Mary Dean Lee

Organizational Paradigms Of Reduced-Load Work: Accommodation, Elaboration, And Transformation

This study examines variation in organizational responses to part-time work arrangements among professionals and managers. Analyses of over 350 interviews generated three paradigms of differences i...

Alternative work arrangements among professionals and managers: Rethinking career development and success

This study examines part‐time work arrangements among 78 women professionals and managers to learn more about their implications for career development. Specifically, it documents the level of success of the work arrangements, their expected career implications, and the factors distinguishing less successful arrangements. Results revealed specific career development challenges unique to part‐time workers, as well as challenges common among full‐time workers. Part‐time workers already adopting a protean career model may fare better in alternative work arrangements. Lessons learned in dealing with diversity may be helpful to organizations in achieving fit between workers’ personal definitions of success and their work arrangements.

Reinventing retirement: New pathways, new arrangements, new meanings:

Retirement involves a set of institutional arrangements combined with socio-cultural meanings to sustain a distinct retirement phase in life course and career pathways. In this Introduction to the Special Issue: ‘Reinventing Retirement: New Pathways, New Arrangements, New Meanings,’ we outline the historical development of retirement. We identify the dramatic broad-based changes that recently have shaken this established construct to its core. We describe the main organizational responses to these changes, and how they have been associated with shifting, multiple meanings of retirement. Finally, we present a model that frames two general forms of reinvention of retirement. The first involves continuation of the idea of a distinct and well-defined period of life occurring at the end of a career trajectory, but with changes in the timing, the kinds of post-retirement activities pursued, and meanings associated with this period of life. The second represents a more fundamental reinvention in which the overall concept of retirement as a distinct period in an individual’s life is challenged or rejected, whether because it is not appealing or no longer realistic. We provide examples of how both types of reinvention may manifest in individuals’ careers and lives, and suggest future research directions that follow from our model.

Entangled strands: A process perspective on the evolution of careers in the context of personal, family, work, and community life:

The goal of this study is to develop a theoretical framework to illuminate the process of careers unfolding over time in an overall life context. We draw on data from a qualitative field study of the career paths of 81 professionals who pursued working on a reduced-load basis as a strategy for sustaining commitment to both their careers and family lives. Using multiple methods to analyze what happened between two interviews approximately six years apart, we identify five distinct career narratives and present a model of the evolution of careers. The model suggests that individuals construct careers over time through their own sensemaking of constantly shifting entangled strands of their personal, family, work, and community lives and three key dynamics that are ongoing: external events, gradual developments, and individual actions.

Implementing a Reduced-Workload Arrangement to Retain High Talent: A Case Study

Reduced-load work arrangements involve a reduction in workload or hours with commensurate pay reduction. Employers use these arrangements to retain talent who value dual engagement in career and personal life. We discuss the reasons employers support reduced-load work, and its relevance to the psychologist-manager. We share a case study representing employee and manager views. Successful arrangements include these implementation features: (a) targeted to high-talent individuals with a track record; (b) redesigned, monitored, and fine-tuned over time; and (c) follow principles of the three Cs: communication, coordination, and challenge management. New managerial mind-sets are needed for success: designer at a distance with high standards, creator of pockets of change, big picture thinker on flexibility, and talent manager of “whole people.”

A Qualitative Investigation into the Meaning of Family Well-Being from the Perspective of Part-Time Professionals

Through analysis of interviews conducted in 1996-98 with reduced-load professionals and managers in organizations, this study examines in-depth the meaning of a good family life from the perspective of those seeking to enhance their personal and family experience by cutting back on hours devoted to work. The results suggest that the concept of family well-being is more complex and multi-faceted than prior research has indicated. Six different dimensions of family well-being are identified through examination of recurrent themes in the interviews: (1) spending high quality time with family members; (2) being able to relax in free time; (3) emotional well-being and health of family members; (4) high quality communication and support; (5) high quality child care and education; (6) satisfaction with work and work load at home. Finally, three paradigms of family well-being derived from interview data are proposed: Family well-being as effective parenting, family well-being as love and being together, family well-being as peace and harmony.

Exploring career and personal outcomes and the meaning of career success among part-time professionals in organizations

Over recent decades, the professional workforce and family structures have dramatically changed. For example, the dual-earner family is now the modal American family (Barnett, 2001). Only 17 per cent of families comprise a male breadwinner and a stay-at-home wife (US Department of Labor, 2004). According to the most recent National Survey of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) (Bond et al., 2002), the demographic occupational profile of the professional and managerial workforce in the US has also dramatically changed. In 2002 women held 39 per cent of professional and managerial jobs, compared with 24 per cent in 1977. Work hours and demands are rising on the job and there is less time to devote to family or other personal life commitments. Over the 25 years between 1977 and 2002, the total work hours of all dual-earner couples with children under 18 years at home increased by an average of ten hours per week – from 81 to 91 hours (Bond et al., 2002). A recent national survey on overwork in America indicates that nearly half (44 per cent) of the US workforce experienced being overworked in their jobs in the past month (Galinsky et al., 2005). Another recent report based on the NSCW survey found that two-thirds (67 per cent) of employed parents believe they do not have enough time with their children (Galinsky et al., 2004). Over half of all employees participating in the NSCW survey said they do not have enough time for their spouses (63 per cent) or themselves (55 per cent). Although these trends are important for all employee groups, professionals are a key labor market group that faces unique challenges in managing work and personal life demands. Many professionals encounter growing organizational pressures to increase workload and work hours

Cross-Level Dynamics between Changing Organizations and Career Patterns of Reduced-Load Professionals

Integrating research on careers, flexible work arrangements, and open systems views of organizational change, we investigate how evolution in the broader organizational context interacts with professional career trajectories over time. Interviews were conducted six years apart (1997 and 2003) with 17 major employers in North America and 36 managers and professionals in those firms who were working on a reduced-load basis by choice in 1997. Overall, we found that career patterns are impacted by the dynamic combination of individual-level and contextual factors. Specifically, while changes in core business/client base, internal structure changes, and industry turbulence were associated with higher proportions of returns to full-time work, financial threat was associated with lower levels of return to full-time work. We identified four cross-level dynamics (co-optation, synergy, decoupling, and tug of war) that capture different patterns of interaction between individual work arrangement trajectories and larger trends occurring at the organizational or industry level.

Probing Behavioral Patterns of Structuring Daily Life

The development of a methodology for accurate observation, identification, and representation of characteristic patterns of structuring work and personal life is described. The results of two studies are used to test the reliability and validity of the methodology. Different types and subtypes of life space structure are proposed on the basis of observations of similar configurations of subject scores on behavioral dimensions of movement through time and space, engagement in activity, and involvement in social interaction. Demographic and life satisfaction characteristics of subjects in the various pattern types and structure types are examined for trends.

Contemplating workplace change: evolving individual thought processes and emergent story lines

Drawing on topical life histories of physicians in a particularly volatile public health sector environment, we build theory around the contemplation of workplace change. Overall, our study provides evidence as to why single or multiple independent factors, such as pay or job structure, may fail to predict or explain individual decisions to stay in or change workplaces. Instead, the contemplation process we argue is a complex, evolutionary, and context-dependent one that requires individualized interventions. Our findings reveal the prevalence of episodic context-self fit assessments prompted by triggering stimuli, two mechanisms by which thought processes evolved (reinforcement and recalibration), and four characteristic story lines that explain why the thought processes manifested as they did (exploring opportunities, solving problems, reconciling incongruence, and escaping situations). Based on our findings, we encourage practitioners to regularly engage in story-listening and dialogic conversations to better understand, and potentially affect the evolving socially constructed realities of staff members.