Abstract Employees experience challenges managing home and work. The increase of women in the workforce, single-parents, childcare, elder care responsibilities, and men in nontraditional roles warrant changes in traditional working hours and flexibility in work schedules. Through the theoretical frameworks of work-family conflict, spillover, border, and boundary theories, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how flexible work arrangements (FWAs) assisted employees in meeting work and family obligations. Minimal research is available in the defense industry and the use of FWAs. A nonprobability, convenience sample was used to explore how management and nonmanagement participants from a Midwest defense contractor used FWAs. An online questionnaire consisting of 59 questions and 14 face-to-face (FTF) interviews were used to collect data. There were 27 participants that responded to all online questions. FTF interviews were audio recorded and member-checked. The research questions were focused on how employees used FWAs and whether work-family balance (WFB) was achieved. Both data collection media were transcribed and inductively coded tracking emerging themes and patterns. Dominant themes showed that FWA increased WFB, employees worked longer hours, employees were loyal to the organization, and telecommuting was the ideal FWA. The implications for social change are providing a realistic view to employers on the importance of balancing work and family. FWAs are also shown to contribute to employee satisfaction and attract and retain highly-skilled workers.

Cette recherche vise à étudier les processus de transformation du « sale boulot » en « bel ouvrage » et ce en privilégiant la problématique de la reconnaissance de soi au travail, entendue comme résultant d’une tension entre les « usages de soi ». La division morale du travail à l'hôpital ordonne les tâches, mais aussi les métiers autour d’une répartition clivant les activités au service de la vie et les activités au service de l’épuration des traces de la mort. L’ investigation part de la notion de « sale boulot » et analyse les traces de cette division morale et psychologique du travail, ici celles qui se réfèrent à des activités de confrontation à la mort.Le cadre théorique retenu articule l’éclairage anthropologique et historique du traitement de la mort dans la société et dans l’hôpital, le concept de négatif psychosocial comme analyseur de la hiérarchisation morale du travail et la reconnaissance de soi, discutée par les théories de la clinique du travail. Ici, l’activité est l’unité d’analyse fondamentale et le collectif de travail est conceptualisé comme espace transitionnel où les usages de soi sont dialectalisés. Les activités analysées et comparées sont les Interruptions Médicales de Grossesse (IMG) et les Interruptions Volontaires de Grossesse (IVG) dans une unité de gynécologie ainsi que celles d’accompagnement de la fin de vie en équipe mobile de soins palliatifs. La méthodologie s’inscrit dans la tradition de la recherche action et s’appuie sur l’observation-participante et la conduite d’entretiens semi-structurés auprès de soignants et de leur encadrement. Les résultats de cette recherche sont présentés selon trois axes : la hiérarchisation morale des unités, des professionnels et des activités est articulée aux stratégies défensives collectives, aux idéologies de métier: elles contribuent à la définition et à la délégation du « sale boulot » dans l’organisation du travail. Le deuxième axe présente les différentes configurations groupales en fonction de la sollicitation d’affects archaïques dans les activités, liant ou déliant les collectifs de travail. Des stratégies de dégagement ont été identifiées : elles ouvrent la voie à la construction des trames symboliques qui permettent de domestiquer les résonances fantasmatiques de la confrontation avec « l’objet » de travail, la mort et ses équivalents symboliques, la maladie, la vieillesse, la déficience, la perte, le manque ... La capacité d’instituer de nouvelles normes et de se reconnaître dans son travail puise dans des configurations collectives fondées sur des règles partagées. Dans les cas de défaillances du collectif de travail, le recours aux ressources trans-individuelles permet de subvertir le négatif en travail estimable : elles renvoient au travail de civilisation, dans ses différentes dimensions. / This research aimed at studying the process of transformation of “dirty work” into “commendable work”. This was done by highlighting self-recognition at work, understood as the result of self-agency tensions. Work moral division at the hospital organizes tasks as well as careers through the separation of life-preserving related activities from death-reminiscence related ones. The research focuses on the notion of “dirty work” and analyzes, through death-related activities, work’s moral and psychological division.The theoretical framework used articulates anthropological and historical views on how modern society and thereby, the hospital deals with death; intertwining theories derived from “work’s clinical psychology” with the concept of psychosocial negative, analyzer of both work’s moral hierarchy and self-recognition. Herein, activity is the fundamental unit of analysis and the “collective work arrangements” are conceptualized as transitional space for the emergence of self-agency dialectics. The activities analyzed and compared are medical termination of pregnancy, abortion at the gynecological unit and accompanying the dying at the palliative care mobile team. The method subscribes to the action-research tradition, whereby participant-observation and semi-structured interviews with healthcare workers as well as chief-nurses were used. The results of this research are presented under three main axes: Firstly, the moral hierarchization of the medical units, of the professions and of the activities is articulated to the collective defense strategies as well as to professional ideology, which contribute to the definition and to the banishment of “dirty work”, thus structuring the organization of work itself. Secondly, the different group configurations are a function of archaic affects emerging from dealing with death-related activities. These may involve, but also encumber healthcare professionals, thus disorganizing the “collective work arrangements”. Strategies to disengage were identified: they open up to symbolic resources which allow restraining fantasmatic resonance induced by the confrontation of the object of their work, i.e. death, and its symbolic equivalents, disease, old-age, deficiency, loss… Moreover, the capacity to institute new norms and to recognize oneself while working has its bearing on collective configuration founded upon shared norms. Finally, should “collective work arrangements” fail to be created, trans-individual resources are called upon to subvert negative into estimable work, based on the different dimensions of “Civilization work”.

Au croisement des courants de recherche sur l’étude du travail et sur celle de l’organisation, la thèse analyse la transformation de la main d’œuvre dans l’entreprise via la généralisation du recours à des formes d’emploi qualifiées d’atypiques. La littérature fait état d’une tendance à la déconnexion entre, d'une part, des pratiques de travail dans l’entreprise mêlant des individus aux statuts juridiques différents et, d'autre part, des théories de l’organisation reposant sur une relation d’emploi uniforme entre l’entreprise et ses travailleurs. Sur le terrain, les travailleurs réalisent l’activité de l’entreprise qu’ils soient salariés ou extérieurs, tout en conservant la représentation d’une main d’œuvre constituée de salariés. L’observation directe de la collaboration entre des salariés et des travailleurs extérieurs sur le lieu de travail de l’entreprise permet de comprendre les mécanismes à l’œuvre dans la réalisation commune d’activités sur le lieu de travail de l’entreprise. Pour décrire cette catégorie d’action, qui se situe entre l’étude du travail et celle de l’organisation (au sens de structure formelle représentée par l’entreprise), on proposera la notion d' « équipe composite ». L’équipe composite s’envisage comme une entité modulaire dont les statuts juridiques des travailleurs constituent les interfaces. L’entreprise intègre l’équipe composite au sein de sa structure légitime par des mécanismes bureaucratiques atténués. Quant aux acteurs, ils composent leur rôle de travailleur sur le lieu de l’entreprise au-delà de leur statut juridique et en fonction d’un répertoire construit à partir de leur expérience professionnelle. / Bridging work and organization studies, the dissertation analyzes changing workforce in the workplace due to the rising use of nonstandard arrangements. Previous research shows that the current organizational theory is based on inadequate conceptions of work inherited from industrial era. Today, the use of nonstandard work arrangements is very common. This leads to a blend of regular workers and nonstandard workers in the same work situation. As individuals don’t formulate the blending way of performing activities, we observe that a collective action remains possible even if the workers' legal statuses are different. As a consequence, a direct observation is needed to sort out the issue of the collaboration of regular workers and nonstandard workers in a firm’s workplace in order to understand how collective action happens. The “composite team” expression could describe this kind of collective action occurring in a specific organization involving people whose statuses differ. The firm does not disappear by integrating people from other organizations; it acts as an integrator of modular units composed by a composite team. The individuals play a role beyond their legal status in the workplace, depending on a repertoire built from professional experience.

The primary aim of this survey is to: * explore whether there is potential for job-sharing in the South African labour market; * * describe the characteristics of potential job-sharers and to explain why Job-sharing would be an appropriate and feasible solution to unemployment, massive retrenchments, poor quality ofwork life (QWL) and low worker productivity Job-sharing has been used in many developed countries to address a variety of problems at the individual, organisational and national level. These include allowing workers to have a balance between their work and non-work life; to increase worker productivity and QWL and to increase employment opportunities. The literature survey affirms that these problems are prevalent in Africa as a whole and in South Africa specifically. The survey results reveal that the environment in South is Africa is conducive to jobsharing and that slightly over one third of the workers and organisations and two thirds of the jobseekers are willing to job-share. The results of this study also reveals that QWL, productivity and unemployment does influence the willingness to job-share and that approximately 80% of the employees would rather either job-share, work-share or opt for some other alternative than to have retrenchments. Thus by implication, job-sharing would address the problems relating to poor QWL, low worker productivity, fewer employment opportunities, as well as massive retrenchments in South Africa. The study has also explored possible reasons and obstacles to job-sharing and found that whether these are perceived as significantly important or not, depends on whether one is an employer, employee or job-seeker . The job-seekers feel more than others, that there is no reason insurmountable or obstacle preventing the introduction of job-sharing by which to avert their unemployed status. There are also differences in willingness to job-share among subgroups with regard to the industry, area of work, position held in the organisation and the availability of job-sharing positions in the organisation. This thesis reports that there is potential for job-sharing in the South African labour market, to address a variety of problems pertaining to workers, organisations, job-seekers and, therefore, the whole nation at large. / Business Management / D.B.L.

This thesis deals with the alternative work arrangements in Europe, namely flexitime and part-time. The theoretical basis is built on the theory of preferences and takes into account household labour supply considering also household production. The aplication part compares and contrasts situation in corresponding European countries with special reference to identification the differences between men and women. As a next step, regression and correlation analysis is used in order to identify relationship between part-time ratio and other variables. It was found that there is no relationship between part-time ratio and gender wage gap. Furthermore, there is a statistically significant relationship between GDP per capita and women part-time ratio, which helps to explain the differences among corresponding countries.

A cross-sectional survey was undertaken to examine the impact of organizational support on work-family conflict experienced by Taiwanese working women. A stress model of work and family interference was applied in the Taiwanese context; the current study examined whether the results of western studies of work-family conflict can be generalised to the Taiwanese population. The enactment of the Gender Equality of Employment Law in Taiwan in 2002 was a further impetus for the research. The study examined the effects of organizational family-friendly policies and cultural support of family responsibilities on work-family conflict and well-being. Women (aged between 15 and 64 years) in paid employment working in three public universities in northern Taiwan formed the sample population for this research. Stratified random sampling by occupation was used to enhance representativeness. The total sample consisted of 441 participants, made up of 288 general staff and 153 academic staff. The data was collected with several tested and widely used instruments (including the Family-Friendly Policies Usage and Satisfaction Questionnaires, Work-Family Culture Questionnaire, Work-Family Conflict Scale, Job Satisfaction Questionnaire, Family Satisfaction Questionnaire, Perceived Stress Scale, and Physical Symptoms Inventory). Descriptive analysis was used to examine demographic variables and all the measures; correlation analysis was used to examine the relationships between selected research variables; T-test, chi-square test and one-way ANOVA were used to characterize the differences between groups. Hierarchical multiple regression was performed to test the research hypotheses. The findings showed that work-family conflict was strongly linked with lower job and family satisfaction, greater stress and more severe physical ailments. Implementing family-friendly policies and creating a supportive work environment can help working women to manage their work-family conflict and improve their health outcomes. A supportive organizational culture has been confirmed by this research as important in preventing the negative consequences of work-family conflict. However, such conflict did not predict the levels of physical symptoms. Employer-supported dependant care policies were not associated with the level of work-family conflict. In addition, organizational cultural support did not predict the usage of family-friendly policies. This study has provided evidence that some relationships could be generalised, across western and Chinese societies, between organizational support and work-family conflict, and between work-family conflict and an individual's well-being, although specificities within each cultural remain and require different methods of assessment. In conclusion, a western theoretical model of work-family conflict was found to be acceptable and feasible to implement within the Taiwanese population, since the majority of the hypotheses were supported. This research provided valuable information for healthcare professionals, policy makers and organizations, presenting ways to help working women to manage the conflicting demands of work and family roles better.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2008. / Title from PDF of title page (viewed July 10, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-81).

The objective of this thesis is to analyze and verify the existence of causality between employment rate, unemployment rate as independent variable and fertility rate as dependent variable. Two stated hypotheses are being verified within this thesis. First of them says that by decreasing employment rate also the fertility rate decreases. Second says that decreasing unemployment rate has an impact on growth of fertility rate. The final part of essay deals with today´s often discussed concept of work life balance which in many countries supports high economical activity of women and higher fertility simultaneously. It draws attention on positives of alternative work arrangements as well as on negatives and deficits which goes together with its practicing. In the end of the thesis different possibilities of effective work life balance management are suggested.

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Background: Digitalization involves access to digital information, streamlining of operations, and new solutions through emerging technologies. The discussion on future changes underscores the need to prepare for new challenges and adapt working methods through education and knowledge exchange. This process positively impacts companies and society by improving communication and making work processes more efficient, which is essential for market survival. Controllers provide companies with crucial information for decision-making and management, and they are responsible for areas such as budgeting and process analysis. New opportunities and threats emerge, affecting the role of controllers within companies. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the general impact of digitalization on the working methods of controllers and to explore controllers' perspectives on remote work to identify the new challenges or opportunities it has introduced. Method: The methodology chapter begins with an account of the study's choice of method, research design, and case company, as well as a summary of the theoretical framework. Following this, the data collection process is presented, which is based on semi-structured interviews, an interview guide, and the selection of respondents. Furthermore, the approach to analyzing the empirical material is described, including transcription and thematic analysis. Finally, the study's quality criteria and ethical considerations are presented. Conclusion: Digitalization has influenced the controller's work methods by implementing technologies that streamline workflow. This frees up time for value-creating tasks and improves decision-making. Despite challenges such as the need for education and resistance to change, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Digital tools like Excel, Power BI, and Teams are now indispensable for controllers at Scania, also enabling remote work. The study shows that digitalization and remote work enhance efficiency, productivity, and flexibility, contributing to better work processes and insights for the company. / Bakgrund: Digitalisering innebär tillgång till digital information, effektivisering avverksamheter och nya lösningar genom ny teknik. Diskussionen om framtida förändringarbekräftar behovet av att förbereda sig inför nya utmaningar och anpassa sitt arbetssätt utefterförändringar med hjälp av utbildning och kompetensutbyte. Denna process har en positivinverkan på företag och samhälle i form av bland annat förbättrad kommunikation ocheffektivare arbetsprocesser, vilket är nödvändigt för att överleva på marknaden. Controllernförser företag med viktig information för beslutsfattande och styrning, och ansvarar för områdensom budgetering och processanalys. Nya möjligheter och hot uppstår, vilket påverkar Scaniascontrollers. Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka digitaliseringens generella påverkan påcontrollerns arbetssätt, samt undersöka vilken syn controllers har på distansarbete för att se vilkanya utmaningar eller möjligheter det i sin tur har medfört. Metod: Metodkapitlet inleds med en redogörelse för studiens val av metod, forskningsdesignoch fallföretag samt sammanställning av referensramen. Fortsättningsvis presenterasdatainsamlingen som baseras på semistrukturerade intervjuer, en intervjuguide och val avrespondenter. Vidare beskrivs tillvägagångssättet vid analys av empiriskt material, därtranskribering och tematisk analys utgör denna punkt. Slutligen presenteras studienskvalitetskriterier och etiska överväganden. Slutsats: Digitaliseringen har påverkat controllerns arbetssätt genom att implementera teknikersom effektiviserar arbetsflödet. Detta frigör tid för värdeskapande uppgifter och förbättrar beslut.Trots utmaningar som förändringsmotstånd och tidskrävande processer överväger fördelarnanackdelarna. Digitala verktyg som Excel, Power BI, och Teams är nu outbytbara för controllerspå Scania, vilket också möjliggör distansarbete. Studien visar att digitalisering och distansarbeteförbättrar effektivitet, produktivitet och flexibilitet, vilket bidrar till bättre arbetsprocesser ochinsikter för företaget.