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’.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om det fanns ett samband mellan upplevd möjlighet till flexibla arbetsarrangemang och arbetstillfredsställelse, samt att se om variansen i arbetstillfredsställelse bäst predicerades av temporal eller spatial flexibilitet. Data samlades in genom en digital enkät där arbetstillfredsställelse mättes genom mätverktyget Minnesota Satisfaction Questionaire (MSQ) och flexibla arbetsarrangemang mättes genom New Ways of Working Scale. Resultatet visade att temporal- och spatial flexibilitet var signifikant positivt korrelerade med arbetstillfredsställelse. Resultatet visade även att prediktorerna temporal- och spatial flexibilitet tillsammans kunde förklara en signifikant del av variansen i arbetstillfredsställelse men att det endast var spatial flexibilitet som ensam kunde förklara en signifikant del. Resultatet kan ses som en indikation på att det flexibla arbetsarrangemanget med dess innebörd om ökad autonomi och kontroll har en positiv inverkan på arbetstagares arbetstillfredsställelse och kan därför således användas i konkurrenssyfte av arbetsgivare för att bibehålla och attrahera ny personal. / The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between flexible work arrangement and job satisfaction, and to determine whether the variance in job satisfaction was better predicted by temporal or spatial flexibility. Data were collected through a digital survey, where job satisfaction was measured using the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) and flexible work was measured using the New Ways of Working Scale. The results showed that both temporal and spatial flexibility were significantly correlated with job satisfaction. Furthermore, the predictors of temporal and spatial flexibility together accounted for a significant part of the variance, but it was only spatial flexibility that could independently explain a significant part. These findings indicate that flexible work, with its implications of increased autonomy and control, has a positive impact on employees' job satisfaction. Therefore, it can be utilized by employers as a competitive advantage to retain and attract new personnel.

Les systèmes de production actuels sont soumis à des contraintes de réactivité et de productivité. Par conséquent, les variabilités du flux physique sont de plus en plus prononcées. Ces variabilités s’amplifient en raison d’un ensemble de facteurs humains. Elles impactent la productivité et peuvent donner lieu à des facteurs de risque qui peuvent contribuer dans la genèse des maladies professionnelles. Par conséquent, les systèmes de production doivent offrir la flexibilité nécessaire afin de mieux amortir cette variabilité et en particulier, son incidence sur l’opérateur. Dans ce contexte, ces travaux de thèse proposent une approche pour instaurer la flexibilité temporelle nécessaire dans un système de production : les marges de manœuvre temporelles. Ce travail décrit le développement d’un outil permettant de simuler un système afin d’évaluer son comportement. L’outil développé est baptisé AEN-PRO : Agent based ENgine for PROduction system simulation. Ces travaux proposent également la définition d’un indicateur permettant de mesurer les marges de manœuvre temporelles disponibles sur un poste de travail. L’analyse par états élémentaires est aussi proposée pour évaluer le comportement des entités du système afin de proposer des modifications de la conception qui améliorent les marges de manœuvre et la productivité du système. / Today's production systems are subject to reactivity and productivity constraints. Consequently, variability in the physical flow are increasingly pronounced. This variability affects productivity and may contribute to occupational diseases through different kind of risk factors. Therefore, production systems must have the needed flexibility to better cushion this variability and its impact on workers. In this context, this article proposes a tooled approach to establish temporal flexibility in production system: temporal margins of maneuver. The developed tool is used to simulate a production system and assess its behavior with respect to variability. This work also proposes the definition of an indicator to measure the temporal margins of maneuver in the simulated system. Elementary states analysis is proposed to evaluate the behavior of the system’s entities. This analysis leads to improvements that aim to enhance the temporal margins of maneuver and the productivity of the system as well.