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.

The purpose of this study is to review the overall trends in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) research in the management field.

We performed a scoping review to comprehensively understand how DEI research has been conducted and to inform future research and practices in the management field. We reviewed 725 articles published from 1976 to 2022 in SSCI-indexed management journals. We examined publication profiles (number of articles and research focus), publication tendency (journals and years), chronological publication trends, work environments (traditional vs remote/virtual work settings) and dimensions of DEI, including age, gender, race and culture.

We identified six common DEI research themes: (1) DEI management and practice, (2) perspectives on DEI, (3) team/group diversity, (4) DEI conceptualization, (5) leadership for DEI and (6) DEI climate. Finally, discussion, implications and recommendations for future research are presented.

Our research provides a comprehensive outline of the DEI research and suggests future directions to contribute to and advance knowledge on DEI in the management field.