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ABSTRACT
The extent to which organizations supplement statutory work-life arrangements varies systematically between countries. Empirical evidence on how organizations’ approaches to work-life arrangements relate to the national context is, however, mixed. This study aims to elucidate this complex relationship by focusing on how top managers’ considerations about whether or not to provide work-life arrangements are related to the national context. Semi-structured interviews were held with 78 top managers in Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and the UK. This study finds that top managers’ relate their considerations whether to provide work-life arrangements to the extensiveness of national legislation: only in the context of few state work-life policies top managers saw it as a business issue. Top managers also take into consideration what they believe is expected of them by employees and society at large, which can work either in favor or against the provision of work-life arrangements. Perceiving the provision of work-life arrangements as a social responsibility seems more apparent for top managers in Slovenia and Finland. By leaving the social responsibility argument out of the central framework of most studies, the existing literature appears to tell the story mainly from an Anglo-Saxon perspective placing business oriented arguments central.
RESUMEN
El grado de provisiones legales sobre la conciliación laboral-familiar varía sistemáticamente entre países. La evidencia empírica sobre la relación entre los enfoques de las organizaciones hacia la conciliación laboral-familiar y el contexto nacional no son claras. Este trabajo se centra en elucidar esta compleja relación, centrando la atención en como las reflexiones de altos directivos sobre proveer medidas de conciliación laboral-familiar, o no hacerlo, están relacionadas con el contexto nacional. Se celebraron entrevistas semiestructuradas con 78 altos directivos de Finlandia, Países Bajos, Portugal, Eslovenia y el Reino Unido. Este estudio encuentra que los altos directivos relacionan sus consideraciones sobre proveer, o no, medidas de conciliación laboral-familiar con el nivel de extensión de la legislación nacional al respecto: solo en el contexto de bajo nivel de políticas nacionales de conciliación laboral-familiar los altos directivos ven estas como una cuestión empresarial. Los altos directivos también toman en consideración lo que creen que sus empleados y la sociedad en general espera de ellos, lo cual puede trabajar tanto a favor como en contra de la provisión de medidas de conciliación laboral-familiar. La percepción de las medidas de conciliación laboral-familiar como una responsabilidad social parece más evidente para los altos directivos de Eslovenia y Finlandia, La mayoría de estudios la literatura actual, al dejar fuera de su marco central el argumento sobre la responsabilidad social, parecen contar la historia desde un enfoque prominentemente Anglosajón, poniendo en el centro de atención los argumentos de orientación empresarial.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Wike Been is a Postdoc researcher at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced labour Studies of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her research area concerns working conditions and how they are shaped by policies at the organizational, sectoral and national level. Her work has a cross-national comparative character.
Laura den Dulk is associate professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Department of Public Administration and Sociology, the Netherlands. Her main area of expertise is cross-national research on work-life policies in organizations. Current research interests include the integration of work and personal life at the individual level (how people manage their work and personal/family life), the organizational level (the role of managers, workplace flexibility) and the country level (cross-national comparisons).
Tanja van der Lippe is Professor of Sociology of Households and Employment Relations at the Department of Sociology and Research School (ICS) of Utrecht University, head of the Department of Sociology and research director ICS Utrecht. Her research interests are in the area of work-family linkages in Dutch and other societies, for which she received a number of large scale grants from Dutch and European Science Foundations. She has published extensively on work and care of men and women, time use and time pressure in a comparative way, and the position of men and women on the labor market (including supervisory positions) in Western and Eastern European countries. Recent books include Quality of life and work in Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and Competing claims in work and family life (Edward Elgar, 2007). She is an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2014), the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (2013) and the European Academy of Sociology (2010).
Notes
2 Authors own calculations of the European Company Survey of 2013 (retrieved from: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/surveys/european-company-surveys/european-company-survey-2013). based on the full sample for each country.
3 Quotes are original and verbatim. Language and grammatical errors have not been corrected. Quotes from the interviews in the Netherlands and Portugal have been translated from Dutch and Portuguese. Original quotes are available on request.