T. Alexandra Beauregard

Work-life, diversity and intersectionality: a critical review and research agenda

Work-life issues have important implications at both organizational and individual levels. This paper provides a critical review of the work-life literature from 1990 onwards through the lens of diversity, with a particular focus on disparities of power induced by methodological and conceptual framings of work and life. The review seeks to answer the following questions: What are the gaps and omissions in the work-life research? How may they be overcome? To answer these questions, the review scrutinizes blind spots in the treatment of life, diversity and power in work-life research in both positivist and critical scholarship. In order to transcend the blind spots in positivist and critical work-life research, the review argues the case for an intersectional approach which captures the changing realities of family and workforce through the lens of diversity and intersectionality. The theoretical contribution is threefold: first, the review demonstrates that contemporary framing of life in the work-life literature should be expanded to cover aspects of life beyond domestic life. Second, the review explains why and how other strands of diversity than gender also manifest as salient causes of difference in experiences of the work-life interface. Third, the review reveals that social and historical context has more explanatory power in work-life dynamics than the micro-individual level of explanations. Work-life literature should capture the dynamism in these contexts. The paper also provides a set of useful recommendations to capture and operationalize methodological and theoretical changes required in the work-life literature.

Predicting interference between work and home

Purpose - To examine the relative power of four dispositional, self-evaluation traits (adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism, generalized self-efficacy, and general self-esteem) versus three situational factors (organizational time demands, potential negative career consequences, and managerial support) in predicting work interference with home (WIH) and home interference with work (HIW). Methodology/Approach - A survey was conducted among 223 UK public sector employees. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis tested main effects of personality and situational characteristics on WIH and HIW. A usefulness analysis determined whether dispositional or situational variables had greater predictive power for the two dependent variables. Findings - Significant, negative main effects of adaptive perfectionism on HIW, and of self-esteem on WIH. Positive relationships were found between maladaptive perfectionism and both WIH and HIW. Situational factors were also significant predictors of WHI: organizational time demands were positively associated with WIH, while managerial support had a negative relationship with WIH. Dispositional variables accounted for 15% of variance in HIW, but only 4% of variance in WIH. Research limitations/implications - The cross-sectional design of the study does not permit firm conclusions regarding causality, and the results may be influenced by common method bias. Practical implications - Raising awareness of the role of personality in work-home interference may assist managers in providing more effective support to employees. The danger exists that policy-makers will dismiss HIW as an individual responsibility due to the influence of dispositional factors. Originality/Value - This study indicates that self-evaluation personality characteristics play a key role in predicting HIW, and are more important than traditionally investigated factors associated with the home and workplace environments.

Perfectionism, self‐efficacy and OCB: the moderating role of gender

Purpose – This paper aims to examine personality as an alternative explanation to social exchange in predicting OCB, and investigate the moderating role of gender in the link between personality and OCB.Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted among 223 UK public sector employees. Multiple regression analysis tested main effects of personality and main and moderating effects of gender on OCB.Findings – Findings indicate that personality has significant explanatory power beyond that of social exchange in predicting OCB. Employees with high levels of adaptive perfectionism report higher levels of OCB. General self‐efficacy also predicted more participation in citizenship behaviours, but only for men. Women appear to carry out citizenship behaviours regardless of how confident they feel in being able to successfully perform. This may be attributable to social and organizational norms that place women in the role of “helper” and expect more communal behaviours from them than from men.Research limi...

Are organizations shooting themselves in the foot?: workplace contributors to family-to-work conflict

Purpose - To examine 1) the direct effects of work domain variables on family-to-work conflict (FWC), beyond their indirect effects via the mediating variable of work-to-family conflict (WFC), and 2) sex differences in the effects of work role expectations and supervisor support on FWC. Methodology/Approach - A survey was conducted among 208 UK public sector employees. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis tested main and moderating effects of work domain variables and sex on FWC. To test for mediation, the procedure recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986) was used. Findings - Work domain variables had a significant effect on FWC above and beyond the effects of family domain variables, and independent of WFC. The relationship between work role expectations and FWC was found to be significantly stronger for men than for women. Research limitations/implications - The cross-sectional design of the study does not permit firm conclusions regarding causality, and the results may be influenced by common method bias. Practical implications - In the face of evidence that organizations are causing the very phenomenon that hurts them, the responsibility to assist employees with reducing FWC is enhanced. Particularly for men, management of organizational expectations to work long hours and prioritize work over family is an area in which employers can and should play a key role if gender equity with regard to organizational work-family climate is to be established. Originality/Value - This study indicates that organizational work demands may have more influence over the degree to which employees’ family lives interfere with their work than has previously been assumed, especially for men.

Managing diversity in organisations: Practitioner and academic perspectives: report from a Gender in Management Special Interest Group research event

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a seminar sponsored by the Academy of Managements Gender in Management Special Interest Group, which comprised discussions on aspects of diversity policy, initiatives, and programme development within Bank of Scotland, National Australia Group UK, and BBC Scotland, and also academic and industry presentations.Design/methodology/approach – The report is based upon observations, notes and discussions on a range of issues relating to diversity in organisations.Findings – The seminar highlighted practitioner perspectives of diversity management – both for staff development and for the development of a customer base in the case of banks, by actively encouraging business from female entrepreneurs and by aiming to make mainstream financial products appropriate for both female and male customers.Originality/value – This report brings together a number of interesting and important themes linked to improvements in female recruitment and development.

Work–family attitudes and behaviours among newly immigrant Pakistani expatriates: the role of organizational family-friendly policies

The work–life interface literature is often criticized for its limited sample base, with the majority of research focusing on the experiences of white women living in nuclear family households in Western societies. This paper aims to address some of these criticisms by using a qualitative methodology to explore the impact of organizational family-friendly policies on the work–family attitudes and behaviours of 26 newly expatriate Pakistani employees in the UK. Individual, family and religious/cultural influences on these outcomes were also explored. Findings indicate that study participants undergo a shift of priorities that result from expatriation and the consequent attenuation of extended family and societal pressures to have children immediately after marriage; participants are delaying childbirth in order to gain educational qualifications and establish careers in a foreign country. A strong preference for familial childcare suggests that family-friendly policies such as part-time or flexible hours have the potential to significantly affect employment outcomes for Pakistani expatriate women, who, in the absence of extended family to provide care for children, might not otherwise return to work following childbirth. Other potential organizational interventions are also discussed.

Listen carefully: transgender voices in the workplace

Abstract We find that only 17% of FTSE 100 company websites refer directly to transgender (‘trans’) individuals, illustrating the extent to which trans voices are unheard in the workplace. We propose that these voices are missing for a number of reasons: voluntary silence to protect oneself from adverse circumstances; the subsumption of trans voices within the larger ‘LGBT’ community; assimilation, wherein many trans voices become affiliated with those of their post-transition gender; multiple trans voices arising from diversity within the transgender community; and limited access to voice mechanisms for transgender employees. We identify the negative implications of being unheard for individual trans employees, for organizational outcomes, and for business and management scholarship, and propose ways in which organizations can listen more carefully to trans voices. Finally, we introduce an agenda for future research that tests the applicability of the theoretical framework of invisible stigma disclosure to transgender individuals, and calls for new theoretical and empirical developments to identify HRM challenges and best practices for respecting trans employees and their choices to remain silent or be heard.

Strategies for successful telework: how effective employees manage work/home boundaries

Purpose This paper aims to identify strategies used by successful teleworkers to create and maintain boundaries between work and home, and to determine how these strategies relate to employee preferences for segmentation or integration of work and home. Design/methodology/approach Forty in-depth, face-to-face interviews were conducted with employees working from home either occasionally (occasional teleworkers), between 20 and 50 per cent of the workweek (partial teleworkers), or the majority of the time (full teleworkers). Findings Teleworkers use physical, temporal, behavioral and communicative strategies to recreate boundaries similar to those found in office environments. Although teleworkers can generally develop strategies that align boundaries to their preferences for segmentation or integration, employees with greater job autonomy and control are better able to do so. Research limitations/implications A limitation of this research is its potential lack of generalizability to teleworkers in organizations with “always-on” cultures, who may experience greater pressure to allow work to permeate the home boundary. Practical implications These findings can encourage organizations to proactively assess employee preferences for boundary permeability before entering a teleworking arrangement. The boundary management tactics identified can be used to provide teleworkers struggling to establish comfortable boundaries with tangible ideas to regulate interactions between home and work. Originality/value This research makes a significant contribution to practitioner literature by applying a boundary management framework to the practice of teleworking, which is being adopted by organizations with increasing frequency.

Corporate Work-Life Balance Initiatives: Use and Effectiveness

Managers and professionals are uniquely placed to experience difficulties combining work responsibilities with non-work commitments, due to long hours of work and extensive use of communications technologies enabling work tasks to be performed at any time, anywhere. In response to a workforce increasingly concerned with maintaining a work-life balance, organisations now offer a range of initiatives designed to facilitate the integration of work and non-work domains.

Prosocial Response to Client-Instigated Victimization: The Roles of Forgiveness and Workgroup Conflict

We investigate forgiveness as a human service employee coping response to client-instigated victimizations and further explore the role of workgroup conflict in (a) facilitating this response, and (b) influencing the relationship between victimization and workplace outcomes. Using the theoretical lens of Conservation of Resources (Hobfoll, 1989), we propose that employees forgive clients—especially in the context of low workgroup conflict. From low to moderate levels of client-instigated victimization, we suggest that victimization and forgiveness are positively related; however, this positive relationship does not prevail when individuals confront egregious levels of victimization (i.e., an inverted-U shape). This curvilinear relationship holds under low but not under high workgroup conflict. Extending this model to workplace outcomes, findings also demonstrate that the indirect effects of victimization on job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intentions are mediated by forgiveness when workgroup conflict is low. Experiment- and field-based studies provide evidence for the theoretical model.