Expanding the Boundaries of Work-Family Research

A Vision for the Future

S. Poelmans, J. Greenhaus, M. Las Heras Maestro, S. Poelmans, J. Greenhaus, M. Las Heras Maestro, Kenneth A. Loparo, Mireia Las Heras Maestro

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137005991
• eBook ISBN: 9781137006004
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Gestione delle risorse umane
• Index: Business

With contributions from thirty authors from fifteen countries, this is a 'white book' for international work-family research and practice. The authors offer a bold look at the future and provide guidelines for future research, focusing on applied, international work-family research.

Part I

Work–Life Policies and Flexible Work Arrangements in Organizations

1

Work–Life Policies: Linking National Contexts, Organizational Practice and People for Multi-level Change

Ellen Ernst Kossek

School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Michigan State University, USA and Krannert School of Management & Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence, Purdue University, USA

and

Ariane Ollier-Malaterre

Rouen Business School, France

Contact: Ellen Ernst Kossek, School of Human Resources & Labor Relations; Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1032: Email:[email protected]. We wish to thank Mirea las Heras, Steven Poelmans and Jeff Greenhaus for their support and extreme patience on this chapter. We wish to thank attendees of the work–family policies subgroups at the IESE work–family conferences for their passionate discussions and contributions of ideas to this paper.

Introduction

A growing area of societal concern across the globe pertains to family-responsive employment policies and practices that are designed to improve individuals’ ability to effectively carry out work and family demands over the career span (Kamerman, 2005a). Work–family policies and practices are adopted by employers and governments to help employees jointly manage work and non-work roles; enable successful participation in labour market activity, family and personal life; and enhance quality of life (Kossek, 2005, 2006). They are ostensibly designed to reduce work–family conflicts, and foster positive engagement in work, family and personal life over a career. These policies facilitate employees’ involvement in care-giving for children, elders, or other family members; and many non-work pursuits such as education, volunteering, leisure and self-care (health, exercise) (Ollier-Malaterre, 2009; Ryan & Kossek, 2008). Common policies include flexible work arrangements providing: control over the time, timing, continuity and amount of work; direct dependent care supports, such as child and elder care services and employee assistance plans; and information and social support for managing work–family stress and health, such as network groups and seminars (Kossek & Friede, 2006).

Despite the growth in work–family policies, more theoretical and empirical development is needed to enable improved in-depth research on their adoption and effectiveness across cultures. Most research today is generally descriptive, comparing the availability of policies (and to a lesser extent use) across nations. Sometimes, it is not clear if the same policies are designed similarly when being compared, as different cultures and stakeholder groups within cultures frame their intent differently.

To address this gap, the goal of our chapter is to help develop a future research agenda on work–family policies. Our chapter is motivated by a series of international work–family conferences held at IESE business school in Spain starting after the turn of the new millennium. The conference highlighted that many different conceptualizations of work– family policies exist across societies. Our objectives are to identify the wide variation in prevailing social constructions that continue to vary within and across cultural contexts, and discuss the measurement and theoretical implications of these conceptualizations for future research. We argue that scholars and policymakers should first identify work–family policy design elements and goals, and link these views to systematic measurement and theory. We see the need for improved theoretical applications of strategic intent, as policies are often conceived to address several goals simultaneously. This could be achieved through improved construct measurement, and multi-level analysis examining nested contextual relationships. Research should identify and measure not only formal objectives but also unexpected developments from policy availability and use, such as discrimination backlash, gender role rigidity, labour market barriers and successes.

Our chapter begins with (1) a brief discussion on the movement to study work–family policies under the work–life umbrella with examples of the breadth of issues across contexts and (2) delineation of some of the research challenges in cross-cultural policy work. Then we focus the bulk of our discussion on four main frameworks that have been used to understand the goals and design of work–family policies and future research implications. We conclude the chapter with examples of illustrative multi-level frameworks that would allow more cross-national measurement of issues and variables to be studied. We see multi-level work as critical for better assessment of the contextualization of the environment and nested relationships shaping work–family policies within and across nations.

From work–family to work–life across cultures

In the past few decades, the field has broadened to use the term work–life policies often interchangeably with work–family policies as a way to include all employees, even those without children or families in the work–family agenda (Kossek et al., 2011a). For example, Ollier-Malaterre (2009: 160) defines organizational work–life initiatives as formal policies and informal arrangements allowing employees to manage their roles, responsibilities, and interests in their life as whole persons, engaged in work and non-work domains. Non-work notably encompasses the family, the community, friendships, personal development and life-long training projects, political, associative, spiritual and sports activities, and leisure.

(Thévenet, 2001)

This conceptual expansion in the field from work–family to work–life policies has occurred partly to reduce political backlash and views of inequities from employees and members of society who did not necessarily have immediate needs for public or private support to reconcile work and family involvement (Kossek et al., 2011a). The movement to refer to work–life policies started in US multinationals as a way to mainstream work–family policies as a benefit. This trend began to transfer to overseas locations as the global economy heated up in the 1990s. Overall, societies and employers are evolving to increasingly recognize the importance of adapting employment settings to support not only women with salient work–family and domestic demands, but all employees’ personal lives outside work (Kossek et al., 2010; Lewis et al., 2007). The rising stress of 24–7 demands of the global economy is growing across many nations and workforces, popularized most recently by the suicides and negative publicity in China at Foxcom, an Apple iPad supplier (New York Times, 2012). Global interest in work–family policies broadens their conceptualization to include not only dependent care, but increasing work hours, intensification, workloads, and job and family strain.

While the type of issues defined as “work–family policies” is generally expanding, what is considered a “work–family” or “work–life” issue can vary greatly from country to country. For example, in India, a growing work– family policy is night transport for women from the workplace to home to ensure public safety (Rajan & Tomlinson, 2009). In Chile, some women prefer to work from or close to home as they do not want to be too far away from their children in case violence breaks out in their communities. Some Chilean mothers also are deterred from greater labour market participation because they choose not to use public-supported child care, as they don’t trust institutions such as the government to provide care of high quality (Lagos, 2009). In Scandinavia, work–family policies are more normalized as part of national cultural values, and therefore not considered as hot a topic as in other some developed countries such as the US. Since both men and women are assumed to spend time working and caring for dependants, use of work–life policies is culturally mainstreamed into the organization of work and society as a whole (Linden, 2007). In Greece, immigration laws that make it easy for immigrant caregivers to cross borders have created a global caregiving chain. It is not uncommon for women from Georgia to immigrate to Greece to provide eldercare or women from the Philippines to provide childcare and house cleaning (Apospori, 2009). In the US, growing numbers of professionals telework around the clock from home and must learn how to re-socialize their families to recognize when it would be acceptable to interrupt them (Kossek & Lautsch, 2008). Their constant physical presence while working creates ongoing confusion over their psychological availability for family needs. Also in the US, work–family policies can relate to increasing schedule predictability for low income retail workers who are often single mothers moving from welfare to work, and have difficulty arranging childcare and commutes for last minute schedules (Henly & Lambert, 2009). These examples illustrate the wide range and uniqueness of work–family policy issues across cultures that are not being fully captured in current research.

Research challenges

Despite growing interest in work–family policies, many challenges remain that must be addressed to advance future study. Because this topic is so broad, this chapter is not meant to be an exhaustive review, but rather to identify some illustrative challenges and future research areas.

Work–family policy context and framing

The first challenge is that although the social construction of work–family policies and the context in which they are embedded matters for the measurement and understanding of work–family policies, context and framing are often overlooked in studies. A key challenge is that common conceptualizations, definitions and measures do not readily exist, making it difficult to assess the impact of policies within and across organizational and national contexts. We also lack comprehensive frameworks to allow for measurement of the relative influence of the state and employers in work–family policy-adoption and implementation. In some countries, such as the US, the government provides relatively little support and engages in minimal regulation of employers on work–family issues. Yet in Scandinavia and France, for example, the government offers far more policies than do employers, and it actively protects workers’ rights to have paid time off from work for family needs. Few studies consider these contextual influences on employees’ work–family experiences, and use of policies.

Need for better measures and theory

Unintended discriminatory consequences from using policies. Additional challenges are that rather than reducing work force discrimination, increasing work force inclusion, and enhancing the reconciliation of work and personal life, work–family policies can sometimes have unintended and even negative consequences that often are not fully assessed. For example, work–family policies can foster work intensification and reinforce images of ideal workers who do not need to use work–family policies. In some countries, with developed economies and very generous work–family policies, women are the heaviest users. At the same time, few women have risen to be leaders and heads of corporations. Many leave the labour market for long periods and never catch up with wages, and some never return full time, if at all (Esping-Andersen, 1990).

Yet many scholars take a rational view, assuming that using policies necessarily leads to positive results pertaining to their stated purpose. This utilitarian approach of taking policies’ goals at face value can be naïve. The societal level of discrimination emanating from policy use varies across nations. Further, different demographic user groups, depending on their status in the labour market and in organizational and economic hierarchies, may also experience varying levels of discrimination or ability to access policies. These are examples of the need for improved measures in assessing design intent and impact.

Theoretical conceptualization of work–family policies. We also lack conceptual frameworks to classify different types of supports being offered, which also exacerbates cross-national study of work–family policies and practices. Offering direct support, such as childcare, that increases the supply of quality childcare is a very different type of assistance from offering flexibility in work hours, yet few studies have considered the differential effects of different types of policies (Kossek, 2005, 2006). Researchers also still conceptually confound the mere availability of policies with their use in studies, which are clearly different (Kossek, 2005). Both use and availability are valuable antecedents of work–family well-being, but must be studied separately as they may lead to different outcomes. Who has access to work–family support in a society is a vastly different question from who can and is likely to use these types of support with positive outcomes?

Differentiating work–family policy, job design and cultural support. Research should also differentiate between formal policies such as a telework policy (access or use of formal policy permitting employees to work from home) to job design (the extent to which a job is designed with a lot of autonomy to control where, when and how one works) and culture (a supervisor or results-oriented organizational climate that informally allows an employee to work at home when they need to without asking permission). These are examples of research issues that are not being fully captured in studies, but could be if formal policy, job structures work–family practice and cultural support were simultaneously examined in cross-national studies. One avenue to address these issues is to examine the different conceptual frameworks underlying work–family policies’ design and goals, and then consider their measurement implications for processes and outcomes.

Shifting conceptualizations in context: measurement linkages

Definitions, social constructions and objectives of organizational work– family policies have shifted in meaning over time and across cultural contexts. Scholars need to more carefully identify objectives for the adoption and use of work–family policies, and clarify how the contexts in which the studies are being conducted are defining work–family policies. Many meanings and objectives are prevalent and overlap across and within organizational and societal cultural contexts. In this section, we identify four prevailing conceptualizations of work–family policies and consider future research implications including measurement needs. These include: (1) Multi-level cultural and structural support for work, family and personal life; (2) Gender equality and diversity inclusion initiatives; (3) State social policy or business initiative; and (4) Organizational change initiatives to foster employee health, resiliency and engagement.

Multi-level cultural and structural support for work, family and personal life

Multi-level cultu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Foreword
• Foreword
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• Part I: Work–Life Policies and Flexible Work Arrangements in Organizations
• Part II: Work–Life Culture and Practices in Organizations
• Part III: Personal and Professional Careers and Talent Management
• Part IV: Decision Making in a Work–Life Context
• Part V: Coping and Strategies for Harmonizing Work and Life
• Part VI: Work–Life Facilitation and Enrichment
• Part VII: Special Section
• Index