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The purpose of this paper is to use a competency‐based model to explore empirically the factors that influence the suitability of different flexible work arrangements (FWAs) in organizations and investigate whether these FWAs match the preferences of unemployed women, whom the authors conceptualize as competitive resources.

Given the novelty of this model in FWA‐research, the authors conducted an in‐depth exploratory case study in a southern European country, Cyprus. Data were collected from both unemployed women and managers in organizations, using group interviews and questionnaires.

Overall, it was found that the FWAs that managers perceive as suitable for their organizations differ from those preferred by unemployed women. Nonetheless, specific organizational competencies affect positively the suitability of women‐friendly FWAs for organizations.

The results raise implications for policy makers and managers who want to enhance female employability and organizational competitiveness, respectively. The paper provides a blueprint for testing the concept of unemployed women viewed as strategic resources and emphasises the need to take measures to improve the perceived suitability of women‐friendly FWAs for organizations. Nonetheless, this study was limited to the Cypriot context, to private sector organizations, and to managerial intentions. Future research may build on this study to address these limitations.

This paper employs a competency‐based model to conceptualize unemployed women, who are neglected in extant research, as organizational resources. Further, it uses two different research samples to address its purposes and argues that FWAs differ in their ability to satisfy organizational and individual needs.

Family friendly workplace policies (FFWPs) are designed to help employees co‐manage work and personal obligations. With the rising aging population and subsequent emphasis on informal caregiving in Canada, Canadian employees will have to maintain paid work while serving as caregivers for family members at end‐of‐life (EoL). Thus, workplaces need to be prepared to accommodate these workers' requests. The objective of this paper is to explore, qualitatively, the workplace and employee characteristics that are most helpful to employees in EoL caregiving situations from an employer/human resources (HR) perspective so as to inform the development of FFWPs targeting this group.

The authors draw on the findings of five focus group discussions undertaken in 2008 with Canadian employers and HR professionals in the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

There are clear differences in how large and small workplaces accommodate employees who are providing EoL care. For instance, larger workplaces are more likely to have set policies around employee EoL care leaves and are unable to accommodate employees' needs that fall outside the scope of these policies; smaller workplaces are less likely to have standard policies for caregiver leaves and are more able to customize responses to leave requests. Employee characteristics such as length of time working for the employer and employee skill level also have a bearing on accommodating employee EoL care leave requests. The presence of HR infrastructure, which is more characteristically found in large workplaces, is also related to the availability of formal FFWPs.

The fact that the data were derived from the employer/HR perspective and not those of actual employees is a limitation. The small sample size and convenience (non‐random) sampling limits the generalizability of the findings.

This research contributes to the limited literature on FFWPs and EoL caregiving accommodations. The findings of this study can directly inform workplace practice, both now and in the years to come, regarding how best to support workers who are also providing informal EoL care to family, friends, and others.

The present study aims to investigate the predictive effect of work‐family conflict and work‐family facilitation on job satisfaction in the Korean hotel industry. In addition, this study seeks to examine if there is a significant effect of job satisfaction on job performance.

The data were obtained from full‐time frontline staff in ten five‐star hotels in Seoul. Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis through AMOS 4.0 were performed to demonstrate relationships among variables. In addition, frequent analysis to investigate sample characteristics and correlation analysis to determine relationships between each of the two constructs were conducted using SPSS 10.0.

The results show that job satisfaction may be improved by limiting “work to family conflicts” and evaluating the nature of “facilitation from family to work”. An additional finding is that job satisfaction may enhance job performance. Unexpectedly, “family to work conflict” significantly and positively relates to job satisfaction in the workplace.

It would be desirable for future research to study these issues via extending the sample to various categories of employment, and not only hotels but also different areas of the tourism and hospitality industry. Longitudinal research that allows social researchers and hotel organizations to understand employees better in specific industrial situations would be beneficial to understand fully the relationship of work‐family interface to job outcomes more completely.

This study proposes that organizations invest more resources in flexible working schedules, regular working hours, family‐friendly programs, and additional useful benefits and support related to family.

This study offers useful guidelines for foreign hotel entrepreneurs entering the Korean market regarding how to improve job satisfaction and job performance in relation to work‐family interaction.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research question: at the time of founding of a startup, what entrepreneurial conditions would influence the long-term offerings of HR benefits? To answer this question, our study examines the effects of four founding conditions of startups – total assets, founder’s education, industry experience and startup experience – on the basis of the resource-based view of firms.

Using data from the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) conducted in the period 2005–2010, this paper analyzed the relationships between the founding conditions and the offering of HR benefits by 4,148 new ventures during the first five years after founding. In addition, this paper examined the relationships of the same founding conditions to the offering of each of seven specific benefits: alternative work schedule, bonus plan, health insurance, paid time off, retirement plan, tuition reimbursement and stock options.

Three conditions at founding – total assets, founders’ education level, industry experience – have a positive and enduring influence on the offering of HR benefits to the employees. Startup experience has a significant effect on benefit offerings during the first year after founding but no significant effect on benefit offerings in subsequent years. All founding conditions have significant and long-lasting positive effects on each benefit, except for startup experience, which has a negative effect on some benefits.

The HRM literature indicates that there has been a surprising gap between practical interest and academic research with regard to benefits. In addition, there is a dearth of research on how entrepreneurs make strategic decisions such as offering benefits to their employees. The study represents an attempt to fill in this gap.

This study aims to explore the leaky pipeline issue (attrition of working women due to motherhood) in the Indian information technology (IT) sector. The study analyses the effect of organisational and supervisory support perceptions on the use of flexible work options and its relationship with career outcomes in terms of job satisfaction, work-life conflict and turnover intentions.

A survey questionnaire to test the hypotheses was returned by 203 working women of the Indian IT sector belonging to three categories, namely, women undergoing treatment for infertility, pregnant women and women who had recently given birth at the time of the survey.

The findings state that the use of flexible work options significantly reduce work-life conflict, decrease the intention to turnover and increase job satisfaction, with organisational and supervisory perceptions playing a significant moderating role.

The findings are based on self-reported responses. Nevertheless, the study provides insights into the work-life priorities of Indian women at the time of motherhood and opens up specific research opportunities to address the leaky pipeline due to pregnancy and childbirth.

Organisations should take genuine initiatives to effectively use the flexible work options and provide supervisory training for increased sensitivity to help reduce role conflict and let working women make informed choices in their careers and lives at the time of childbirth.

The paper could be the first known paper to study this special category of working women at the threshold of motherhood in the Indian IT sector.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how total rewards might influence intention to stay among employees of private sector banks in India. A moderated-mediation mechanism is hypothesized, in which a system of total rewards leads to intention to stay via engagement and organizational justice (OJ) moderates the linkage of total rewards with engagement.

Perception of employees about the constructs considered has been assessed by a survey, using a structured questionnaire. Employees of private banks located in the State of Uttar Pradesh were the population for this study. A total of 17 branches of 7 private banks were covered, and the number of valid responses was 761. Hypotheses testing has been done with SPSS PROCESS command.

Hypotheses proposing mediation (engagement as mediator between total rewards and intention to stay), moderation (OJ as moderator between total rewards and engagement) and moderated mediation have found support.

Results obtained direct us to infer that in addition to the amount or value of any reward, aspects of OJ, such as equity and fairness in allocation of such reward and transparency in the procedure followed, are likely to influence the effectiveness of total rewards practices in engaging employees and motivating them to stay with their present employer.

This study adds to total rewards literature by highlighting how a total rewards system can lead to engagement, and consequently to employees’ intention to stay. Results establish OJ as an important attribute to any total rewards package to make the latter more valuable and effective.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the family‐friendly policies developed in Sweden, the UK and Singapore and discuss the implications on family‐friendly policies in Hong Kong.

The study draws on policy documents of the three countries, to examine the welfare model, the service provisions and the outcomes of the family‐friendly policies.

In the study, the paper finds that considerable differences exist among the three countries in their conception of the role and responsibility of government in the reconciliation of family and work conflict. Strategies ranging from a high degree of intervention to minimal intervention are closely related to the social welfare regime of a country. Learning from the international experiences, it is important to link work and family policies in developing family‐friendly policy in Hong Kong because work and family are not two separate worlds.

Numerous studies have documented the effectiveness and impact of family‐friendly policies in their own countries, but little has been done to compare the international experiences. The analysis contributes to offer a clear direction of developing family‐friendly policy in Hong Kong.

The purpose of this study is to examine justice perceptions using potential employee conflict over provision of a work‐life benefit, and to link the findings to existing theory and research in organizational justice.

A total of 208 undergraduates at a liberal arts college responded to a version of the scenario. There were six versions, representing varied organizational conditions, with hypotheses based on both theory and previous empirical work.

Students were asked whether they preferred equity (contribution), equality or need as the allocation norm to be used in the scenario. Under all organizational conditions, equity is favored over the other two norms, but some differences emerge. Organizational conditions that are less empowering and more stressful lead to higher preference for equality and need than when organizations are seen as treating employees well. In contrast with some earlier findings, women are more likely than men to prefer equity as the basis for the decision; but women's choices differ significantly between the long hours and family‐friendly scenarios, with a pronounced shift to need as the allocation norm in the long hours condition.

Although some researchers have examined organizational justice norms in relation to work‐life benefits, little attention has been shown to the mechanisms involved in creating perceptions of unfairness relative to these benefits. The study demonstrates the importance of organizational context in determining when these benefits may be perceived as being fair, thereby averting the potential for conflict between employees.

Work from home has become as regular as the traditional commuting system after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies have discussed the influence of working at home on the work–family interface. However, there is limited understanding of how diverse workforces manage their work–family issues with various family-friendly policies. This study aims to bridge this research gap by examining the collective influence of work conditions and family-friendly policies on work–family balance.

A survey experiment featuring two working conditions (work from home or commuting) × four family-friendly policies (household subsidy, family-friendly supervisor, financial profit, paid leave vs no policy) was approached based on 703 valid responses in China.

The results indicate that family-friendly policies are more effective under the work-from-home condition than the commuting condition, household subsidies and financial profits are considered more helpful for work–family balance under the work-from-home condition and employees’ policy preferences depend on personal identity and work conditions, which help them maintain work and family issues concurrently.

This study explores the joint impact of work conditions and family-friendly policies from a situational perspective. This study indicated that professional organizations need to perform delicacy management considering policy preferences. Moreover, changing working arrangements help employees facilitate their work–family balance.