Thesis (MComm)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Employee engagement has become imperative for the long term sustainability and performance of organisations. In the current study, work-life interaction was hypothesized to have a direct effect on employee work engagement. Work-life balance, as a facet of work-life interaction, was defined in this study as having enough time to fulfil activities in both work and family contexts; maintaining a sense of equilibrium or harmony in life, having equal or balanced involvement, effort and time spent on various roles; as well as a balance between demands and resources in a person’s life, achieving a state of satisfaction in both employment and personal roles (De Cieri, Holmes, Abbott & Pettit, 2005; Hudson, 2005). Work-life balance has positive consequences for the employee in the form of higher levels of satisfaction and commitment, and improved personal health and wellbeing. For the organisation it is associated with improved recruitment and retention, improved employee productivity and performance, improved organisational performance and profitability, and increased work engagement. In the current study the overarching concept of work-life interaction was utilised to guide the empirical research. The study was motivated by the intention to clarify the antecedents of work-life interaction in a particular work environment in order to inform efforts aimed at promoting positive work-life interaction. Personalistic traits were anticipated to influence the relationship between organisational variables and work-life interaction. A literature review has led to a theoretical model to be utilised in investigating the determinants of work-life interaction and whether the nature of work-life interaction experienced enhances employee work engagement. The aim of the study was to determine whether a negative relationship exists between role conflict, work demands and work-life interaction and a positive relationship exists between work-family culture and work-life interaction. The research further aimed to establish whether specific personalistic variables such as conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, negative affectivity, positive affectivity and emotional intelligence influence the relationships between the organisational variables and work-life interaction. The observed inter-correlations show that the organisational variables are weakly to moderately correlated with most of the work-life dimensions. The results confirmed that there are negative correlations between role conflict, work demand and the positive forms of work-life interaction, and positive correlations between these two variables and the negative forms of work-life interaction. In contrast, work-home culture is positively related to the positive forms of work-life interaction, and negatively to the negative forms of work-life interaction. The moderated regression analyses found that only neuroticism and agreeableness had significant moderating effects on the relationship between work demand and work-life interaction, whilst a greater number of mediating effects were observed. An overview of the multiple regression analyses with the work-home interaction dimensions as dependent variables, found a significant difference between the amount of variance explained by the organisational variables and the additional variance explained by the personalistic variables in two analyses pertaining to positive work-home interaction and positive home-work interaction. The study has confirmed the role of organisational variables in the experience of work-life interaction and the positive role of the work-home culture of the organisation has been highlighted. The results provided limited support for the role of personalistic variables as moderators and more substantial support for its role as mediators of work-life interaction. The impact of positive affectivity was especially noticeable. The results further indicated that work engagement was significantly positively correlated with positive work-home interaction, negatively correlated with negative work-home interaction, and positively correlated with positive home-work interaction. These findings provide additional motivation to include selected personalistic variables in the selection process so that the likelihood of work engagement could be optimised through increased work-live balance. It further suggests focusing the attention of employees suffering from negative work-life interaction on their personal processing of the challenges experienced and their coping strategies The results indicated that the conceptualised theoretical model was seriously flawed and too simplistic and that it required serious reconsidering. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Werknemerbetrokkenheid het noodsaaklik geword vir die langtermyn volhoubaarheid en prestasie van organisasies. In die huidige studie is die hipotese gestel dat werk-lewe-interaksie werknemers se werksbetrokkenheid op ‘n direkte wyse bevorder. Werk-lewe-balans is in hierdie studie soos volg gedefinieer: Dit is om genoeg tyd te hê om aktiwiteite binne beide werk- en gesinsverband af te handel, deur ’n volgehoue sin van ekwilibrium of harmonie in die lewe te handhaaf, met gelyke of gebalanseerde betrokkenheid, insette en tyd gewy aan verskillende rolle, sowel as ’n balans tussen die eise en hulpbronne in ’n persoon se lewe, en die gevolglike bereiking van ’n vlak van bevrediging binne beide werk- en persoonlike rolle. (De Cieri, Holmes, Abbott & Pettit, 2005; Hudson, 2005). Werk-lewe-balans het ’n positiewe uitwerking op die werknemer, in die sin van hoër vlakke van werkstevredenheid en toewyding, en verbetering in persoonlike gesondheid en welstand. Vir die organisasie word dit geassosieer met verbeterde werwing en retensie van personeel, verbeterde werksproduktiwiteit en prestasie, verbeterde organisatoriese prestasie en winsgewendheid, en verhoogde werksbetrokkenheid. In die huidige studie is werk-lewe-interaksie as oorkoepelende konsep vir die doeleindes van die empiriese studie aanvaar. Die studie se oogmerk was om die aanleidende oorsake van die werk-lewe-interaksie in ’n bepaalde werksomgewing te identifiseer ten einde pogings te informeer wat gemik is op die bevordering van werk-lewe-balans. Die verwagting was dat persoonseienskappe die verhouding tussen organisatoriese veranderlikes en werk-lewe-interaksie sou beïnvloed. ’n Literatuuroorsig het gelei tot ’n teoretiese model wat gebruik is in ’n ondersoek na die determinante van werk-lewe-interaksie en die vraag of werk-lewe-balans werknemers se werksbetrokkenheid verhoog. Die doel van die studie was om vas te stel of daar ’n negatiewe verhouding is tussen rolkonflik, werkseise en werk-lewe-interaksie, en ’n positiewe verhouding tussen werk-lewe-kultuur en werk-lewe-interaksie. Die navorsingsprojek het verder beoog om te bepaal of spesifieke persoonsveranderlikes soos pligsgetrouheid, neurotisisme, aangenaamheid, negatiewe affektiwiteit, positiewe affektiwiteit en emosionele intelligensie die verhoudings tussen die onafhanklike veranderlikes en die afhanklike veranderlikes respektiewelik beinvloed. Die waargenome interkorrelasies het getoon dat die organisatoriese veranderlikes swak tot matig gekorreleer het met die meerderheid werk-lewe-interaksie veranderlikes en werknemerbetrokkenheid. Die resultate het bevestig dat daar negatiewe korrelasies was tussen rolkonflik, werkseise en die positiewe vorms van werk-lewe-interaksie, en positiewe korrelasies tussen hierdie twee veranderlikes en die negatiewe vorms van werk-lewe-interaksie. Daarteenoor is werk-lewe-kultuur positief verbind met positiewe vorms van werk-lewe-interaksie, sowel as werknemerbetrokkenheid, en negatief aan die negatiewe vorms van werk-lewe-interaksie. Die gemodereerde meervoudige regressie-ontledings het getoon dat slegs neurotisisme en inskiklikheid beduidend die verband tussen die organisatoriese veranderlikes en die werk-lewe-interaksie dimensies gemodereer het, terwyl daar ‘n groter getal bemiddelende effekte waargeneem is. In ’n oorsig van die meervoudige regressie-ontledings met die werk-lewe-interaksie dimensies as afhanklike veranderlikes, is ’n betekenisvolle verskil gevind in die variansie verklaar deur middel van die organisasie veranderlikes en die bykomende variansie wat deur die persoonsveranderlikes verklaar is. Die studie het die rol bevestig van organisatoriese veranderlikes in die ervaring van werk-lewe-interaksie; en die positiewe rol van die werk-lewe-kultuur van die organisasie is uitgelig. Die resultate het beperkte steun verleen aan die rol van persoonsveranderlikes as moderators van die verband tussen organisatoriese veranderlikes en werk-lewe-interaksie, maar meer substansiële steun aan persoonsveranderlikes as mediators van hierdie verband. Die impak van positiewe affektiwiteit was veral opmerklik. Die huidige bevindinge het getoon dat werknemer betrokkenheid beduidend positief korreleer het met positiewe werk-huis-interaksie, negatief gekorreleer het met negatiewe werk-huis-interaksie, en positief gekorreleer het met positiewe huis-werk-interaksie. Hierdie bevindinge verskaf bykomende motivering om geselekteerde persoonsveranderlikes in die seleksieproses in te sluit, sodat die waarskynlikheid van werknemerbetrokkenheid geoptimaliseer kan word deur verhoogde werk-lewe-balans. Dit dui verder ook daarop dat die aandag van werknemers wat negatiewe werk-lewe-steurings ervaar, gefokus moet word op hul persoonlike verwerking van die uitdagings wat hulle in die gesig staar en hul hanteringstrategieë. Die resultate het aangetoon dat die gekonseptualiseerde teoretiese model ernstig gebrekkig en simplisties was en dat ernstige herbesinning daaromtrent nodig is.

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Arbetet är en stor del av de flesta människors liv och för att en arbetande människa ska må bra bör det finnas en god balans mellan arbetet och det övriga livet. Där det råder obalans upplever människor att deras livspussel blir allt svårare att lägga. Det här gäller även för mellanchefer som dessutom har en position där kraven inte bara kommer uppifrån utan även från medarbetarna underifrån. Vi har i den här studien valt att fokusera på hur mellanchefer, som vi till en början hade förutfattade meningar om att de var extra utsatta av stress och press på grund av arbetets karaktär. Vårt syfte har alltså varit att studera hur upplevelsen av work-life balance ser ut för mellanchefer. Vi har valt att fokusera på fyra stycken frågeställningar; “Vilka centrala upplevelser av work-life balance kan urskiljas bland mellanchefer?”, “På vilket sätt påverkar sfärerna arbete och övrigt liv varandra?”, “Finns det skillnader mellan olika branscher och i så fall hur ser de ut?” samt “Finns det skillnader mellan manliga och kvinnliga mellanchefer och i så fall hur ser de ut?”.     I denna studiens teoretiska referensram inriktar vi oss på relationen mellan arbete och övrigt liv, tillgänglighet och balans mellan arbetet och familjen, digitaliseringens påverkan, flexibilitet i arbetet samt faktorer i arbetet som påverkar relationen mellan arbete och övrigt liv. Vi har utgått från dessa områden för att skapa en intervjuguide som gav grunden till analysen. De nio mellanchefer som deltog i studien gav blandade synsätt på sina livssituationer. Samtliga respondenter valdes utifrån uppsatta kriterier där vi ville att de skulle ha chefer över sig och anställda under sig.   Studiens resultat visade att vilken bransch, vilket kön man tillhör samt vilken livssituation en mellanchef befinner sig i påverkade upplevelsen av work-life balance. Det visade sig att flexibilitet mellan arbetet och det övriga livet, genom exempelvis teknik såsom smartphones och bärbara datorer påverkar deras balans. Det här ledde till stress hos vissa av våra respondenter och det framkom att för att minska denna så var en uppdelning av arbetet och det övriga livet nödvändigt. Graden av krav och kontroll påverkar även det en mellanchefs upplevelse av sitt psykiska välmående. Det visade sig att fälten i Karaseks och Theorells krav- och kontrollmodell tycks stämma överens med intervjupersonernas upplevelse av sitt arbete då de, trots press och stress från både högre chefer och underordnade, faktiskt trivs med det de arbetar med. Det här är på grund av den grad av kontroll de anser sig ha. Det framkom även i studien att det finns skillnader mellan kvinnliga och manliga mellanchefer när det kommer till acceptans av arbetstiden i familjen. De kvinnliga mellancheferna i vår studie hade fler diskussioner eller dyster om hur mycket de arbetade än vad de manliga cheferna hade.   Nyckelord: Work-life balance, mellanchefer, tillgänglighet, flexibilitet, digitalisering, familj

In contemporary capitalist economies such as the UK, it is commonly held that an increasing number of people and households experience anxiety over time and symptoms of 'time squeeze'. Existing accounts of the character and causes of this phenomenon are rather one-dimensional and lacking in nuance, however. In part, this is because they typically lack any substantial theoretical engagement with the concept of time itself. Accordingly, this research aims to provide a more complex and contextual account of experiences of working time (both paid and unpaid), and to investigate how and why experiences of time squeeze vary between individuals and social groups. This is achieved by calling upon an enriched understanding of time, and employing an instrumental case study built around a set of 50 semi-structured interviews with employees working in Oxford University's central IT department and four of its constituent colleges. The empirical findings reveal that the (quantitative) extent and (qualitative) nature of participants' temporal anxieties vary with occupation, social class, gender, age and family status, as well as the importance of institutional and local context. Furthermore, they demonstrate that contemporary time squeeze is generated by a variety of causal mechanisms relating to the duration, tempo and timing of both paid employment and unpaid reproductive work, and their intersections with the personal, natural, social, institutional and technological rhythms that variously constitute everyday life.

This diploma thesis inspects the position of women in company boards. The gender equality in workplace has been a widely discussed topic during the last several years; nevertheless, the attention paid to women in leading positions remains significantly low, especially in the Czech Republic. The primary objective of this thesis is to identify and evaluate the position of women on company boards, and furthermore, to propose recommendations to ameliorate the discovered deficiencies. The theoretical part is based on the knowledge acquired from the scientific literature. The evaluation of the existing position of women in company boards is deducted from the qualitative research using semi-structured interviews with ten women from top management. These women are challenged by three fundamental barriers: work-life balance, lack of confidence and stereotypes. Due to the extensive scope of this topic, the recommendations shall be applied to three basic levels of authority: state, companies and individuals. The priority shall be put on the capacity of childcare facilities, the family-friendly oriented company policies and the personal development through mentoring and coaching.

The purpose of this study was to explore working single mothers’ work-life balance in order to better understand how employers can assist them. Role theory, role conflict theory, and spillover theory were utilized to examine how working single mothers experience work-life balance and how they perceive it. In this study, the researcher sought to discover, analyze, and report work-life balance experiences of working single mothers through extended narrative accounts, which answer the following research questions: 1. In what ways do working single mothers strive to attain work-life balance? 2. What challenges do working single mothers encounter that affect their ability to obtain work-life balance? 3. How do working single mothers believe their employers’ policies, practices, and attitudes impact their ability to balance work and family responsibilities? Narrative inquiry was the best research approach for this study because it allowed the individuals to narrate their own stories. The methods of collecting data for this study consisted of a basic demographic questionnaire and in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The data analysis revealed four main themes and several subthemes highlighting the strategies, challenges, and employers’ contributions to the work-life balance of working single mothers.

Denna studie syftar till att beskriva och förstå hur personalchefer upplever ett gränslöst arbete och hur det påverkar deras välmående, samt hur de hanterar gränsdragningen mellan arbete och privatliv. Detta har undersökts med hjälp av en kvalitativ ansats med semistrukturerade intervjuer som datainsamlingsmetod.Resultatet visar att personalchefernas arbete kännetecknas av gränslöshet, till följd av att tillgänglighet och flexibilitet i arbetet suddat ut gränserna mellan arbete och privatliv. Gränslösheten är tidvis utmanande eftersom den resulterat i att personalcheferna utför arbetsrelaterade uppgifter även efter arbetstid. Samtidigt betraktas den som en viktig förutsättning för både välmående och upplevelsen av balans mellan sfärerna. Att ha möjlighet att arbeta när som helst och var som helst har bidragit tillen känsla av kontroll som uppskattas av många, samtidigt som det också skapat en känsla att det finns mer att göra och nya mål att uppnå. Personalcheferna har olika strategier för att hantera arbetets otydliga gränser, där vissa visat sig vara mer effektiva än andra. Trots att konsekvenserna av att inte kunna stänga av arbetet är negativa, tycks fördelarna som kommer av att styra sin egen tid väga tyngre och ingen av personalcheferna önskar gå tillbaka till en tid utan möjlighet till flexibilitet och uppkoppling.

This thesis presents an empirical investigation to address the psychosocial work environment as an established social determinant of health. The focus was narrowed to a single occupation, teachers, due to high reported stress levels in national surveys and other consequential policy challenges. The focus of intervention was narrowed to tackling the causes of stress after a scoping literature review found that most effort in this area has been directed towards individual-level interventions and programmes. A systematic review was conducted to assess the evidence-base, which demonstrated availability of limited and low-quality evidence for the evaluation of organisational interventions for teacher wellbeing. It was found that organisational interventions lead to improvements in teacher wellbeing and retention rates, although most of the trials in this review were affected by methodological shortcomings. Because of the paucity of such intervention studies, and the heterogeneous nature of the interventions in the four included studies in this review, implications for practice were found to be very limited. Further well-designed research in the development and testing of organisational interventions for teacher wellbeing was recommended as a result, while outlining the requirements for a rigorous study in this area. An intervention development endeavour was subsequently undertaken, which pointed to participatory approaches. An intervention entitled Change Laboratory was identified due to its relatively robust theoretical and methodological basis. An exploratory pilot trial of the participatory organisational change intervention was conducted in four secondary schools in the UK, with 2 schools as intervention and 2 schools as control. Qualitative findings, process evaluation, and quantitative findings of the study are subsequently presented. The analysis focuses on the actions that teachers and managers collaboratively designed in the intervention schools, in order to address organisational and systemic factors generating stress. The common theme in the output of both Change Laboratory cases was their focus on the object of decision-making, and leading to an expansive learning in terms of a reconceptualization of decision-making within their respective organisations. The central contradiction was found to be between the macro perspective and priorities and agendas of the senior leadership that shape policies and processes, and the micro perspective of those having to enact and comply with the decisions made by senior leaders. The intervention outputs can be seen as mediators synthesized from this contradiction. Following the intervention impact longitudinally demonstrated a developing and evolving reconceptualization of pedagogy, which is more central to teachers' object of activity and their professional identity. The analysis demonstrates that professional identity may be a crucial dimension of wellbeing at work in tandem with work-related stress theories. The findings suggest that the Change Laboratory group initially embarked on a re-conceptualisation of decision-making, and utilised the new systems and way of working as a means to address teaching and learning which is more central to their professional identity and their object of activity. The quantitative findings suggests an indication of beneficial effects of the intervention at end-of-intervention point, also considering the limitations. The process evaluation focuses on delineating the different facets of the intervention and assuring intervention integrity, assessing feasibility and acceptability, and generating insights for scaling-up of the intervention. An implementation framework developed in this study was found to be of value in the endeavour to adopt, adapt, and develop process-oriented structural interventions.

It is well known that Nordic countries are among the world’s happiest countries. Because of the high welfare, social equality, more freedom and so on. But there are also many people living outside the Nordic countries, and there is a big question about why people in such a comfortable country would want to work, because the state provides good welfare to the poor even if they do not work. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to understand what motivates people work in Nordic countries and what affects their work efficiency, how work and life can achieve a balance. Whether a person is willing to work or not depends on his/her attitude and thoughts, which comes not only from the social environment but also from the organizational environment. When people are in a fair and free society, their attitudes about work are more from organization. The organizational environment is influenced by the organizational culture. Therefore, there is no doubt that organizational culture influences employees’ work attitudes. A good organizational culture stimulates employees to work harder, thus improving their work efficiency. A bad organizational culture reduces work efficiency by making people more negative about their work. In real life, people’s lives revolve not only around work, but also other aspects that require investment of energy and time. For example, how to run a good life, how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. This takes into account a person’s role at different times and places. Concentrate on finishing work at work and take care of your family and yourself in life. Therefore, only by harmonizing work and life balance can we improve work efficiency and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, this thesis adopts the case analysis method to investigate an personal assistance organization. Through the investigation of this organization, we learned about employees’ views on organizational culture, the influence of organizational culture on their work efficiency and their choice of both work and life. After that, qualitative analysis was used to further analyze the research results, so as to find out the influence of organizational culture on work efficiency and how to balance work and life, so as to have a healthy lifestyle. In what follows I will review the previous literature and relevant theory, in order to understand the current status of organizational culture and work efficiency and lifestyle. After that I will present the results can conduct interviews to find out the impact of organizational culture on work efficiency and lifestyle.

Managementkonsultbranschen kännetecknas av högt tempo, långa arbetsdagar och prestationsdrivna individer. Trots det har balans mellan arbetsliv och privatliv blivit en viktig fråga. Genom att intervjua anställda på tre managementkonsultföretag har studien undersökt hur företagen arbetar med work-life balance samt vad som påverkar konsulternas möjlighet att nyttja arbetsgivarens insatser. Studien bekräftar att företags insatser för work-life balance påverkas av institutionella normer. Resultatet visar att managementkonsulters möjlighet att nyttja dessa insatser påverkas av förutsättningar i den professionella miljön; kulturellt stöd i form av ledarskap och stöd från kollegor, projektens karaktär genom förväntningar från kunder samt graden av autonomi och senioritet. Studien bidrar även med insikten att individen har det största ansvaret för sin work-life balance. Utöver det konstateras att work-life balance är en subjektiv upplevelse, vilket innebär att det inte nödvändigtvis krävs en jämvikt mellan arbete och privatliv för att nå tillfredsställelse. Sammanfattningsvis verkar det finnas en konflikt mellan institutionella och professionella normer som gör det svårt att lyckas med insatser för work-life balance. Studiens resultat kan därför vara relevant för professionella tjänsteföretag och andra organisationer verksamma i branscher som utmärks av hög arbetsbelastning.