This thesis explores, records, and furthers the embryonic understanding of flexible-working arrangements, formal and/or informal, within the charity sector with focus placed upon medium-sized charitable organizations (income threshold between £500k and £5 million) registered in England and Wales. A multi-method research programme (Phase I: postal-questionnaire and Phase II: semi-structured interviews in four service-providing charities) was undertaken across a sample population of charitable organizations with varying core charity activities. The study considers the influencing factors, impacting upon both employees and employers. Fundamentally, the research outlines the inter-play between perceived and real barriers and enablers impacting upon the successful/unsuccessful implementation and/or operation of flexible-working arrangements within medium-sized charitable organizations. At the time of writing, minimal work had been published regarding flexible-working practices within the charity sector. The present research adopts an interpretive approach where knowledge is gained or at least filtered through social constructions such as language, consciousness and shared meanings by both junior and senior employees. This interpretive approach, supported by the Glaserian branch of Grounded Theory, does not pre-define dependent and independent variables, but focuses on the complexity of human sense-making surrounding the emerging flexible-working situation. Throughout this research, there were a number of recurring themes supporting established HRM theory; but the pivotal finding focused upon the rewarding in-house "family" relationships, and intimate "team" bonds enjoyed by the female junior staff members, surpasses the immediate concerns of reduced funding. Their philanthropic beliefs, charitable ethos, commitment to each other and the charitable organization, gives them a strength and stability to accept change and enables them to adapt and modify to survive against external influencing factors. Through this ubiquitous "family" team characteristic, reinforced by volunteer support, and familial biased language; these distinguishing traits were found to be at the heart of the emergent Female Junior Informal Flexible-Working Model.

This thesis explores the experiences of managers who work flexibly. Flexible working policies are prevalent in all organizations in the UK because of the legislation giving specific groups of parents and carers the right to request flexible working. Many organizations extend the policies to all employees, yet the take-up is not as high as expected, particularly among staff at managerial levels. This thesis explores how managers construe and experience flexible working arrangements while successfully fulfilling their roles as managers of people. The exploratory study consisted of interviews with eight managers with unique flexible working patterns. Analysis of the interview transcripts identified concepts of consistency and adaptability. Consistency refers to meeting fixed needs from the work and non-work domains, and adaptability refers to the adjustment of schedules to meet the changing demands from those domains. The concepts of consistency and adaptability were further explored in the main study which is based on interviews with 24 women and 10 men who held managerial positions and had a flexible working arrangement which reduced their face time in the workplace. The research offers three main contributions to the literature. At a theoretical level, I propose a model which demonstrates how individuals use consistency and adaptability to meet the fixed and changing demands from the work and non-work domains. This model extends understanding of the complexity of the segmentation/integration continuum of boundary theory, explaining how and why managers use flexible working arrangements as a means of managing boundaries and achieving desired goals in both domains. Four distinct clusters emerged among the managerial participants in terms of the type and direction of adaptability, indicating the range of strategies used by managers to ensure the success of their flexible working arrangements. A detailed description of managers’ flexible working experiences is provided, adding to what is known about the role of manager through the exploration of the enactment of that role when working flexibly.