Search results

Several authors have tried to explain the variation across firms in the implementation of work‐family programmes in terms of the employment strategy of these firms and institutional pressures. But most of these studies have been done in the US context. This study replicates these studies in Spain, which has a very different legal, cultural, and labour market context and where the diffusion of work‐family programmes has only recently started. Using data from a sample of 131 Spanish, mostly private firms, tests five hypotheses that may explain the adoption of family‐friendly human resources management policies. Finds that even in this particular context both the employment strategy and some institutional pressures play an important role. The size of the firm, the percentage of female employees, the presence of a high‐commitment work system and the tightness of the labour market are associated with the implementation of a work/family programme. With the increasing participation of female workers and the ageing of the population expects that work/family programmes will continue to diffuse in Spain.

The purpose of this paper is to define the gender aspects regarded as relevant in a woman’s career, as well as the situations or elements, which are narrated, as an experience of success or failure in their professional development.

Through an approach similar to life stories and a longitudinal phenomenological perspective analysis, the author identifies the experiences and feelings of nine women who, in 1998, occupied mid-level positions.

The stories offer a reading of the trajectory at three different levels: the working environment, the experience undergone and the principles of action developed through their careers. These stories show and demonstrate that gender and subjectivity are intertwined, enacted upon and reproduced in the workplace.

Despite having collected information on two occasions, allowing us to reconstruct their paths and isolate the gender issues from this set, this is not a purely longitudinal research as it includes a longitudinal phenomenological perspective.

The stories have helped to weave the experiences and feelings of more than a decade of professional development and have shown how subjectivity is committed to a world of prescriptions and proscriptions that confers differences applicable to both sexes, where being a woman explains some of the ways in which female roles are understood and interpreted in relation to themselves and their environment.

El propósito de esta investigación es delimitar los aspectos de género que se relatan cómo relevantes en la trayectoria profesional de la mujer, así como las situaciones o elementos que se narran como una experiencia de éxito o fracaso en su desarrollo profesional.

Mediante un abordaje próximo a las historias de vida y a través de una perspectiva de análisis fenomenológica-longitudinal, nos aproximamos a las experiencias, vivencias y sentimientos de nueve mujeres que en 1998 ocupaban posiciones de mando medio.

Los relatos nos presentan una lectura de la trayectoria a tres planos: el entorno laboral, la experiencia vivida y los principios de acción desarrollados a lo largo de su carrera. Estos relatos, muestran y demuestran que el género y la subjetividad se entrelazan, promulgan y reproducen en el entorno laboral.

A pesar de recoger información en dos momentos, lo que ha permitido reconstruir sus trayectorias y aislar de este conjunto los aspectos de género, no se trata de una investigación puramente longitudinal sino con cierta perspectiva fenomenológica-longitudinal.

Los relatos han permitido tejer las vivencias y sentimientos de más de una década de desarrollo profesional y han evidenciado cómo la subjetividad se compromete con un mundo de prescripciones y proscripciones que confiere diferencias para aplicar a ambos sexos. Donde ser mujer explica ciertas formas de entender e interpretar los roles femeninos, en relación a ellas mismas y a su entorno.

The study aims to establish that a humanistic model is a necessary context for efficient employer branding (EB) and to identify the characteristic features of a humanistic model in IKEA.

This study included a review of the scientific literature and a narrative case study via semi-structured interviews with top management leaders and middle managers.

The research demonstrates that the effectiveness of EB depends on the implementation of a humanistic model and that IKEA uses a business paradigm that involves EB through a humanistic management model. In addition, the pandemic has enhanced prosocial management and revealed the need for this model in companies. Through the analysis of the humanistic model used by IKEA, the authors provide an example of how other organizations and business leaders can develop communities and society not based on profit maximization. However, further research is needed to contrast the quantitative information provided by the company itself and by external sources. What is offered in this article is the starting point for future studies on this topic.

This is one of the first studies on EB in the context of a humanistic model and the first to use IKEA as a paradigmatic example.