The transition to part-time: How professionals negotiate 'reduced time and workload' i-deals and craft their jobs

For professionals working in demanding environments, the negotiation of part-time or workload reduction idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) may be challenging, with negative consequences for career progression. Yet there are few studies of part-time i-deals specifically, or empirical studies of their development process. This article examines the process of achieving a part-time i-deal, drawing on interviews with 39 part-time professionals in two organizations, each located in the UK and the Netherlands. The article makes two contributions to i-deal theory: first, it defines the four elements of a new category of ‘reduced time and workload’ i-deal for professionals (perceived suitability of the work, schedule, workload, and career impact); and second, it refines Rousseau’s model of the development process, by adding an initial ‘private consideration’ of options stage, where the feasibility of working part-time is evaluated against alternatives including remaining full-time, or leaving the organization. Third, it identifies as structural constraints two work practices designed for full-time professional work in demanding environments: the routine expectation of unpredictability, and the absence of substitutability in resourcing. Fourth, it shows how, post-negotiation, professionals use informal job crafting, both individual and collaborative, to try to overcome these constraints. The implications for achieving flexible and sustainable careers are discussed

Influences on employers’ provision of part-time working: an evidence review

Part-time working accounts for one in five jobs across Europe, and one in four in the UK. However, part-time working from the employer perspective has been under-researched. The employer perspective is important because currently, part-time jobs are often poor quality jobs, and because some full-time workers would prefer to work part-time but feel that the option is not open to them. Better quality part-time jobs across a broader range of types of work could improve labour market participation, social inclusion and progression for certain disadvantaged demographics, which in turn will maximise skills and productivity. Part-time working is defined in relation to a full-time norm, but part-time jobs are not uniform: part-time working may be designed to meet employer needs or workers’ work-life needs; it may be high-quality or low-quality; and it may vary from one day a week to almost full-time. Influences on employers’ provision of part-time working may operate at the national, sectoral, occupational or organisational level. Within organisations, provision may vary depending on the nature of the work and the attitudes of line managers and co-workers. National legislation and cultural expectations provide the context within which employers make their decisions about the provision of part-time working: the prevalence of part-time working across Europe varies from 48% in the Netherlands to less than 10% in many eastern European nations. This context may affect employers in several ways. First, it may affect employer policy – not just the legal rights of part-time workers, but the cultural expectations about ‘the right thing to do’ for demographic groups such as parents and carers. Secondly, it may influence line managers’ views on how to implement employer policy; and thirdly it may affect workers’ preferred working hours, which in turn affect employers’ provision of part-time working. Sectoral and occupational context also influence employer decisions about the provision of part-time working: there is wide variation across sectors and occupations, with much higher prevalence in service sectors and in low-paid, female-dominated occupations in the UK. However, there is insufficient evidence to assess how the nature of the work, the people doing the work, the skills and gender balance in the sector, and the economic position of each sector or occupation contribute to the variable provision of part-time working. At the organisational level, employers, and line managers, must balance the costs of part-time working against the need to attract and retain workers. There are quasi-fixed costs such as recruitment and training, which rise with the number of employees, rather than hours worked, and costs associated with the adaptation of working practices for part-time employees, such as team communication and the coordination of work. There are two principal advantages for employers: using part-time working to match supply and demand for labour during extended operating hours and peak periods, and, where organisational success depends upon the knowledge and talents of the workforce (human capital), using part-time working to attract and retain workers. The perceived productivity of part-time working is also part of the calculation. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a major impact on employer attitudes to flexible working, particularly homeworking. At the same time, the flexible furlough scheme has provided a natural experiment in part-time working. Although the use of short-time working schemes during economic downturns is well established in other developed economies, their impact on longer-term part-time working has received little research attention, possibly because part-time working is often considered from the perspective of workers’ reasons for working part-time, while short-time working schemes are largely involuntary for workers. The redesign of work to facilitate ‘part-furlough, part-working’ may have provided opportunities for managerial and organisational learning: the next stage of this project is to research any changes in employers’ perspectives on the feasibility of part-time working in different types of work.This research is funded by the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), as part of UK Research & Innovation’s rapid response to Covid-19

Exploring cultural influences on employee interpretations of universal values messages in multinational organisations : a business discourse approach

This thesis focuses on an increasingly popular, but little studied organisational communication practice, the deployment of corporate values messages as a means of ‘framing’ reality, and of achieving ‘shared meaning’ in multicultural workplaces, and asks if such practices, based on ethnocentric approaches to business communication, are likely to be effective in culturally diverse contexts. Using a business discourse perspective, and approaching culture as dynamic systems of meaning, the study presents a rich case of values communication in a European multinational, by exploring in detail the meanings employees derive from the organisational values messages, and the relationship between these meanings and the cultural context in which they are constructed. Findings point to two main conclusions: Firstly, that universal values messages do generate multiple employee meanings, but these do not derive from distinct cultural memberships, such as ethnicity or nationality, but rather from the complex interaction between message texts, organisational cultural frames and discourses and cultural identities constructed during interpretation by message users. This finding offers support for a non-essentialist approach to culture in intercultural business communication research, which locates culture not in distinct external influences on communicative action, but in a complex and holistic ‘interculturality’ - the process and outcomes of interacting dynamic cultures, cultural texts, and the communicative action itself.Secondly, findings show that, if the message texts trigger shared cultural frames, shared meanings will also emerge, despite apparent cultural diversity among message readers. This finding challenges the view of much current intercultural and cross-cultural communication scholarship, that the cultural diversity of business audiences is likely to render universal communication practices in multinational businesses ineffective. Instead, it suggests that explicit universal values texts in multinational organisations may indeed contribute to the generation of shared meaning, although this will be mediated by existing, implicit, cultural ‘texts’.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

An examination of the influences on reward mix determination : oberservations from the UK financial services industry

During 2007-2010 significant dislocation occurred in the financial services sector with governments having to come to the aid of a large number of financial institutions. Throughout this crisis much political, media and practitioner interest was given to reward structures within the industry and, in particular, the proportion, or mix, of different rewards provided in overall compensation. This thesis examines influences on the determination of reward mix in the UK financial services sector. Three theoretical perspectives are examined – agency, institutional and resource dependency – as potential explanations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with reward executives from 30 financial services firms, alongside perspectives garnered from ten reward consultants. These interviews identify the strength of institutional pressures on firms to conform to an agreed reward mix norm, largely driven by historical reward patterns and reinforced by strong employee expectations that they will receive this norm. However, firms are still seen to exercise strategic choice, influenced by the extent to which they have the desire and capability to resist institutional pressures. The research also identifies which firms are likely to differentiate their reward mix from that established in the sector. The findings provide a contribution to an under-researched area in a key sector of the economy. They present both an important account of the pressures facing reward mix determination in the financial services sector at this time, and a theoretically informed approach to understanding those pressures through the presentation of a unified theory of reward mix determination.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Enforced remote working and the work-life interface during lockdown

Purpose This paper aims to consider enforced working from home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how it may differ from working from home through choice. In particular, the authors discuss how lockdown may be affecting work-family arrangements. Design/methodology/approach This is a thought piece. Findings The paper briefly examines the extant research on remote working. It is argued that as many of the (beneficial) outcomes found for both employees and employers are associated with feelings of greater autonomy and gratitude on the part of employees for being able to exercise choice over their working arrangements, these outcomes may not be found where working from home is required of employees. The authors contend that women, and mothers in particular, have had little choice in relation to when work has taken place, and how much work has been done. Practical implications The authors urge employers to consider the positive and negative outcomes of emerging evidence as they review their flexible working policies. They call for a widespread review of childcare provision in supporting women and men in the labour market. Originality/value The authors explore this unexpected context of the pandemic and highlight the need for research which examines these different circumstances

Trade union, managerial and employee perceptions of organisational participation and democracy at work

This synoptic paper accompanies refereed articles, chapters in books and books published between 1977 and 2001 by the author on the theme of trade union, managerial, and employee perceptions of organisational participation and democracy at work and is submitted for a PhD by Publication. It shows how these eleven publications represent a "substantial, continuous and coherentb ody of work" on the theme and demonstratesh ow they, both individually and collectively, have made an original contribution to knowledge in this specific field. The author distinguishes between direct participation and indirect or representative forms of organisational participation and claims to have made a contribution to both. During the period spanned by these twelve publications, perceptions of trade unions, management and employees about organisational participation and democracy at work have undergone great changes. In the 1970s, trade union perceptions of organisational participation and democracy at work led the TUC among others to campaign for worker directors as a form of industrial democracy to influence boardroom decisions outside the scope of collective bargaining. The Labour government of the day supported the TUC initiative with the Committee of Inquiry on Industrial Democracy chaired by Lord Bullock. The author contributed to the national debate on worker directors with the publication of his book on the British Steel Worker Directors. He also researched direct forms of employee participation such as job enrichment, job enlargement, and autonomous working groups internationally, arguing for their incorporation in industry. When the Conservative Party came to power, the worker director avenue to indirect employee participation at boardroom level was effectively blocked. The author then turned his research attention to management-led forms of direct employee participation, namely Quality Circles and Total Quality Management with their forms of employee empowerment. His publications also foster participation for leavers and survivors in corporate downsizing.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Fit for Self-Employment? An extended person-environment fit approach to understand the work-life interface of self-employed workers

The recent growth in self-employment has sparked scholarly interest in why individuals choose and remain in self-employment. Yet, relatively little is known about how self-employed workers enact their daily lives and what this means for their work–life interface. Self-employment is often presented as a means to enhance life choice and as enabling work and nonwork activities to be combined more satisfactorily. However, extant evidence on how self-employment is experienced is mixed, with some studies reporting long and irregular working hours and high levels of stress. Furthermore, the way in which self-employment is experienced may be influenced by national context – economic, institutional and cultural factors. In this paper, we develop a multi-level model which extends existing work on the Person–Environment Fit by incorporating factors relevant to self-employment. The model assists us to understand how contextual factors create both opportunities and tensions which impact the work–life interface of self-employed workers

Reflecting the changing world of work? A critique of existing survey measures and a proposal for capturing new ways of working

In recent decades we have seen significant and varied changes in the world of work. Most prominent among these is the diminishing prevalence of the standard employment relationship. These changes challenge traditional notions of what constitute ‘employment’, ‘employers’, ‘employees’, the ‘workplace’ and the ‘working day’. Many current survey instruments are still based on the concept of the standard employment relationship, however. This article illustrates some limitations of existing conceptualisations and definitions of flexible work arrangements and of the instruments used to measure them in major surveys. It also suggests ways of tackling these limitations. The aim of highlighting potential limitations of existing survey instruments is to enable data users to be more reflective about what the results actually do and do not report, and to encourage survey designers to modify existing instruments and develop new instruments to better capture contemporary realities, including multiple jobholding and internet and platform work

Strain, loss of time, or even gain? A systematic review of technology-based work extending and its ambiguous impact on wellbeing, considering its frequency and duration

Especially in knowledge-intensive professions, workers engage in work-related communication and access digital work content outside of working hours. Scientific research on technology-based work extending has flourished in recent decades, but yielded inconclusive results about its relationship with workers' wellbeing and focused on different temporal characteristics of the behavior. Consequently, in this article, we address the question of whether different temporal characteristics of technology-based work extending, such as the frequency and duration of the behaviour, may have different consequences for workers’ wellbeing. In the course of a systematic literature review, we analysed 78 empirical studies published between 2007 and 2021 that investigate the relationship between the self-rated frequency and the self-rated duration of work extending behaviours and 14 wellbeing indicators. Whereas most studies examined the frequency of work extending behaviours and its consequences, only 19 studies examinded the effects of its duration. Based on our findings, we propose three effects: The strain effect of frequent work extending, the gain effect of sustained work extending, and the loss-of-private-time effect inherent to work extending and independent from its frequency and duration. Our findings not only provide in-depth information on a widespread contemporary behaviour and its psychological implications, we also reveal research gaps and shed light on behaviours associated with role transitions and thus contribute to boundary theory