing throughout much of the text. The authors draw useful conclusions from their fieldwork, but the reader knows little about the context of the individuals and organizations that are being discussed. Given the limited number of organizations under investigation — as is necessary for in-depth qualitative research — additional texture and detail would help the reader evaluate the strength and validity of the book's claims. Additionally, their fieldwork was conducted in a tight labor market with high levels of labor market churning. While the authors briefly touch on this [End Page 356] issue, additional theorizing about how the historical moment of their research may impact their findings would have been useful.

Another potential critique of The Good Temp is its focus on the positive aspects of temporary help agency work. Smith and Neuwirth discuss how THS industry staff attempt to secure higher wages for temporary workers, ensure that workplaces are safe, and work to create job ladders for temps. It is not until the final chapter that the authors present evidence on the many negative aspects of temporary work. They clearly do not want to present temporary help agencies as purely benevolent actors. But, the structure of the book separates the criticisms of temp work levied by other researchers — low wages, lack of employer-provided benefits, and limited voice at work — from Smith and Neuwirth's central analysis. If the authors...

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