Is work-related smartphone use during off-job time associated with lower conflict owing to the blurring of the boundaries between work and family life? Or does it help employees juggling work and family demands? The present four-day quantitative diary study (N = 71 employees, N = 265-280 data points) aims to shed light on the relationship between daily work-related smartphone use during off-job time, and daily work-family conflict and daily family role performance, respectively. Moreover, individuals' general segmentation preference is investigated as a potential cross-level moderator in the relationships between daily work-related smartphone use during off-job time and both work-family conflict and family role performance. Overall, the results of multilevel modelling support our mediated moderation model indicating that Downloaded from Human Relations 69 (5) for integrators more frequent work-related smartphone use during off-job time is associated with better family role performance through reduced work-family conflict. For segmenters, smartphone use does not have any impact on work-family conflict and family role performance. These findings suggest that for integrators smartphone use during off-job time may be useful to simultaneously meet both work demands and family demands, which has the potential to reduce work-family conflict and enhance family role performance; whereas for segmenters no effects were found.

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This article investigates the relationships between human resource management practices associated with New Ways to Work (employee empowerment, home‐based teleworking, and creating trust relationships) and work‐related flow as experienced by employees (absorption, work enjoyment, and intrinsic work motivation). Hypotheses, based on a combined perspective integrating insights from the HRM‐process model and the job demands‐resources model, are tested using multiactor multilevel data comprising employees (N = 1,017) and their line managers (N = 89), across 89 job categories in 30 organizations. Although organizations may implement management practices aimed at empowering employees in particular job categories, this study showed that anticipated effects on work‐related flow (particularly work enjoyment) are not achieved when employees themselves do not experience being empowered, and when they do not use and experience their working conditions as job resources (home‐based teleworking and trust relationships characterized by supporting leadership, collegial support, and collegial commitment). The article concludes with recommendations regarding organizational change aimed at implementing New Ways to Work and suggestions for future research. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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To cite this Article Peters, Pascale , den Dulk, Laura and van der Lippe, Tanja(2009) 'The effects of time-spatial flexibility and new working conditions on employees' work-life balance: the Dutch case', Community, Work & Family, 12: 3, 279-297 To link to this Article:

Using a unique data set of more than 2800 organizations in 19 countries, this article investigated the variations in adoption of workplace work -family arrangements and whether this variation can be explained either by differences in welfare-state contexts or by organization-related factors. Although the welfare-state context contributed significantly to the explanation of workplace work-family arrangements, the adoption of workplace arrangements was more strongly related to organizational conditions and characteristics. However, the results also show that when the development of workfamily arrangements is mainly left to the market, as in the liberal context, employers do not fully make up for the absence of public provisions. The findings support the institutional argument that public provisions help to create a normative climate that gives rise to new social expectations and 'a sense of entitlement' regarding work-family support. The study supports the rational choice perspective where both employers' institutional environments and organizational factors are viewed as resources and constraints influencing employers' decision to adopt work -family arrangements.

A 22-item short-form of the 47-item Employability Five-Factor instrument (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006; Van der Heijden, De Lange, Demerouti, & Van der Heijde, 2009) was developed and validated across five empirical survey studies. The Short-Form Employability instrument has consistent and acceptable internal consistencies and a similar factor structure across all samples studied. The outcomes favor a five-dimensional operationalization of the employability construct over a one-dimensional higher-order construct, with good discriminant validity of the underlying employability dimensions. Moreover, since the five dimensions of employability all appeared to be significantly related to both objective and subjective career success outcome measures, the predictive validity of the shortened tool is promising. The Short-Form Employability instrument facilitates further scientific HRM and career research without compromising its psychometric qualities.

 Home-based telework is one of the arrangements organizations can introduce to facilitate a better balance between employees' professional and private lives. This article focuses on the question of under what conditions managers grant a subordinate's request to telework and what role national cultures play herein. By looking into managers' willingness to delegate power and to trust home-based teleworkers we try to explain the slow adoption of home-based telework and the reported differences across Northern and Southern European countries. In doing so we will make use of Hofstede's writings on national cultures and of the propositions made by the telework literature on how to mitigate the potential trust problem associated with distance working. The purpose of the article is to develop new hypotheses regarding factors that influence managerial decision-making concerning telework and how these interact with national cultures. To test the hypotheses, a cross-national vignette study is proposed.