Work-life initiatives and organizational change
Guest Editors: Ellen Ernst Kossek (Michigan State University, USA ), Leslie B. Hammer (Portland State University, USA), Suzan Lewis (Middlesex University, UK)
In order to adapt to a changing workforce with growing family and nonwork responsibilities, employers are devoting increasing organizational resources toward enhancing structural and cultural/relational support for work, family and personal life. Examples of structural support may include but are not limited to the adoption of work –life policies and practices (e.g., flexible work schedules, teleworking and virtual arrangements, reduced workloads, alternative work arrangements, job redesign, health initiatives to reduce job and family stress, and child and elder care benefits). Examples of cultural and relational support may include but are not limited to efforts to increase instrumental and emotional support of supervisors and co-workers for employees’ nonwork demands, and changes in group and organizational values, norms and assumptions about the hegemony of relationships between work and personal life. These structural and cultural/relational change efforts are designed to create healthy work environments with reduced conflict and stress between work and nonwork role demands, and positive relationships between work, family and personal life. Despite increasing employer and scholarly attention to structural and cultural/relational initiatives to support the integration of work with personal life, greater knowledge is needed regarding their effectiveness, and their relation to work group and organizational change processes and outcomes. The goal of this special issue is to advance our understanding of the degree to which work-life initiatives that are designed to increase structural or cultural/relational support of the work-family – personal life interface benefit the health and well-being of employing organizations and work units, as well as employees on and off the job and their families. We welcome critical approaches to the study of organizational support of work and family. Potential structural and cultural/relational support of work, family and personal life and relevant processes and outcomes that may be addressed in studies for the special issue include the following as they relate to changes in organizations and work units:
- flexible or alternative work arrangements policies, and practices
- work-life benefits such as child and elder care
- supervisor and co-worker support for family and personal life
- organizational or work group culture and climate
- workload reduction, job design, control, and autonomy over workload
- schedules and locations
- life course approaches
- socio-historical influences and prevailing rhetoric surrounding work-life initiatives
- organizational stratification regarding access and use
- gender and social justice and multiple stakeholder perspectives
- globalization of work in a 24-7 economy
- interaction with basic employment and working conditions such as pay and performance and job security
- processes and models for achieving systemic changes (e.g., changes in structures, cultures and practices) to support a multiple agenda of benefiting employers and workers and their families
- work group and organizational demography
- individual employee and group diversity (e.g. men-women; older-younger workers; heterosexual-homo-sexual- bi-sexual relations, single- married workers, workers with dependent care responsibilities and those without; majority- majority culture, parent company- subsidiary, local national-international employees)
- cross-cultural and comparative research
- variation across occupations and job groups
- variation across employer context, industry, and size
- economic, productivity, family, societal, and health outcomes, costs and benefits
Regardless of the specific methods utilized, a strong emphasis on theory development must be evident. We welcome critical approaches to research on organizational change and work life initiatives. Although the emphasis in this special issue is on empirical research, conceptual papers that make clear contributions to our thinking about work life initiatives and organizational change that have the potential to stimulate future empirical work will be given full consideration.
Contributors should note:
- This call is open and competitive, and the submitted papers will be blind reviewed in the normal way.
- Submitted papers must be based on original material not under consideration by any other journal or outlet.
- For empirical papers based on data sets from which multiple papers have been generated, the editors must be provided with copies of all other papers based on the same data.
- The editors will select five papers to be included in the special issue, but other papers submitted in this process may be published in other issues of the journal.
The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2008. The special issue is intended for publication in the first half of 2009.
Papers to be considered for this special issue should be submitted online via www.humanrelationsjournal.org. Please direct questions about the submission process, or any administrative matter, to Alice Gilbertson at editorial@humanrelationsjournal.org.
Ellen Ernst Kossek
kossek@msu.edu
Leslie B Hammer
hammerl@pdx.edu
Suzan Lewis
S.Lewis@mdx.ac.uk
