Established, accelerated and emergent themes in flexible work research

Abstract

Flexible labour markets, flexible working arrangements (FWAs) and motivations behind their use are established and expanding strands of sociology of work and employment relations research. This article provides a review of key themes and debates connected to workplace flexibility between 2000-2015 utilizing research located in leading sociology of work, employment relations, industrial relations and HRM journals, in addition to key texts published during this time period. We establish that flexible work research is a growing area of research and focus our analysis on identifying key themes categorised as established, accelerated and emergent. We conclude with areas of contention yet to be resolved and possible avenues for future directions in flexible work research, noting a disconnection between macro analyses of flexibility at the economic level and the focus on flexible working-time arrangements (FWAs) at the workplace level. Furthermore we observed few quantitative multi-level modelling analyses or multi-methods research designs. To that end, analyses that can synthesise these literatures would enhance the field, as might innovations in methodological approaches which advance multi-level modelling and multi-method designs to give multiple and dynamic perspectives.

Flexible careers across the life course: Advancing theory, research and practice

“…Flexible working has emerged as a key theme in employment relations and human resource management scholarship in the past decade (Bessa and Tomlinson, 2017); however, we argue that studies suffer from two important limitations. First, there is a tendency to concentrate on the use of single items of flexible working practice at a particular career stage rather than taking a life course perspective and, second, the ways in which scholars have sought to understand how flexible working is accessed and used in the workplace is somewhat divorced from analysis beyond the workplace, notably the wider institutional and cultural context.…”

Examining the link between flexible working arrangement bundles and employee work effort

“…Our findings also imply that offering a bundle of employer‐centered FWAs may not achieve cost efficiency through enhanced work effort. Employer‐centered practices are often perceived to be contingent forms of employment that regularly imply inferior working conditions (Bessa & Tomlinson, ; McGovern et al, ; Schneider & Harknett, ). As such, they are likely to be perceived as unfair and can lead to counterproductive work behavior, manifested via less work effort, which may in turn imply lower productivity and firm performance.…”

Playing catch up? An exploration of supplementary work at home among Australian public servants

“…These mostly office-based workers have been traditionally subject to tight work-time regulations, and in a context of managerial reform and austerity face pressures to do ‘more with less’, making their supplementary work practices of particular interest. Like others who have sought to understand flexible work practices (Bessa and Tomlinson, 2017), we analyse a secondary dataset. While few large employee data sets capture supplementary work, we use the unique opportunity of the Australian Public Service Employee Census to deepen understanding through statistical analysis of which groups of workers report regularly performing supplementary work, and the circumstances under which they do so.…”