Staying Ahead in the New Employment Context

The rise of alternative work arrangements in the United States is consistent with a growing phenomenon happening in Europe and elsewhere: the conventional full-time employment model is giving way to emerging forms of temporary, nonstandard or contingent work. How can companies make sense of it all? The author proposes a new taxonomy for understanding employment in the new economy. His classification is predicated on who maintains directive control, which is conditioned by the presence or absence of a third party as well as the nature of the contractual relationship itself. Executives may find this framework useful for managing employment relationships in an evolving context.