WORK AND FAMILY IN THE
NEW ECONOMY
RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY
OF WORK
Series Editor: Lisa Keister
Recent Volumes:
Volume 3:
Unemployment
Volume 4:
High Tech Work
Volume 5:
The Meaning of Work
Volume 6:
The Globalization of Work
Volume 7:
Work and Family
Volume 8:
Deviance in the Workplace
Volume 9:
Marginal Employment
Volume 10:
Transformation of Work
Volume 11:
Labor Revitalization: Global Perspectives and New Initiatives
Volume 12:
The Sociology of Job Training
Volume 13:
Globalism/Localism at Work
Volume 14:
Diversity in the Workforce
Volume 15:
Entrepreneurship
Volume 16:
Worker Participation: Current Research and Future Trends
Volume 17:
Work Place Temporalities
Volume 18:
Economic Sociology of Work
Volume 19:
Work and Organizations in China after Thirty Years of Transition
Volume 20:
Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace
Volume 21:
Institutions and Entrepreneurship
Volume 22:
Part 1: Comparing European Workers Part A: Experiences and Inequalities
Part 2: Comparing European Workers Part B: Policies and Institutions
Volume 23:
Religion, Work, and Inequality
Volume 24:
Networks, Work and Inequality
Volume 25:
Adolescent Experiences and Adult Work Outcomes: Connections and Causes
RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF WORK VOLUME 26
WORK AND FAMILY IN
THE NEW ECONOMY
EDITED BY
SAMANTHA K. AMMONS
University of Nebraska-Omaha
ERIN L. KELLY
University of Minnesota
United Kingdom North America Japan
India Malaysia China
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CONTENTS
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
vii
INTRODUCTION: WORK AND FAMILY IN THE
NEW ECONOMY
xi
ITALIAN PARENTS IN PRECARIOUS WORK:
HOW NORMATIVE BELIEFS AFFECT SOCIAL
UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE WORKFAMILY
BOUNDARY
Anna Carreri
1
THE SECOND SHIFT AND THE NONSTANDARD
SHIFT: HOW WORKING NONSTANDARD HOURS
AFFECTS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR AND WIVES’
FAIRNESS PERCEPTIONS
Katie James and Jody Clay-Warner
35
TECHNOLOGY USE AND THE NEW ECONOMY:
WORK EXTENSION, NETWORK CONNECTIVITY,
AND EMPLOYEE DISTRESS AND PRODUCTIVITY
Noelle Chesley and Britta E. Johnson
61
WHAT WOULD JESUS HAUL?: HOME, WORK, AND
THE POLITICS OF MASCULINITY AMONG
CHRISTIAN LONG-HAUL TRUCK DRIVERS
Rebecca L. Upton
101
POLICING WORK AND FAMILY: HOW WORKERS
COPE WITH CONTRADICTIONS AND DILEMMAS OF
IMPLEMENTING WELFARE-TO-WORK
Tiffany Taylor
127
v
vi
CONTENTS
WHEN WORK BECOMES FAMILY: THE CASE OF
LOW-WAGE CAREGIVERS
Naomi Gerstel and Dan Clawson
IS WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT A MULTILEVEL
STRESSOR LINKING JOB CONDITIONS TO MENTAL
HEALTH? EVIDENCE FROM THE WORK, FAMILY
AND HEALTH NETWORK
Phyllis Moen, Anne Kaduk, Ellen Ernst Kossek,
Leslie Hammer, Orfeu M. Buxton, Emily O’Donnell,
David Almeida, Kimberly Fox, Eric Tranby, J. Michael
Oakes and Lynne Casper
THE RELATIONSHIP OF WORK UNIT PRESSURE TO
SATISFACTION WITH WORKFAMILY BALANCE:
A NEW TWIST ON NEGATIVE SPILLOVER?
Jacquelyn Boone James, Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes,
Tay K. McNamara, David L. Snow and
Patricia L. Johnson
GIVING CARE AND PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION:
THE SOCIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT OF
FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES DISCRIMINATION
Lindsey Trimble O’Connor, Julie A. Kmec and
Elizabeth C. Harris
POLICY OR EMPOWERMENT? POLICY
ENVIRONMENTS, POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT,
AND WORKFAMILY CONFLICT
Leah Ruppanner
DISCUSSING WORK-LIFE FIT: FACTORS THAT
PREDICT MANAGERIAL PROMOTION OF FLEXIBLE
WORK ARRANGEMENTS
Stephen Sweet, Jacquelyn Boone James and
Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes
IMPLEMENTING INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE:
FLEXIBLE WORK AND TEAM PROCESSES IN A
WHITE COLLAR ORGANIZATION
Kelly Chermack, Erin L. Kelly, Phyllis Moen and
Samantha K. Ammons
151
177
219
249
277
301
331
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
David Almeida
Pennsylvania State University, University
Park, PA, USA
Samantha K. Ammons
Department of Sociology & Anthropology,
University of Nebraska at Omaha,
Omaha, NE, USA
Orfeu M. Buxton
Department of Biobehavioral Health,
Pennsylvania State University, University
Park, PA, USA; Division of Sleep
Medicine, Harvard Medical School,
Boston, MA, USA; Department of
Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital,
Boston, MA, USA; Department of Social
and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School
of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
Anna Carreri
Department of Sociology and Social
Research, University of Trento,
Trento, Italy
Lynne Casper
Department of Sociology, University of
Southern California, Los Angeles,
CA, USA
Kelly Chermack
Walden University, Minneapolis,
MN, USA
Noelle Chesley
Department of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee,
WI, USA
Dan Clawson
Department of Sociology, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
Jody Clay-Warner
Department of Sociology, University of
Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
vii
viii
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Kimberly Fox
Department of Sociology, Bridgewater
State University, Bridgewater, MA, USA
Naomi Gerstel
Department of Sociology, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
Leslie Hammer
Department of Psychology, Portland State
University, Portland, OR, USA
Elizabeth C. Harris
Department of Sociology, Washington
State University, Pullman, WA, USA
Jacquelyn Boone James Sloan Center on Aging & Work,
Boston College, Chestnut Hill,
MA, USA
Katie James
Department of Sociology, University of
Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
Britta E. Johnson
Department of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI,
USA
Anne Kaduk
Department of Sociology, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Erin L. Kelly
Department of Sociology, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Julie A. Kmec
Department of Sociology, Washington
State University, Pullman, WA, USA
Ellen Ernst Kossek
Krannert School of Management, Purdue
University West Lafayette, IN, USA
Tay K. McNamara
Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston
College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Phyllis Moen
Department of Sociology, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
J. Michael Oakes
Division of Epidemiology & Community
Health, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, MN, USA
ix
List of Contributors
Lindsey Trimble
O’Connor
Sociology & Anthropology Program,
California State University Channel
Islands, Camarillo, CA, USA
Emily O’Donnell
Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard
University, Boston, MA, USA
Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston
College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Leah Ruppanner
University of Melbourne, Melbourne,
Australia
David L. Snow
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University
School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
Stephen Sweet
Department of Sociology, Ithaca College,
Ithaca, NY, USA
Tiffany Taylor
Department of Sociology, Kent State
University, Kent, OH, USA
Eric Tranby
Department of Sociology and Criminal
Justice, University of Delaware, Newark,
DE, USA
Rebecca L. Upton
Department of Sociology & Anthropology,
DePauw University, Greencastle, IN, USA
INTRODUCTION: WORK AND FAMILY
IN THE NEW ECONOMY
ABSTRACT
This volume of Research in the Sociology of Work brings together
chapters that address the intersection of work and family in the new
economy. In our introductory chapter, we provide a short overview of
some characteristics associated with the current era, briefly introduce the
other chapters in the volume, and explain the major themes that connect
them. The chapters are diverse ranging from how precarious employment influences the boundaries workers create between work and family,
to how social environments present within work teams, organizations, or
nations shape the workfamily intersection, and workplace interventions
that aim to create more flexibility in when, where, and how work is done.
Collectively, these chapters reflect some of the breadth present in the
growing workfamily field. We conclude with our parting thoughts about
the current state of workfamily scholarship.
Volume 26 of Research in the sociology of work: Work and family in the new
economy provides a multi-faceted examination of how paid work intersects
with family and personal life today. The 12 diverse and compelling chapters
cluster around four themes: (1) how changing work conditions affect
families and employees’ health and well-being, (2) how work is understood
and experienced by workers in specific occupations or social locations,
(3) what we can learn by moving the analysis from individuals and couples
to the social environment, including how teams, organizations, and public
policies affect the workfamily interface, and (4) analyses of new interventions that intend to ameliorate workfamily conflict by changing public
policy, workplace practices, or communities.
xi
xii
INTRODUCTION
The common thread binding all the chapters together is the backdrop of
the new economy, which we characterize as having rising income inequality,
the continued rise of nonstandard work, further erosion of unions, technological advancements that encourage permeable boundaries between work
and home, and the pressures of a global 24/7 economy. In this era, some
workers have more stability than others and some workers put in long hours
at work but have some control over when, where, and how they work. But
many workers are poorly compensated and struggle with underemployment;
have little say over their schedules; lack adequate benefits; and must cobble
together several jobs and/or rely heavily on kinship networks to make ends
meet (Jacobs & Gerson, 2004). The new economy generates an aura of insecurity for all (Hollister, 2011; Kalleberg, 2011; McCall & Percheski, 2010).
When we submitted our call for papers, we formulated a “dream list” of
possible submissions that would help address what we saw as deficiencies
or limitations in our interdisciplinary field of study. We hoped we would
receive nuanced analyses that were sensitive to class variation in work conditions and to diverse family formations (such as the studies by Bianchi,
2011; Schieman & Glavin, 2011; Shows & Gerstel, 2009), and research that
addresses how current work conditions are experienced in different life
course stages and in different policy contexts. To a large extent, we
succeeded. After profiling the merits of each chapter, we discuss what is
missing from the volume and conclude with our parting thoughts about the
current state of workfamily scholarship.
PROGRESSION OF CHAPTERS
The volume begins with chapters that address the work conditions,
arrangements, and technology that are a vital part of the new economy.
The first two chapters discuss what happens to family lives when work
schedules regularly deviate from 8am to 5pm or when there is no implicit
or explicit understanding of long-term employment. Although many workers would prefer to have stable employment with fairly standard hours,
contingent and nonstandard work schedules are likely to continue due to
the demands of a 24/7 economy (McMenamin, 2007; United States
Department of Labor, 2005). We have also seen a growth in the use of
information and communication technology (such as mobile phones and
email) for work and personal needs. The chapter by Chesley and Johnson
investigates how technology use effects workers’ sense of distress and
productivity.
Introduction
xiii
In the chapter “Italian Parents in Precarious Work: How Normative
Beliefs Affect Social Understandings of the WorkFamily Boundary,”
Carreri explains how families with chronic job insecurity view their work
and care responsibilities and craft workfamily boundaries. Using interview data gathered from Italian parents working in contingent and temporary jobs, Carreri challenges separate spheres ideology and vividly illustrates
that work and family were intertwined in respondent’s narratives, but in
unexpectedly gendered terms. Carreri’s respondents were not able to invest
in any one particular job long enough to feel a sense of belonging or
achievement, which affected how they viewed and enacted their family
roles. While fathers gained fulfillment through increased time with their
children, these mothers thought unfulfilling work impeded their ability to
be “good mothers.” In support of workfamily enrichment theory, feeling
accomplished outside the home made them feel like better mothers to their
children. This chapter is also a valuable addition to the small but growing
scholarship on workfamily boundaries. Not only does this chapter contextually ground boundary work processes within normative gender and
cultural frameworks and institutional structures, but it provides a rare
glimpse into how boundaries are understood and negotiated by couples.
Carreri’s chapter also offers readers an insightful gendered analysis of
precarious work and its potential for constraining or freeing workers.
In the chapter “The Second Shift and the Nonstandard Shift: How
Working Nonstandard Hours Affects the Relationship between the
Division of Household Labor and Wives’ Fairness Perceptions,” James and
Clay-Warner discuss how the timing of employment affects wives perceptions of fairness in the household division of labor. The authors use data
from the National Survey of Families and Households, and compare married women who work primarily nonstandard hours to those with more
standard schedules. Although wives reported spending close to four times
the amount of time on housework as their husbands, they find that only a
third thought their arrangement was unfair. Surprisingly, wives with standard hours were more likely to have an unfavorable view of chore imbalance than those with nonstandard hours. James and Clay-Warner make
sense of this finding by considering who was doing routine “feminine”
chores (such as preparing meals, washing dishes, and cleaning house). As
the authors explain, wives with nonstandard hours thought their husbands
participated in these types of chores to a greater extent than other husbands,
and this mitigated their perceptions of unfairness. This chapter enriches our
understanding of the interplay between work conditions, the gendered
division of household labor, and couples’ relationships including the
economy of gratitude (Hochschild, 1989) in a new economy.
xiv
INTRODUCTION
As Chesley and Johnson discuss in their chapter “Technology Use and
the New Economy: Work Extension, Network Connectivity, and Employee
Distress and Productivity,” we do not have a good sense of how technology
is being used or by whom, nor its perceived effects on workers. This chapter examines the prevalence of email, instant messaging, texting, cell
phones, and use of social networking sites while at work, and assess
whether these forms of technology are linked to self-reported distress and
work productivity. The authors provide a useful descriptive analysis of
who uses each form of technology, by individual, job, and organizational
characteristics, and find that technology influences us in unexpected ways.
Using nationally representative data collected in 2008, they find that the
overwhelming majority of Americans use at least one form of information
and communication technology (ICT) while at work. Most ICT users did
not think that using these forms of technology had changed their overall
work time, but half reported that they thought it expanded the number of
people they communicated with and a sizable number did think that it
affected their productivity and perceived distress. By offering new insights
how technology shapes our lives, for better and for worse, Chesley and
Johnson’s chapter is invaluable to employers, scholars, and practitioners
who seek to foster thriving workplaces.
Having set the stage with changing employment relations, technological
tools, and family arrangements, the next three chapters describe how
new economy conditions are experienced differently across groups. The
chapters by Upton; Taylor; Gerstel and Clawson, respectively, address the
workfamily interface differs by occupation, and how gender influences
and structures work experiences. The chapter by Gerstel and Clawson
delves even further by investigating how gender, race, and class intersect
and produce unique viewpoints and experiences among those in the similar
fields.
The chapter “What Would Jesus Haul?: Home, Work, and the Politics
of Masculinity among Christian Long-Haul Truck Drivers” by Upton
contributes to two small but growing areas of workfamily literature
research on fatherhood and masculinity construction (see Kimmel, 1996;
Townsend, 2002; Williams, 2010) and studies of religious beliefs and
practices affecting work and family decisions (see Ammons & Edgell, 2007;
Aune, 2010; Wilcox, 2004). Using ethnographic data, Upton explores how
religious beliefs shape what it means to be a good father, good husband,
and good worker among Christian long-haul truck drivers. These men
tempered and infused the rugged blue-collar masculinity associated with
driving big rigs for days on end with provider and protector roles. One of
Introduction
xv
the main contributions of this chapter is Upton’s vivid portrayal of how
these truckers sought to come across as “average joes,” but also used their
truck décor, behavior at truck stops, and clothing to redefine public images
of Christian masculinity and truckers.
Likewise, the chapter “Policing Work and Family: How Workers Cope
with Contradictions and Dilemmas of Implementing Welfare-to-Work” by
Taylor addresses how workers construct identities as a good worker and a
good person, but it focuses on job demands rather than personal beliefs.
Taylor discusses the strategies that welfare-to-work caseworkers employ to
find meaning in their work and cope with the requirements of the job.
Building on Hochschild’s “emotion labor” (1979, 1983), Taylor shows how
these women justified sanctioning their clients (who were often mothers)
and coaxed them to take the jobs commonly offered to those living at
the economic margins of society dead end jobs which are low in wages,
status, and schedule control. The caseworkers framed these pressures as
“helping” their clients and drew upon working class notions of femininity
and motherhood that differ notably from middle class expectations of
intensive mothering. In particular, Taylor demonstrates how caseworkers
argue that good mothers were self-reliant, sacrificed their pride, and took
care of their children by economically providing for them.
In the chapter “When Work Becomes Family: The Case of Low-Wage
Caregivers,” Gerstel and Clawson study certified nurse assistants (CNAs)
and demonstrate that how these jobs operate as an escape from their family
caregiving responsibilities. In a nuanced version of Hochschild’s (1997)
reversal model, they show us why recent scholars have failed to find support
for one of the workfamily strategies that Hochschild identified: we have
simply not been looking in the right place. The authors briefly compare the
feminized field of CNAs, which includes many women of color, to three
other health-related occupations (doctors, nurses, and emergency medical
technicians). Their analysis of gender, class, race, scheduling practices, and
organizational context suggests that CNAs are especially prone to view
work as an escape from home. This chapter demonstrates why we need
detailed studies of occupations and comparative occupational analyses. As
Gerstel and Clawson show, by attending to both the specifics of certain jobs
and how the workers in different jobs occupy different social locations, we
come away with a fuller understanding of the workfamily intersection.
Moen, Kaduk, and their colleagues; James, Pitt-Catsouphes, McNamara,
Snow, and Johnson; Trimble O’Connor, Kmec, and Harris; Ruppanner
continue to examine how work and family are intertwined, but they emphasize the way these experiences differ across work teams, organizations, or
xvi
INTRODUCTION
nations. Collectively, these four chapters offer a greater understanding of
how our social environments alter how we interpret the workfamily intersection. In other words, they make the classic sociological move of looking
at individuals embedded in a given social environment to argue that it is
important to go beyond the individual level of analysis in order to understand individuals’ experiences.
The chapter “Is Work-Family Conflict a Multilevel Stressor Linking Job
Conditions to Mental Health? Evidence from the Work, Family and
Health Network” by Moen, Kaduk, and their colleagues looks inside a
work organization to investigate how particular work conditions affect
the workfamily conflict and mental health (including job satisfaction,
emotional exhaustion, perceived stress, and psychological distress) of
employees who report to the same manager and work together as a team.
Moen, Kaduk, and their colleagues use clustered data from over 700 hightech professionals to demonstrate that work conditions affect workfamily
conflict and mental health, as other research in sociology and health psychology has shown, and that these work conditions are shared appraisals
that vary across work teams. Work-to-family conflict, they find, varies systematically across teams as does job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion
or “burnout.” This multi-level analysis considers how work conditions at
the team level affect individuals’ mental health, net of the individual’s personal appraisals of their work situation and their own family status, gender,
etc. For example, when there is a more supportive climate reported in a
team, individuals report lower work-to-family conflict. Additionally, this
chapter investigates work-to-family conflict as one mechanism through
which work conditions affect mental health, suggesting that policies and
initiatives that address the workfamily interface will promote employees’
mental health as well.
In the chapter “The Relationship of Work Unit Pressure to Satisfaction
with WorkFamily Balance: A New Twist on Negative Spillover?,” James,
Pitt-Catsouphes, McNamara, Snow, and Johnson investigate what leads
employees of a large health care organization, who were mostly women, to
have greater or lesser satisfaction with their workfamily balance. In addition to studying factors such as hours worked, caregiving demands, pace of
work, and schedule control, James et al. include an unusual variable in
their study: budgetary pressures present within the work unit. With over a
quarter of work units under-budget and half over-budget, they speculated
that these environments might create different types of pressure on employees, which in turn influence how satisfied individuals are with their
workfamily balance. As expected, those with caregiving responsibilities,
long work hours, and a hectic work pace had lower satisfaction, but being
Introduction
xvii
in an under-budget work unit also predicted lower levels of satisfaction.
James et al. then investigated whether schedule control moderated these
effects and found that high levels of schedule control tempered the negative
relationship between caregiving responsibilities and satisfaction, and
between being under-budget and satisfaction. One of the main contributions of this study is that it pushes scholars to think in innovative ways
about how workfamily resources, demands (including pressures to meet
the budget that workers now feel directly), and workplace context intersect
to shape perceptions.
In the chapter “Giving Care and Perceiving Discrimination: The Social
and Organizational Context of Family Responsibilities Discrimination,”
Trimble O’Connor, Kmec, and Harris investigate who reports encountering
workplace discrimination because of their caregiving responsibilities
(“family responsibilities discrimination”). They use data from the 2008
National Survey of the Changing Workforce and assess how caregiving
responsibilities and organizational contexts influence these perceptions.
While only eight percent of respondents thought they had encountered
family responsibilities discrimination, the authors speculate that the
actual number may be much higher if it was assessed in a different way.
Nevertheless, perceived family responsibilities discrimination was more prevalent in some contexts. For example, individuals juggling both childcare
and eldercare, those with less schedule control, or respondents who did not
think their supervisors supported their personal or family needs had higher
levels of perceived discrimination. This study provides an important look
at a new framing of workfamily challenges as discrimination and points
to new questions about how employees and others respond to claims of
discrimination.
In the chapter “Policy or Empowerment? Policy Environments, Political
Empowerment, and WorkFamily Conflict,” Ruppanner examines how
structural conditions at the country level shape work-to-family and familyto-work conflict. This chapter builds on the long tradition of comparative
social policy scholarship, including key work investigating how public policies affect women’s employment and attainment. But Ruppanner’s work is
part of a newer stream of research that investigates cross-national variation
in other relevant outcomes such as employers’ workfamily policies (Den
Dulk, Groeneveld, Ollier-Malaterre, & Valcour, 2013) and the subjective
experience of the workfamily interface (see Lyness, Gornick, Stone, &
Grotto, 2012; Ruppanner & Bostean, 2014). Using data from 29 nations,
Ruppanner assesses how the percentage of female parliamentarians, the
average number of children aged 36 enrolled in public childcare, and
presence of affirmative action programs in each country (collectively,
xviii
INTRODUCTION
termed “gender and family-responsive environments”) shaped how much
workfamily conflict was experienced by individuals, and whether the
amount of conflict varies by parental status and gender. Ruppanner finds
that levels of workfamily conflict vary across nations, and within: mothers
have higher levels of conflict than others. However, the expansiveness of
public childcare enrollment and percentage of female parliamentarians in
nations matters: high levels were associated with lower conflict, but not
always in uniform ways across men, women, mothers, and fathers.
Ruppanner’s chapter illustrates why we must pay attention to cultural
context and social structures if we want to understand how individuals
experience workfamily.
The last two chapters turn to workplace interventions to address
work-life concerns. They reflect a growing interest in organizational
changes as opposed to individual and family coping strategies that
might facilitate the reconciliation of paid work and nonwork responsibilities. While “family-friendly policies” and benefits have long been studied,
they have also been critiqued as limited in both their reach and their
impact (e.g., Correll, Kelly, O’Connor, & Williams, 2014; Deitch &
Huffman, 2001; Kelly & Moen, 2007). The studies included here investigate
more innovative approaches to changing workplaces, highlighting initiatives that deliberately aim to make working flexibly more common and
accepted.
In the chapter “Discussing Work-Life Fit: Factors that Predict
Managerial Promotion of Flexible Work Arrangements,” Sweet, James,
and Pitt-Catsouphes examine the Supervisor-Promoted Flexibility (SPF)
program implemented in a large financial organization. The authors note
that many have called for expanded access to flexible work arrangements
(FWA) but there have been few studies examining which managers allow
these arrangements and even less research on initiatives to encourage
managers to support and promote FWA (but see Hammer, Kossek, Anger,
Bodner, & Zimmerman, 2011). Using longitudinal data, Sweet and colleagues analyze how many conversations managers have about potential use
of FWA, whether they initiate those conversations (or employees do), and
the approval rate once FWA are discussed. The authors find that the multifaceted SPF program increased access to FWA and conveyed the message
that supervisors should actively facilitate FWA. Managers who participated in SPF training, those who had previous experience with employees
using FWA, those with more subordinates, and those who believed
supporting flexibility would affect their performance reviews positively
engaged in more conversations about FWA. Participating in SPF training
also significantly increased the likelihood that managers initiated FWA
Introduction
xix
conversations. The study also includes a creative experiment, in which half
of the managers received a personalized report comparing their early “performance” in FWA discussions with their peers; this too encouraged managers to actively pursue FWA conversations. Sweet and colleagues also
provide new evidence that the gender of managers is not associated with
FWA conversations in this sample and that older managers are initially
as likely and then become more likely than younger managers to discuss
FWA options with their subordinates. This study provides exciting avenues
for future research on the social dynamics of FWA negotiations as well
as concrete ideas for workplace interventions that aim to normalize and
encourage workplace flexibility.
The final chapter in the volume is written by Chermack, Kelly, Moen,
and Ammons. This chapter investigates how workplace initiatives that aim
to create more flexibility in when, where, and how work is done are implemented in practice. Like the Sweet et al.’s chapter, this chapter begins by
summarizing the limitations of flexible work policies as they are often
implemented today. Then, using qualitative data from four work teams at
Best Buy Co., Inc.’s corporate headquarters, Chermack and colleagues analyze how Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) changed the practices,
processes, and expectations in some teams while only prompting minimal
changes in others. ROWE attempted to challenge institutionalized expectations regarding who decides when, where, and how work is done and
coordinated. Chermack and colleagues claim that deliberate institutional
work is required to make that happen and they describe, in a grounded
way from ethnographic observations and interviews, how that occurs or
is stymied in different teams. One key argument is that managers with
more task-specific knowledge, such as those who rose from the ranks to
now manage work they had previously performed, feel more confident evaluating the “results” of their subordinates’ work and so these managers find
it easier to cede control and welcome the team’s self-management of work
processes, as ROWE suggests they do. This chapter provides insights into
more participatory approaches to redesigning work practices and norms in
ways that support family and personal life but also describes the challenges
of making meaningful changes.
DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
While we are pleased with the content of this edited volume and each chapter pushes our knowledge of work and family forward, some gaps remain.