Limited Access: Disparities in Flexible Work Schedules and Work-at-home

This research tests predictions regarding potential disparities among the employed by personal characteristics in the ability to vary the starting and ending times of their workday and engage in work from home. Women and African-Americans possess less access to flexible work schedules, even when controlling for most job characteristics. Married men have more access, but only if they are parents, and mothers only if they have pre-school-age children. Workers with part-time or long hours gain far greater access. Work-at-home is more common among women, the married and parents-thus, relatively more reflective of family demands. The results suggest where public and organizational policies could be focused to spread flexible work arrangements more toward those who both most value it and lack it.     

The paradox of de-coupling: A study of flexible work program and workers’ productivity

Organizational de-coupling occurs when organizational adoption of programs is separated from ongoing activities. Neo-institutional theory asserts it is an effective coping strategy for modern organizations to deal with increasingly elaborated environments. In this paper, we investigate the consequences of organizational de-coupling from an inward-looking within organizational perspective. Specifically, we study how the de-coupling of flexible work program affects workers’ actualization of productivity. Our data analysis suggests that the organizational de-coupling, in which organizations only ceremonially adopt flexible work program without making it available to all workers, is detrimental to the actualization of productivity for workers who were bereft of the opportunity. In contrast, we find that the highest level of productivity actualization is associated with workers who enjoy a factual flexible work schedule which is nevertheless not formally adopted by the employer. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

EXPLORING THE PARADOX

This paper explores work-to-family conflict among 77 managerial fathers in Sweden by focusing on flexible working arrangements. Sweden provides a unique setting for the study of fathers’ work-to-family conflict as it has a 30-year-old social policy tradition of promoting gender equality in the workplace and in the home. Our results show that managerial fathers experience high levels of work-to-family conflict, despite high access to flexible working arrangements. Using a border theory perspective, hierarchical regression analysis shows the importance of gender egalitarianism in the family (taking responsibility for children and being in a dual earner family), as well as flexible working arrangements (satisfaction with job flexibility and access to flexleave) in explaining work-to-family conflict for managerial fathers. Organizational time demands (time pressure at work and average work hours) and use of flextime were less important. Our results imply that gender egalitarian managerial fathers with access to flexleave have a win–win situation. They experience less work-to-family conflict and set a good example for their employees.