Search results

Work-life flexibility policies (e.g., flextime, telework, part-time, right-to-disconnect, and leaves) are increasingly important to employers as productivity and well-being strategies. However, policies have not lived up to their potential. In this chapter, the authors argue for increased research attention to implementation and work-life intersectionality considerations influencing effectiveness. Drawing on a typology that conceptualizes flexibility policies as offering employees control across five dimensions of the work role boundary (temporal, spatial, size, permeability, and continuity), the authors develop a model identifying the multilevel moderators and mechanisms of boundary control shaping relationships between using flexibility and work and home performance. Next, the authors review this model with an intersectional lens. The authors direct scholars’ attention to growing workforce diversity and increased variation in flexibility policy experiences, particularly for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality, which is defined as having multiple intersecting identities (e.g., gender, caregiving, and race), that are stigmatized, and link to having less access to and/or benefits from societal resources to support managing the work-life interface in a social context. Such an intersectional focus would address the important need to shift work-life and flexibility research from variable to person-centered approaches. The authors identify six research considerations on work-life intersectionality in order to illuminate how traditionally assumed work-life relationships need to be revisited to address growing variation in: access, needs, and preferences for work-life flexibility; work and nonwork experiences; and benefits from using flexibility policies. The authors hope that this chapter will spur a conversation on how the work-life interface and flexibility policy processes and outcomes may increasingly differ for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality compared to those with lower work-life intersectionality in the context of organizational and social systems that may perpetuate growing work-life and job inequality.

This chapter offers novel insights into how global corporations can innovate to tackle the global waste crisis and gain sustainable competitive positions. Using two of the most prominent types of global waste crises – food and plastic wastes – we discuss the dilemma of food and plastic waste, why innovations in global firms are needed to address them, and argue that a different perspective among those firms is needed, one which conceptualizes the development, dissemination and use of innovations in waste management, and one which recognizes that innovations, thus, created contribute to advancing the creation of economic, environmental and social value. We conclude using an overarching conceptual framework that depicts the complexity of the new perspective.

This chapter explores the specific role employers and supervisors (SVs) can play in assisting the working sandwich generation (WSG) to find a good balance between work, dual care responsibilities and family. After a brief overview of the main concepts and ideas, the focus lies on the concept of family supportive supervisor behaviour (FSSB) defined as behaviours exhibited by SVs that are supportive of employees’ family roles, in relation to health, well-being, and organisational outcomes. Based on the insights from qualitative research and a tested training concept, points of consideration are formulated for SVs in supporting the WSG. In addition to concrete tips in the area of general policy, learning objectives have been formulated for a supportive leadership style for the WSG, accompanied by a self-assessment tool.

This study investigates how the organizational climate influences work–life balance (WLB) among women employees in universities across Jammu and Kashmir, with a focus on the mediating role of self-efficacy.

Adopting a quantitative research design, this study utilized a survey methodology to collect data from women employees in 11 universities within Jammu and Kashmir. The study analyzed responses from 587 participants through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 4.0.

The findings underscore the significant positive impacts of organizational climate dimensions – autonomy, integration, involvement, support, training and welfare – on work–life balance. Self-efficacy was found to partially mediate the relationships between organizational climate dimensions and work–life balance, underscoring its role in enhancing employees’ capacity to manage work and personal life. The study highlights the importance of a supportive organizational climate in fostering self-efficacy and, subsequently, achieving a satisfactory work–life balance among women employees in academic settings.

This research contributes to the existing literature by exploring the nuanced relationship between organizational climate, self-efficacy and work–life balance, specifically among women employees in the educational sector of Jammu and Kashmir. By highlighting self-efficacy as a critical mediator, the study offers novel insights into the mechanisms through which organizational climate affects work–life balance, providing valuable implications for policy and practice in educational institutions.

This study aims to integrate social identity and leader–member exchange (LMX) theory to investigate the processes and boundary conditions around LMX–performance relationships. Through the application of two leader–follower subsamples, the authors test three main objectives. What is the effect of multi-dimensional dyad value-congruence on LMX and how does congruence on these dimensions differentially influence leader and follower perceptions of LMX? In a subsample of followers including supervisor-rated performance, the authors develop a model that examines how individual values moderate the effect of dyad contact on supervisor-rated job performance mediated by follower LMX.

The participants for this study include graduate and undergraduate social work students who were taking part in a one-year work placement within a social work organization as well as their immediate supervisors. Across a four-month period, participants filled out measures of their supervisor contact, work values and LMX. Supervisor-rated performance was also included.

Findings from the dyadic subsample show that growth value congruence is a predictor of follower-rated LMX, with value congruence across all values having no effect on leader-rated LMX. Within a subsample of followers, findings suggest that follower-rated LMX mediates the relationship between dyad contact and supervisor-rated job performance, with individual work values moderating this effect.

The current study offers several contributions to the literature on LMX and job performance. First, in this study’s dyadic leader–follower sample, the authors extend propositions made by social identity theory around value congruence and LMX by offering support for a multi-dimensional and multi-target approach to questions of values and LMX. Second, within this study’s larger non-dyadic sample, the authors offer insights into previous conflicting findings around dyad contact and LMX, by offering support for the indirect effect of dyad contact on supervisor-rated performance via LMX. Third, within this second sample, the authors also extend the literature on values and LMX to show that the process through which LMX influences job performance is dependent on follower values.