European top managers' support for work-life arrangements

Abstract

In recent decades, work-life arrangements increasingly became an integral part of the organization of work. Arrangements such as telecommuting, flextime, part-time hours, and various types of leave arrangements are available to employees in many organizations. Top managers, such as CEOs, CFOs and members of boards of directors, are central to work-life arrangements, as they are the ones who decide whether or not their organization provides them. In addition, they are in the position to affect the acceptance of the use of work-life arrangements throughout the organization. Nevertheless, researchers have seldom included them directly in studies towards the provision of work-life arrangements. We therefore know little about why they decide to adopt or stimulate them in their organizations or refrain from doing so. This dissertation takes a first step to including the top managers’ perspective in the literature about work-life arrangements, aiming to understand top managers’ support for work-life arrangements in their organization. Based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, the studies presented reveal the factors that top managers consider when deciding whether or not to provide work-life arrangements and the conditions under which they are willing to support them in their own organizations. By focusing on various countries, specifically on Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and the U.K., differences in top managers’ considerations are related to the broader policy and societal context. Results show that top managers put the organization’s interests first and evaluate each policy separately against how they believe it will affect the organization. In general, they are most supportive of flextime and telecommuting, showing that this is where the current developments take place. They are least supportive of part-time working hours. However, their reluctance against part-time hours varies between countries and is related to the social acceptance of part-time work. When it is more accepted, top managers are more supportive. How willing top managers are to provide leave arrangements beyond what is statutory required and to provide on-site child care is related to government policies. In countries where the government provides extensive leave arrangements and public child care, top managers see leave arrangements and child care options as a government responsibility and therefor not theirs to provide. However, in these countries top managers do more often feel that it is their social responsibility to provide work-life arrangements. This shows that the degree to which top managers evaluate work-life arrangements in terms of a business case varies between countries. Finally, work-life arrangements seem to enjoy growing acceptance among top managers and are regarded as belonging to general terms of employment, suggesting that they are increasingly available to a larger part of the workers within an organization rather than the lucky few.