Work-family conflicts are common and consequential for employees, their families, and work organizations. Can workplaces be changed to reduce work-family conflict? Previous research has not been able to assess whether workplace policies or initiatives succeed in reducing work-family conflict or increasing work-family fit. Using longitudinal data collected from 608 employees of a white-collar organization before and after a workplace initiative was implemented, we investigate whether the initiative affects work-family conflict and fit, whether schedule control mediates these effects, and whether work demands, including long hours, moderate the initiative’s effects on work-family outcomes. Analyses clearly demonstrate that the workplace initiative positively affects the work-family interface, primarily by increasing employees’ schedule control. This study points to the importance of schedule control for our understanding of job quality and for management policies and practices.
In their 2000 book, Divided by Faith, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith use the case of evangelical Christians to demonstrate how uncompromising individualist ideals get in the way of clear thinking and decisive action about racial inequalities in contemporary American society. We use insights developed from whiteness studies and critical race theory to sharpen and further extend this analysis. More specifically, we suggest: (1) that anti-black stereotypes may be subtler, more pervasive, and more functionally necessary than Emerson and Smith assume; and (2) that the individualistic ideals Emerson and Smith focus on are not race neutral but, instead, are part of a taken-for-granted and vigorously defended majority white culture and identity. These points are developed through a theoretical reconstruction of Emerson and Smith's argument and a reevaluation of their methodological approach and data. Finally, we present data from a recent national survey of race and religion in American life that provide preliminary quantitative support for our revisionist claims.Among the scholarly works that have appeared in recent years analyzing the racial attitudes and practices of evangelical Christians (has been as influential as Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's Divided by Faith (2000). The study is impressive on a number of fronts-in its careful, systematic data analysis; the clarity of its writing and presentation; and the quality of the (original) data on which the entire project is based. But what really gives Divided by Faith pride of place in its field, at least in our view, is the broader social and sociological significance Emerson and Smith claim for evangelicals, namely, that the expressed attitudes and ideals of evangelical Christians-especially those involving the tension between their ideological commitment to justice and equality, on the one hand, and their individualist ideals, on the other-approximate and highlight key dimensions of mainstream American racial discourse and latent values. A full understanding of the evangelical race problem, according to Emerson and Smith, thus amounts to nothing less than a better comprehension of the American race problem itself (see Emerson and Smith 2000;1-3).We think Emerson and Smith are absolutely correct about the claim that a thorough understanding of evangelical racial attitudes can reveal a great deal about mainstream American attitudes and understandings of race and racial justice. We also think that in focusing on the tensions within evangelical discourse, Emerson and Smith have opened the way to a much broader and more profound critique of the "race problem" in America, one that locates the problems of race squarely within conventional liberal democratic discourse.Here it is important to clarify how Emerson and Smith understand white evangelicals as both representative of and different from other whites and the dominant American racial discourse. It would be easy to assume that white evangelicals hold views on race that lean toward those of
Workers increasingly report time scarcity as a result of two important trends: All adults in a household now tend to work for pay (meaning no back-up homemaker) and a competitive global economy pushes employers to require fewer workers to do more with less. Nevertheless, rules and expectations about the social organization of work time are outdated, having been designed for a different type of workforce and different types of work in the last century.A corporate headquarters was rolling out a workplace innovation called ROWE (Results Only Work Environment), which pushes managers and employees to focus on results, not time spent on the job. ROWE prompts employees and managers to rethink their expectations about when and where work is done. We treated this broad flexibility initiative as a "natural experiment," surveying 325 employees before and six months after the ROWE initiative, as well as a comparison group of 334 employees who did not participate in the initiative. Using structural equation models, we tested changes in health-promoting behaviors and health outcomes among the employees participating in the ROWE initiative compared to those who did not participate, and investigated possible mechanisms that might explain that relationship.
This article investigates a change in the structuring of work time, using a natural experiment to test whether participation in a corporate initiative (Results Only Work Environment; ROWE) predicts corresponding changes in health-related outcomes. Drawing on job strain and stress process models, we theorize greater schedule control and reduced work-family conflict as key mechanisms linking this initiative with health outcomes. Longitudinal survey data from 659 employees at a corporate headquarters shows that ROWE predicts changes in health-related behaviors, including almost an extra hour of sleep on work nights. Increasing employees’ schedule control and reducing their work-family conflict are key mechanisms linking the ROWE innovation with changes in employees’ health behaviors; they also predict changes in well-being measures, providing indirect links between ROWE and well-being. This study demonstrates that organizational changes in the structuring of time can promote employee wellness, particularly in terms of prevention behaviors.
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