This thesis concerns the relatively recent phenomenon of part-time managers and professionals. The focus is the part-time working arrangement (PTWA) and specifically the process by which it emerges and develops, building on existing literature on working-hours preferences, the role of the organization in part-time working and alternative work organization for temporal flexibility. Two large private-sector organizations, each operating in the UK and the Netherlands, provided four different research sites for narrative interviews with 39 part-time managers and professionals. The key contribution to knowledge is to identify the process of developing a PTWA as a combination of the formal negotiation of a flexibility task i-deal and an informal process of job crafting. In a situation of high constraint – where the individual’s goals conflict with organizational norms and expectations – the tensions between ‘being part-time’ and ‘being professional’ necessitated identity work at each stage, as individuals constructed a ‘provisional self’ which in turn enclosed each stage of the development of the PTWA. The four stages were: first, evaluation of alternative options, including postponing the transition to part- time until more appropriate circumstances arise; secondly, preparation of the individual business case for part-time; thirdly, formal negotiation of a flexibility task i-deal; and finally an informal, unauthorized adaptation of the arrangement over time. Collaborative crafting of working practices (predictability, substitutability, knowledge management) provided greater opportunities for adaptation than individual activities. This study’s contribution to theory in the nascent field of part-time managers and professionals is a process model which suggests how three sets of discourses act as generative mechanisms at each stage of the emergence and development of the PTWA, creating or destroying ‘action spaces’. These discourses are: the perceived ‘nature’ of managerial and professional work, the perception of part-time as a personal lifestyle choice, and the understanding of part-timers as either ‘other’ or the ‘new normal’.

This thesis concerns the relatively recent phenomenon of part-time managers and professionals. The focus is the part-time working arrangement (PTWA) and specifically the process by which it emerges and develops, building on existing literature on working-hours preferences, the role of the organization in part-time working and alternative work organization for temporal flexibility. Two large private-sector organizations, each operating in the UK and the Netherlands, provided four different research sites for narrative interviews with 39 part-time managers and professionals. The key contribution to knowledge is to identify the process of developing a PTWA as a combination of the formal negotiation of a flexibility task i-deal and an informal process of job crafting. In a situation of high constraint – where the individual’s goals conflict with organizational norms and expectations – the tensions between ‘being part-time’ and ‘being professional’ necessitated identity work at each stage, as individuals constructed a ‘provisional self’ which in turn enclosed each stage of the development of the PTWA. The four stages were: first, evaluation of alternative options, including postponing the transition to part- time until more appropriate circumstances arise; secondly, preparation of the individual business case for part-time; thirdly, formal negotiation of a flexibility task i-deal; and finally an informal, unauthorized adaptation of the arrangement over time. Collaborative crafting of working practices (predictability, substitutability, knowledge management) provided greater opportunities for adaptation than individual activities. This study’s contribution to theory in the nascent field of part-time managers and professionals is a process model which suggests how three sets of discourses act as generative mechanisms at each stage of the emergence and development of the PTWA, creating or destroying ‘action spaces’. These discourses are: the perceived ‘nature’ of managerial and professional work, the perception of part-time as a personal lifestyle choice, and the understanding of part-timers as either ‘other’ or the ‘new normal’.

I syfte att bereda ett förlängt arbetsliv, har Sverige i flera steg höjt den nedre åldern för uttag av ålderspension. Höjningen är politikernas svar på den åldrande befolkningen, samtidigt som den nationella pensionsåldern fortsätter gäller för alla yrkesgrupper. Eftersom yrkesgrupperna skiljer sig åt avseende arbetsbörda, varierar förutsättningarna till att hantera en höjd pensionsålder. Bland yrkesgrupper med hög fysisk arbetsbelastning har en del svårt att arbeta till dagens pensionsålder vilket ger dem sämre förutsättningar till höjd pensionsålder. Byggnadsarbetare är en sådan yrkesgrupp, dock är forskningen kring byggnadsarbetare och ett förlängt arbetsliv bristande. För att bidra till forskningsområdet ämnar föreliggande studie att undersöka synen på höjd pensionsålder och ett förlängt arbetsliv inom byggnadsbranschen samt undersöka branschens arbete kring ett förlängt arbetsliv, med frågeställningarna Hur ser byggnadsarbetare inom byggnadsindustrin på pensionsålder och på ett förlängt arbetsliv? samt Hur arbetar arbetsgivare inom byggnadsindustrin för att möjliggöra ett förlängt arbetsliv åt äldre byggnadsarbetare? Undersökningen utfördes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra byggnadsarbetare och två arbetschefer. Det teoretiska ramverket består av push-pull-teorin som belyser anledningar till varför byggnadsarbetare slutar arbeta. Resultatet visar att byggnadsarbetare anser ett förlängt arbetsliv vara ohållbart under rådande omständigheter. De anser att en hållbar höjning av pensionsåldern kräver ett förbättringsarbete avseende arbetsmiljön, vilket innebär minskad stress, flexibla arbetsförhållanden och mer hjälpmedel. Medan arbetschefer uppger att höjd pensionsålder kan vara problematiskt för byggnadsarbetare men att det är nödvändigt. De är nöjda med det arbete som utförs för ett förlängt arbetsliv och påstår att ett förlängt arbetsliv som inte går att bereda tenderar att bero på faktorer som arbetschefen inte kan påverka, likt marknad, ekonomi och företagets kapacitet.

Although much is known about employee empowerment and work designs, numerous companies and management practitioners struggle to implement empowerment initiatives effectively because it is not known which approach best facilitates individual levels of psychological empowerment. Traditional job design theory focuses on the role of managers and portrays employees as passive grantees of empowerment. Employees may influence their own empowerment by taking an active role in work design. The primary purpose of this correlational study was to examine whether job crafting or idiosyncratic deals are more or less empowering than job design and how work locus of control influences these relationships. It was hypothesized that job crafting would be the strongest correlate with psychological empowerment. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was designed with measures adapted from existing instruments. A sample of 150 adults, drawn from various industries in the United States, completed a voluntary, online survey. Data analysis, which used Pearson correlations, revealed that job crafting had a stronger relationship with psychological empowerment than did idiosyncratic deals and management-driven job design for employees with high internal work locus of control. Findings from this study may help organizational leaders understand how employees with high internal tendencies are psychologically empowered when actively engaged in designing their own work. Employees may then feel empowered to advance the company's social agenda and make personalized contributions to the greater society, essentially becoming goodwill ambassadors for the organization.