FOREWARD

Investigating workplace flexibility using a multi-organization database: Acollaboration of academics and practitioners

Steven A.Y. Poelmansa* and Rena Chenoyb

aIESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain; bIBM

In most countries of North America, Europe, and Oceania; and increasingly in Asia and

Latin America as well; dual-earner families have become the norm. This major shift in the

global labor market and the realities of a global economy, have brought about important

changes in the lives of many individuals and families. The conflict between working and

caring responsibilities has intensified and both men and women have to come to terms with

changing gender role expectations. A new field of inquiry has emerged, under the broad

umbrella of work�family research, drawing on scholars from a wide range of disciplines.

Testimonies of this growing, multi-disciplinary field are the many work and family special

issues published in journals like Human Resource Management (Lobel, 1992), Qualitative

Sociology (Gerstel & Clawson, 2000), International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management

(Poelmans, 2003), Public Finance and Management (Amuedo-Dorantes & Kimmel, 2005),

and Career Development International (de Janasz, 2007). In 1999, Community, Work &

Family became the first journal to create a dedicated forum for this multi-disciplinary field.

This special issue, ‘Investigating Workplace Flexibility Using a Multi-organization

Database: A Collaboration of Academics and Practitioners’, is unique and offers an

important landmark in this growing domain of scholarship.

Four unique contributions to work�family scholarship

This special issue makes four landmark contributions to work�family scholarship. First, it

represents a laudable model for collaboration between academics and practitioners. Often

these two groups conceptualize, research, analyze, and speak in two completely separate

worlds. This special issue successfully integrates academic scholars and consulting

practitioners on a common project and proves that each can enhance the other’s

perspective. This is unique. Because company representatives are often hesitant to reveal

information about such confidential issues as employee satisfaction, stress, and turnover,

work�family scholars have to confront major roadblocks to gain access to proprietary

corporate data. That this project has overcome these roadblocks makes this special issue

remarkable.

Second, it is an example of how proprietary corporate data can be made available for

academic scholarship. WFD Consulting collected data in 25 US companies between 1996

and 2006. Normally, after the reports are written and presentations given, these data would

be locked up in corporate file drawers � sometimes acted upon, other times left to gather

*Corresponding author. Email: SPoelmans@iese.edu

Community, Work & Family,

Vol. 11, No. 2, May 2008, 133�137

ISSN 1366-8803 print/ISSN 1469-3615

# 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13668800802049899

http://www.informaworld.com

dust. However, empowered with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, WFD

teamed with an advisory committee of academic researchers to develop and analyze this

multi-organization database with safeguards to maintain the proprietary nature of the

data. They were extremely successful as all 25 organizations gave their consent to include

their data in the database. The large scale of this accumulation of data can be considered as

exceptional in the international work�family literature, which is generally characterized by

relatively small samples collected by academic researchers in companies won over by

painstaking efforts. Another notable exception is the European project (CRANET)

organized by Cranfield (for some of the results of this study see Raghuram, London, &

Larsen, 2001), which used a multiple firm, multiple country database to study how

national differences based on cultural values impact the structure of work and adoption of

flexible work arrangements. However, this type of dataset is clearly the exception, rather

than the rule.

Third, this special issue makes a unique methodological contribution because all

studies draw upon the same multi-firm dataset. By using one, unique set of data collected

with the same set of robust measures in multiple firms, problems related to comparability

of results are reduced. In addition, the same method (hierarchical linear modeling) wasused in each of the empirical studies, lending greater understanding among the studies.

Finally, the large size of the dataset enabled the researchers to distinguish differences

among sub-groups that in other datasets would have too few responses to be analyzed.

Fourth, this special issue contributes to the work�family domain by systematically

exploring the most significant structural response formulated to confront work�family

conflict �workplace flexibility. Most scholarly studies focusing on workplace flexibility have

found positive outcomes for employees and organizations. In spite of this, there is a growing

uneasiness about whether there may be a ‘dark side’ of flexibility � that it may abolish the

natural boundaries between work and family. IBM is one of the companies that recognizes

that work�life issues are among the single biggest challenges their employees face. In the

new world of work, increased global contacts are resulting in the disappearance of

traditional 9 to 5 jobs. In a 24/7 environment, the enterprise is always working and low cost

technology enables work to continue from any location at any time. This flexibility to work

‘anytime, anywhere’ can be an enabler or inhibitor both to family and business processes

depending on the choices made by employees. Work will not stop unless our employees are

disciplined enough to control it. This unique dataset and the numerous studies reported in

this special issue offer an opportunity to advance our understanding of both the positiveand negative influence of workplace flexibility.

Content of the special issue

This special issue holds a total of seven contributions, two theoretical/methodological

pieces, four empirical studies, and one practitioner analysis. The first paper ‘Defining and

Conceptualizing Workplace Flexibility’ (Hill, Grzywacz et al., 2008) serves the specific

purpose of defining the central concept, workplace flexibility. This paper presents a

conceptual framework of antecedents and consequences of workplace flexibility, drawing

upon the most up-to-date scholarly literature. Workplace flexibility, the central construct

of this special issue, is defined as ‘the ability of workers to make choices influencing when,

where, and for how long they engage in work-related tasks’.The second piece, ‘Using a Multi-organization Database: Research Methods,

Strengths, and Limitations’ (Civian, Richman, Shannon, Shulkin, & Brennan, 2008),

describes how this unique database was assimilated and structured as well as the specific

134 S. A. Y. Poelmans & R. Chenoy

measures used for analyzing this large, multi-firm sample. In addition, it describes some

of the challenges and necessary limitations to be considered. It lays the groundwork for

the subsequent studies reporting the actual results drawn from this unique dataset.

The first empirical paper is ‘Exploring the Relationship of Workplace Flexibility,

Gender, and Life Stage to Family-to-Work Conflict, and Stress and Burnout’ (Hill, Jacob

et al., 2008). Its unique contribution is that it incorporates the construct life stage, as

defined by the presence or absence of children and their ages, in order to see how the use

and value placed upon workplace flexibility varies by gender and by life stage. The most

important finding of this study is that gender, life stage, and their interaction do matter in

predicting family-to-work conflict and stress and burnout in conjunction with workplace

flexibility � and that life stage matters most.

The next paper, ‘The Relationship of Perceived Flexibility, Supportive Work�Life

Policies, and Use of Formal Flexible Arrangements and Occasional (Informal) Flexibility

to Employee Engagement and Expected Retention’ (Richman, Civian, Shannon, Hill, &

Brennan, 2008), is unique because it examines engagement and retention outcomes, rather

than traditional measures of individual well-being. The most significant finding of this

study is that even occasional use of flexibility � the ability to occasionally vary work hours

or work from home � results in increased employee engagement and expectations to remain

with the organization.

The study ‘Schedule Flexibility and Stress: Linking Formal Flexible Arrangements

and Perceived Flexibility to Employee Health’ (Grzywacz, Carlson, & Shulkin, 2008)

tests hypothesized associations among employee participation in formal flexible work

arrangements, perceived flexibility, and stress and burnout. This study differs from

existing research in that it focuses on flexibility as both an environmental attribute

(formal flexible arrangements) and as a phenomenological experience (perceived

flexibility). The findings suggest that participation in formal arrangements that involve

flextime promotes a sense among workers that they have the discretion to fit job-related

responsibilities into their broader lives, and this discretion contributes to less stress and

burnout.The study ‘The Multi-generational Workforce: Workplace Flexibility and Engagement’

(Pitt-Catsouphes & Matz-Costa, 2008) makes an important contribution by exploring the

perceptions of employees of different ages regarding the flexibility they need at work

(flexibility fit) and their engagement with work. This is important, because one may

wonder whether workplace flexibility is equally relevant for older workers as it is for the

collective that most studies focus on: young and middle-aged employees with children. The

results suggest that although flexibility fit is a powerful positive predictor of engagement

for all employees, it may be a more powerful predictor of engagement for older workers.

The last paper, ‘Challenging Common Myths about Workplace Flexibility: Research

Notes from the Multi-organization Database’ (Johnson, Shannon, & Richman, 2008)

questions some highly resistant, but untested assumptions about workplace flexibility

that exert a lot of influence on formal decision-making processes of management and the

general organizational culture in firms. Three myths that have been especially influential

are those that (1) perpetuate an image of part-time workers as ‘second class’ by virtue of

lower commitment, (2) assume greater applicability of flexibility for exempt than for non-

exempt workers, and (3) depict flexibility as a luxury not compatible with competitive

times or demanding jobs. With descriptive analyses, the authors make the case to dispel

each of these myths.

Community, Work & Family 135

Conclusion

In addition to offering a unique set of related studies all based on one common database,

this special issue represents a courageous, very much needed effort of academics and

practitioners to join forces. I encourage the readers to share this special issue with their

colleagues and contacts on both the academic and organizational side, not just because of

its conclusions concerning the value, applicability, and relevance of workplace flexibility,

but also in the hope they find inspiration and arguments to engage more in collaborations

in order to ensure the relevance and impact of applied research in the work�family domain.

Only together, we can continue exploring this field in a meaningful way.

Notes on contributors

Steven A.Y. Poelmans, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Managing People in Organizations

Department of IESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain. He teaches leadership, organizational

behavior, managerial communication, coaching, and self-management to MBA students and

executives. He is co-founder and Academic Director of the International Centre of Work and

Family (ICWF) at the IESE Business School.

Rena Chenoy is a Human Resources Global Program Manager for Work/Life Flexibility and

Mobility in Markham, Ontario, Canada. She has worked for IBM for 18 years in direct marketing,

education, and diversity programs.

References

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Gerstel, N., & Clawson, D. (2000). Introduction to the special issue on work and families. QualitativeSociology, 23(4), 375�378.

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Hill, E. J., Grzywacz, J. G., Allen, S., Blanchard, V. L., Matz-Costa, C., Shulkin, S., et al. (2008).Defining and conceptualizing workplace flexibility. Community, Work & Family, 11(2), 149�163.

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Poelmans, S. (2003). Editorial. The multi-level ‘fit’ model of work and family (Editorial introductionto special issue on ‘Theoretical frameworks for cross-cultural research on work and family’).International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 3(3), 267�274.

136 S. A. Y. Poelmans & R. Chenoy

Raghuram, S., London, M., & Larsen, H. H. (2001). Flexible employment practices in Europe:Country versus culture. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(5), 738�753.

Richman, A. L., Civian, J. T., Shannon, L. L., Hill, E. J., & Brennan, R. T. (2008). The relationship ofperceived flexibility, supportive work�life policies, and use of formal arrangements and occasional(informal) flexibility to employee engagement and expected retention. Community, Work & Family,11(2), 183�197.

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