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In light of the dramatic social transformations occurring in the nature of family and worker demands, nearly all employees today need to make decisions on how to manage work and family roles. Drawing on role theory, we provide a summary framework for understanding individual, family, and organizational influences on the self‐management of work and family roles. Work‐family role synthesis is defined as the strategies an individual uses to manage the enactment of work and caregiving roles. It involves decision‐making choices governing boundary management and role embracement of multiple roles. We present hypotheses and a research agenda for examining antecedents and consequences of employee strategies for managing work and family roles.

The paper looks at the tensions and conflict between work and family life that arise from work intensification in higher education, in the particular context of Portuguese academe. Drawing on the concept of work‐family culture, the paper aims to discuss its influence on the level of work‐family conflict and the effectiveness of work‐family policies.

The study was conducted in a Portuguese university. Data were collected from 32 in‐depth interviews with faculty members from different backgrounds and affiliations.

The preservation of traditional gender roles in the family as well as a work‐family culture that is largely family‐unfriendly helps to understand the tensions and conflict between academic work and family life. These tensions are mainly felt by women particularly mothers of dependent children. The data also suggest that work‐family policies are fruitless unless they are supported by a positive work‐family culture.

Study limited to a single university.

The paper provides evidence of the cumulative effect of the traditional division of gender roles in the family and a negative work‐family culture in the organization in contributing to increasing levels of work‐family conflict, particularly in a context of work intensification.

Despite widespread acknowledgement that work‐family conflict and career success are salient issues that impact individual wellbeing and organizational effectiveness, there is little research that studies how the two concepts are related. The purpose of this paper is to develop and present a tentative framework for understanding the relationships among antecedents of interrole conflict between work and family and career success.

Drawing on existing theoretical and empirical evidence the paper develops and presents a conceptual framework of the relationships between domain‐specific variables, work‐family conflict, and career success. The paper also presents propositions based on the relationships suggested by the framework.

The framework suggests that individual‐specific variables will be more likely to predict family‐to‐work conflict and perceived career success, while work‐specific variables will be more likely to predict work‐to‐family conflict and perceived career success. It also suggests that such domain‐specific variables influence both work‐family conflict and career success.

Future research should examine empirically the linkages suggested by this framework, along with other domain‐specific and, perhaps, cultural‐specific variables that may explain or predict dimensions of organizational cultures that are most relevant to the types of work‐family conflict and to indicators of career success. The paper suggests that employees and employers would be well advised to identify appropriate strategies for balancing work and non‐work domains in such a way that employees strive to perform work and family roles successfully, and employers ensure that employees have the necessary “infrastucture” and tailored‐made family supportive programs to encourage them to achieve dual‐success: success in family relationships and success in careers.

This paper makes a valuable contribution to both the work‐family conflict and career success literatures by being one of the first to examine the effects of domain‐specific characteristics on the relationships between these important organizational concepts and by revealing that managing work‐family conflict and career decision making is relevant for employees, employers, and career consultants.

Work–family research has mainly focused on nuclear families, neglecting other types of families, such as single self-employed parents. To what extent does the freedom and flexibility attached to being single and self-employed hinder or enhance single parents' work–family balance? Using role theory as a theoretical lens, this study examines single-self-employed parents' work–family balance.

Drawing on the accounts of 25 single self-employed parents in Nigeria, the article uses semi-structured interviews to examine how this group achieves work–family balance.

We found that the freedom and flexibility associated with being single and self-employed form a double-edged sword that increases the spate of singlehood and intensifies commitments to work, altogether preventing the participants in the study from achieving work–family balance. The findings also indicate that singlehood and a lack of spousal support cause and exacerbate work–family imbalance for this group. The findings further indicate that the reconstruction of functions, and the recreation of the traditional masculine gender role overwhelm single self-employed women in their entrepreneurial activities, thereby causing a lack of time and the energy required to function well in a family role, thus creating imbalance between the different spheres of life.

The extent to which the findings of this research can be generalised is constrained by the limited sample and scope of the research.

While literature espouses freedom and flexibility as important ingredients needed to achieve work–family balance, this study shows that they enhance inter-role role conflict. The study suggests creation of private or family time, devoid of work or entrepreneurial engagements, for single female entrepreneurs. This will ensure quality time and energy for the family and for fresh relationship – all of which will impact business positively.

Rather than enhancing work–family balance, the freedom and flexibility attached to being single and self-employed remain the main source of work–family imbalance for Nigerian single self-employed parents.

This research sets out to achieve three goals: first, to discover the most important management development areas specified by Finnish managers; second, to discover the intentions of Finnish managers in management development on a personal level and with the support of organizations; and third, to compare the above mentioned aspects and to compare those also with competency models presented in the literature.

The empirical data were gathered through an internet survey. The sample consists of 2,500 middle and senior managers from different industries in the Finnish private sector. Altogether 794 responses were received, giving a response rate of 32.

This study revealed that there are a lot of managers who do not have any specific development intentions for themselves. In organizations where management development was both well organized and connected to strategic management, managers were more consciously aware of the development needs at a personal as well as at a general level. Additionally the study revealed that the development intentions of the managers differed from the ideas presented by the scholars in literature on management competencies. Technical and business skills were emphasized, while social skills and intrapersonal skills were neglected.

More detailed qualitative study is needed in order to understand managers' personal interpretations of their development needs.

Managers in organizations should first be educated in management competencies, management development and learning issues, before they can become thoroughly conscious about their own competencies and development needs. Those who can provide help in these matters are human resource professionals, researchers and consultants.

The paper provides useful information on the development needs of management.

Does the self-employed nature of entrepreneurs’ business ventures mean that they have perfect boundaries between their work and nonwork lives? Drawing on border theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine entrepreneurs’ work–life balance (WLB) in terms of how they construct and manage the borders between their work and nonwork lives.

The authors adopt a qualitative research approach to enhance their insight into entrepreneurs’ WLB using border theory. The study benefits from its empirical focus on Nigerian migrants in London who represent a distinct minority group living in urban areas in the developed world. Data for the study was collected over a three-month period, utilising semi-structured interviews as the primary method of data collection.

The study’s findings indicate that entrepreneurs prioritise “work” over “life” and reveal that entrepreneurs have little desire for boundaries as they work everywhere, which makes long working hours prevalent among them. Furthermore, the findings bring to the fore the prevalent social anomaly of entrepreneurs preferring to be unmarried, single and even divorced as a result of or associated with the entrepreneurs’ boundaries creation and management.

The extent to which the findings of this research can be generalised is constrained by the limited and selected sample of the research.

Research on human resource management (HRM) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or businesses in which entrepreneurs operate is still under developed. The issue of the size and the nature of an organisation (i.e. labour or product market influences, ownership structures, etc.) have profound implications for human resources (HR) structures, policies and practices and the quality of the WLB of entrepreneurs. Research on HRM and entrepreneurship is still evolving. Consequently, HRM in several entrepreneurial business ventures is sometimes (if not often) organisationally fluid and ad hoc. The main implication for this work environment is that there may be little structure in HRM policies and processes to help self-employed entrepreneurs in their ability to comprehensively manage border crossing and to achieve WLB.

This paper provides valuable insights into entrepreneurs’ work/nonwork boundaries, which is hugely influenced by the commodification of time and money. It also enriches work–life border theory and its social constructionist perspective.