Category Archives: *British Journal of Management

Part Time Workers

Reply

Topic: Work-Life Balance
Publication: British Journal of Management (JUN 2009)
Article: ‘Full time is a given here’: Part-time versus full-time job quality
Authors: McDonald, P., Bradley, L., & Brown, K.
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

More and more, employees are utilizing alternative work arrangements (flextime, flexplace) and part-time employment is increasing. And surprise, surprise –  part-time employment is predominantly utilized by women.  It has been suggested that this is due to the increased flexibility that part-time work grants (to balance work and family demands). But, what else should you know about part-time work?

McDonald, Bradley, and Brown (2009) interviewed 40 employees from an Australian government agency about their perceptions of the quality of part-time work. Despite the advantage of providing flexibility to employees, McDonald and colleagues uncovered several intriguing disadvantages of part-time work:

·   Part-time employees are often relegated on lower status projects than full-time employees.

·   In some cases, part-time workers are devalued as team members and contributors to the organization.

·   Some supervisors feel that part-time employees are less committed to the organization than full-time employees (less time at work apparently = less commitment to some managers).

·   Some think that it is unnecessary to provide mentoring or developmental opportunities to part-time employees (they must be more concerned with family life, so why develop them as employees?).

All in all, before accepting a part-time job, applicants/employees should consider these potential disadvantages.  It seems that part-time workers are perceived very differently than their full-time peers (at least in this study).  An additional issue to consider is that part-time employment is overwhelmingly utilized by women (hmm, does gender inequality in the workplace ring a bell to anyone?). Perhaps this trend contributes to many of the gender inequalities that are currently witnessed in the workplace.

McDonald, P., Bradley, L., & Brown, K. (2009). ‘Full time is a given here’: Part-time versus full-time job quality. British Journal of Management, 20, 143-157.

Home Sweet Home…At Work?

Reply

Topic: Work-Life Balance
Publication: British Journal of Management
Article: Location, location, location: Does place of work really matter?
Author: T. Redman, E. Snape, C. Ashurst
Featured by: Benjamin Granger

Flexplace
refers to an organizational policy that allows employees to work from a
physical location other than the actual workplace (Wouldn’t it be nice!).  Many employees who utilize this option
work from home and much research has been directed at uncovering the benefits
and pitfalls of working from home.

In
general, there are two overarching views on the use of home-based work: The optimistic (e.g., promotes independent
and empowered employees) and the pessimistic
(e.g., makes employees vulnerable to exploitation by the organization)
perspectives. 

In
the interest of comparing home-based and work-based employees, Redman, Snape,
and Ashurst (2009) used survey data from 749 managerial and professional
employees in the UK.  Their aim was
to discover whether work location matters when it comes to employee work
attitudes and behaviors.

The Good News for Home-Work.
Overall, Redman and colleagues found more support for the optimistic view of
home-working.  Specifically,
working from home was associated with increased job and life satisfaction,
perceptions of empowerment, and positive emotions in general.  

Continue reading →

Toward an Understanding of the Influences on HR Policies of Multinational Firms

Reply

Topic: Strategic HR
Publication: British Journal of Management
Article: Similarity, isomorphism or duality? Recent
survey evidence on human resource management policies of multinational
corporations. 

Author: C. Brewster, G. Wood, M. Brookes
Featured by: Benjamin Granger

Believe in yourself... Since multinational
organizations are becoming more and more common, numerous researchers have set
out to understand how multinational corporations set up organization-wide
policies. In order to better understand how such policies are determined,
Brewster, Wood, and Brookes (2008) surveyed both public and private
organizations in over 22 European countries.

Not surprisingly, Brewster
and colleagues found that company HR policies were largely determined by
tradeoffs and compromises.  Moreover,
there did not seem to be global norms for HR practices.  This implies that host regions and/or
countries do indeed influence the HR practices and policies of multinational
organizations that originate in other countries. 

This is not surprising,
because we can easily imagine that certain laws and business norms must be
abided by in certain regions of the world in order for an organization to
operate (e.g., having to pay employees the minimum wage in the US).  Overall, Brewster and colleagues
suggest that HR practices are complexly determined by both global business
norms as well as local (certain region) norms.

Continue reading →