Flexibility through HRM in management consulting firms

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how functional and numerical flexibility can be successfully combined without workforce segmentation or flexible employment contracts, by implementing a highly integrated human resource management (HRM) system. Design/methodology/approach – Six case studies were conducted between January 2002 and June 2003 in Portuguese affiliates of multinational management consulting firms using a grounded theory approach. Findings – Evidence from the case studies showed that some of these companies were able to explore both functional and numerical flexibility in a combined and interdependent way, by operating a tightly run and highly coordinated set of HRM practices geared towards the development of internal labour markets. Research limitations/implications – The study uses a sample of large multinational companies in a single sector, which limits the scope of these findings. Practical implications – It is suggested that a strategy combining numerical and functional flexibility through an integrated set of HRM policies and practices will be more effective than segmenting the workforce or choosing between those two sources of flexibility. Originality/value – The paper presents a new breadth for the role of HRM in achieving flexibility. Theoretically, it challenges the established notion that commitment-based HRM serves only functional flexibility and that numerical flexibility can only be achieved through precarious employment. Keywords Human resource management, Skills flexibility, Numerical flexibility, Management consultancy, Case studies Paper type Research pape

MANNA FROM HEAVEN: THE EXUBERANCE OF FOOD AS A TOPIC FOR RESEARCH IN MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION

Organizations have, in the past, often been discussed as if they were Cartesian mentalities, planning agendas, learning from doing, processing information, reducing equivocality, mimicking and copying, floating disembodiedly apart from the actors who work in these organizations. We are offered representations of organizations as organically grounded metaphors that minimize the biological facticity of employees: namely, their need for food. While the inputs to organizations conceived as if they were quasi-systems are well explored, and the emotional and ‘irrational’ side of organizations is increasingly explored, the necessity of inputs to the biological systems that staff them is not. Nonetheless, despite the lack of explicit scholarly attention to food at work, its importance guarantees its hidden presence in the organizational literature, often in the context of more “serious” themes. We identify four approaches to the relationship between food, work and organization. For dessert, we propose a research menu that aims to uncover several possibilities for making the role of food in organizational life more explicit.

Gender and diversity in the workplace : Introduction to the special issue

Research on gender and diversity has taken longer than usual to develop in Portuguese academia. Different explanations can be provided for the apparent lack of interest in these matters. Comparative cultural studies have depicted Portuguese culture as scoring high on femininity (Hofstede, 1991). «Femininity pertains to societies in which social gender roles overlap» (p. 82) and it may have an influence on people’s attitudes towards ‘the other’ and the role of men and women in the organisation, and in shaping the individual’s behaviour and attitudes towards equality and diversity. On the other hand, Portuguese society likes to portray itself as a homogenous society (Cabral-Cardoso, 2002). Taken together, these factors may partly explain why gender and diversity issues have failed to make it to the top of research agendas in Portuguese academia. The limited number of papers included in this special issue and focusing on the Portuguese context still reflects that state of affairs

From “This Job Is Killing me” to “I Live in the life I Love and I Love the Life I Live”, or from Stakhanov to Contemporary Workaholics

F. W. Taylor is often celebrated as a founding father of organization and management theory, one whose commitment to efficiency is legendary. If we define efficiency in terms of maximizing output from a given – or lesser – number of workers it can be considered that, in some cases, Taylor’s science has achieved a remarkable success. Contemporary organizations managed to create such a state of commitment (be it spontaneous or imposed), that people have adopted excessive working as lifestyle. Life is organized around work, with work occupying more and more territory from the former private life. We discuss the notion of excessive working, present several forms of excessive working, contest the idea that excessive working is necessarily noxious, suggest a dynamic understanding of the different forms of excessive working, and challenge researchers critically to discuss their practical success. As the saying goes, there can be too much of a good thing.

Looking for complication: The case of management education

This paper argues that in face of the changes occurring in the organizational world, management education should consider the need to rethink some of its premises and adapt to the new times. The need to complicate management learning due to increased complication in competitive landscapes, is analyzed. Four possibilities of addressing organizational topics in a complicated way are contrasted: the vertical, horizontal, hypertextual, and dialectical approaches. The promises of the dialectical approach are particularly stressed as a more demanding and potentially enriching path for the creation of knowledge about organizations. The test of the four approaches in a group of undergraduate students provides some preliminary data for analyzing the strenghts and weaknesses of our proposal.

Career and work-family relationship among academics : An exploratory study

Despite the increase, in recent years, of women’s participation in the labour market, sex discrimination remains a reality in most work organisations. In this matter, academic organisations are no exception. Evidence of sex inequalities is well documented in the literature. At the individual level, inequalities are partly explained by family responsibilities mainly held by women. Having to spend a considerable amount of time in home and children related activities women are left with less time available for scientific work than their male colleagues. With the purpose of understanding how academics experience the relationship between work and family, 32 in-depth interviews were conducted among Portuguese academics of both sexes in one particular university. The findings confirmed that work-family conflict is stronger among female faculty than among their male counterparts. Additionally, the prejudice against maternity and the way it is compatible with a successful career appears to survive the new gender relations. Difficulties felt by female academics could be minimised by the introduction of «family-friendly» policies and the development of a positive organisational climate towards maternity and family issues.Nas últimas décadas tem-se assistido à crescente participação das mulheres no mercado de trabalho. Apesar disso, a discriminação sexual permanece uma realidade em muitas organizações. Neste sentido, a organização académica não constitui excepção e as evidências de desigualdades entre os sexos estão bem documentadas na literatura. Ao nível individual, uma das explicações para essas desigualdades relaciona-se com as maiores responsabilidades familiares das mulheres, o que teria consequências negativas em termos da disponibilidade de tempo para dedicar à investigação. Neste sentido, foram realizadas 32 entrevistas em profundidade com académicos de ambos os sexos, numa universidade pública portuguesa, com o objectivo de analisar a forma como a relação trabalho e família era vivida por homens e mulheres. Os resultados confirmam que o conflito trabalho-família é mais evidenciado pelas mulheres académicas do que pelos homens. A acrescentar a isto, as mensagens «subtis» transmitidas pela universidade de que a opção pela maternidade é difícil de compatibilizar com uma carreira académica de sucesso, e a prevalência de uma cultura organizacional que ignora as questões familiares e as remete exclusivamente para a esfera individual, deixam prever as maiores dificuldades enfrentadas pelas mulheres na prossecução de uma carreira académica. Coloca-se, assim, a ênfase na necessidade de alterar a cultura organizacional existente o que só poderá ser conseguido pela introdução de medidas concretas de apoio à relação trabalho-famíli

Looking for Complication: the Case of Management Education

This paper argues that in face of the changes occurring in the organizational world, management education should consider the need to rethink some of its premises and adapt to the new times. The need to “complicate” management learning due to increased complication in competitive landscapes, is analyzed. Four possibilities of addressing organizational topics in a complicated way are contrasted: the vertical, horizontal, hypertextual, and dialectical approaches. The promises of the dialectical approach are particularly stressed as a more demanding and potentially enriching path for the creation of knowledge about organizations. The test of the four approaches in a group of undergraduate students provides some preliminary data for analyzing the strenghts and weaknesses of our proposal.N/

From "This Job is Killing Me" to " I Live the Life I Love and I Love the Life I Live", or from Stakhanov to Contemporary Workaholics

F. W. Taylor is often celebrated as a founding father of organization and management theory, one whose commitment to efficiency is legendary. If we define efficiency in terms of maximizing output from a given – or lesser – number of workers it can be considered that, in some cases, Taylor’s science has achieved a remarkable success. Contemporary organizations managed to create such a state of commitment (be it spontaneous or imposed), that people have adopted excessive working as lifestyle. Life is organized around work, with work occupying more and more territory from the former private life. We discuss the notion of excessive working, present several forms of excessive working, contest the idea that excessive working is necessarily noxious, suggest a dynamic understanding of the different forms of excessive working, and challenge researchers critically to discuss their practical success. As the saying goes, there can be too much of a good thing.N/

O fim do "emprego para a vida" e o novo paradigma da gestão proteana das carreiras

Num contexto de rápida mudança que tem afetado decisivamente as modalidades de trabalho nos últimos anos, é percetível a volatilidade das carreiras profissionais. Se, por um lado, até há 20 anos atrás a máxima do “emprego para a vida” se adequava, é certo que, hoje em dia, a rotatividade entre postos de trabalho e a flexibilidade exigida aos indivíduos desmobiliza a assunção sedentária desta lógica e substitui-a por uma gestão de carreira profissional auto-direcionada, relevando a proatividade dos trabalhadores. Contudo, as recentes exigências do mercado despoletaram uma conflitualidade latente entre a tradicional gestão de carreira professada pelas organizações e os propósitos dos colaboradores que, movidos pela necessidade de abraçarem novos desafios, quer pelo ponto de vista pessoal quer do ponto de vista profissional e desenvolvimental, assumiram as rédeas dos seus trajetos profissionais e enveredaram por uma gestão Proteana da sua carreira. Como tal, e com o intuito de alcançar uma compreensão mais aprofundada acerca da forma como os indivíduos representam e se posicionam perante a viabilidade de agenciarem os seus projetos profissionais, é propósito desta comunicação explorar os traços significantes desta tendência crescente tendo como ponto de partida a análise da literatura mais relevante no domínio da gestão das carreiras, assim como resultados preliminares de uma investigação de traçado metodológico qualitativo que está a ser desenvolvida com esse fim. </jats:p

Emprego para jovens cientistas no sector empresarial : Expectativas e realidade

A formação avançada de recursos humanos tem vindo a ser objecto de um elevado investimento, com base no pressuposto de que estes recursos desempenham um papel crucial no desenvolvimento tecnológico. No entanto, os jovens pós-graduados têm vindo a deparar-se com dificuldades crescentes no mercado de trabalho académico, dificuldades essas que não estão a ser compensadas com o aparecimento de novas oportunidades no mercado de trabalho empresarial. Tal sugere a existência de alguma desadequação entre a oferta e a procura, ou seja, entre as competências dos indivíduos e as pretendidas por um mercado de trabalho em mutação. Este artigo aborda esse problema, examinando a questão do emprego de jovens cientistas no sector empresarial em Portugal. A investigação foi conduzida tendo em consideração quer o ponto de vista das empresas, quer o dos jovens cientistas e centrou-se nas seguintes questões: a) no caso das empresas que empregam mestres e doutorados, que tipo de competências são procuradas, como são geridos este tipo de recursos e que tipo de obstáculos se deparam à sua integração e utilização plena; b) no caso das empresas que não empregam, mas que poderiam beneficiar destes recursos, quais os motivos para a sua relutância; c) no caso dos jovens cientistas, qual a sua atitude em relação a uma carreira no sector empresarial e em que condições estariam dispostos a segui-la. A investigação permitiu detectar alguns desajustamentos entre os objectivos e expectativas das empresas e dos cientistas, bem como identificar alguns factores de relutância em ambos os grupos. Estes resultados permitiram- nos avançar algumas sugestões no sentido de promover o emprego de jovens cientistas no sector empresarial.Industrialised countries have strongly invested in the advanced training of human resources under the assumption that they have a critical role in technological development. However, these resources are meeting with increasing difficulties in the academic labour market, which are not being compensated by the emergence of opportunities in the business labour market, suggesting some mismatch between supply and demand, i.e. between the competences possessed by the individuals and those sought by a changing market. The paper addresses this problem, looking at the (under)employment of young scientists in the business sector in Portugal. Research was conducted examining this issue from the standpoint of both firms and individual scientists and focusing on the following questions: a) in the case of firms that employ masters or doctors, which type of competencies they look for, how they manage this type of resources and what type of obstacles they see to their integration and use; b) in the case of firms that do not employ, but might benefit from these resources, which are the motives for their reluctance; c) in the case of young scientists, which are their attitudes regarding a career in the business sector and in which conditions they would be willing to pursue it. The research led to the uncovering of some mismatches between the objectives and expectations of firms and scientists, as well as to the identification of reluctance factors in both groups. This enabled us to offer some suggestions for ways of promoting the employment of young scientists in the business sector