Toiling from the homespace, longing for the workplace: gendered workplace imaginaries in an (in)flexible work scenario

ABSTRACT

Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) promise both emancipation and loss: freedom from workplace constraints also strips away protective work-life boundaries. To date, very little is understood about how flexible work shapes workplace imaginaries. Drawing on a sample of 44 managers from a Middle Eastern firm, we explore their evolving internal representations of the workplace and domestic space under (in)flexible conditions. Findings suggest that (in)flexible work arrangements fashion and amplify subjective, organizational, and gender-specific workplace imaginaries. While both genders in this study imagined the workplace as a site of ‘salvation,’ it became a haven from domestic labor for the women, while for the men it provided a crucial extension of individual managerial identity. Such distinctions provide glimpses into how (in)flexible scenarios influence and shape neoliberal workplace imaginaries that may sustain gendered career trajectories and the perpetuation of FWAs as a misleading panacea for individual freedom and happiness in the workplace.

KEYWORDS:

• Flexible work arrangements (FWAs)
• (in)flexibility
• workplace imaginaries
• neoliberal workplace
• gender
• Middle East

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).