Category Archives: *British Journal of Management
Part Time Workers
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?
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. Moreover, employees working from home reported lower burnout, overall stress, and work-to-family conflict.
The Bad News for Home-Work.
Despite the good news for home-working, the authors identified two related disadvantages: Employees who worked from home perceived fewer available training and development opportunities and lower levels of career support from their organizations.
Overall, the findings of this study paint a rather optimistic picture of home-work. Working from home appears to have a favorable impact on employees’ job attitudes (with the exception of perceptions of career support). Based on Redman et al.’s results, organizations that offer home-work (flexplace) options to their employees are likely to be perceived as “family friendly” organizations, which can be a great employee recruiting and retention tool!
Toward an Understanding of the Influences on HR Policies of Multinational Firms
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
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.
In response to these findings, you may have said to yourself, “Well, no duh. Company policies always have multiple determinants.” And you would be absolutely right! But, armed with this knowledge, organizational leaders as well as their employees can be better prepared to make compromises when in the international arena. Just because things are done one way in the U.S. doesn’t mean that’s how they’ll be done somewhere else.
