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Purpose of This Chapter: >The study examines the importance and effect of working over office hours and lengthy commutes on work–life balance because both consume time away from the official working hours. The study utilized perceived organizational support to measure the moderating role of working over office hours, lengthy commutes, and work–family balance.

Design / Methodology / Approach: An inferential statistics cross-sectional study collected data from 437 full-time employees of IT-BPM companies in 5 metropolitan cities in India. The study used the PLS-SEM to examine the hypotheses.

Findings: The results show a negative relationship between working over office hours and lengthy commutes on work–family balance. This study also found the moderating effect of perceived organizational support on working over office hours and lengthy commutes on the work–family balance. Also, the study revealed that half of the respondents spend three hours, and one-fourth of the respondents spend four and half hours working over office hours and lengthy commutes.

Research Limitations: This research is limited to IT-BPM companies in India. Nevertheless, the findings highlight the factors associated with IT-BPM employee work–family balance, and only two factors were identified.

Practical Implications: This study enhances the work–family balance’s theoretical and practical effects. The results provide a competitive benchmark for IT-BPM managers, administrators, and governing bodies of employee well-being.

Originality: To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to adopt extrinsic variables in work–family border theory to measure the work–family balance of IT-BPM employees.

The role of railways within urban areas is analysed, covering ‘metro’ systems (self-contained heavy rail networks, often with substantial underground sections), light rail (both upgraded street tramways and newer systems), and travel by regional and national railways within urban areas. Basic operating characteristics, system capacity, capital costs, and technological change are examined. ‘Sustainability’ is analysed in respect of energy use and environmental impact, railways’ role in supporting high-density urban living (with associated benefits through greater use of non-motorised modes), and financial aspects (coverage of operating costs and ability to finance capital renewals). Current issues examined include the effect of users shifting to more flexible working patterns, the Covid pandemic, automation, and ownership. In general, urban railways can be seen to support a sustainable lifestyle, although some issues do arise in respect of longer distance commuting.

The purpose of this paper is to assess cost of land title formalisation in Ghana from the standpoint of individual land/property owners with the view to suggesting a cost-effective means for title formalisation in the country.

The paper adopts a quantitative research approach with mainly questionnaire instruments to obtain data from real estate valuers, land agents and lawyers in Accra, Ghana's capital city.

Consistent with the literature, the paper found that title formalisation cost is high with extensive time lag. A substantial portion of the cost emanates from commuting cost for follow-ups to expedite action on title formalisation activities, cost of time lag and unofficial and professional fees for facilitation of title formalisation activities.

For land title formalisation to contribute to socio-economic development of Ghana and other developing countries, there is a need for effective and efficient land title formalisation regime to reduce excessive time lag and monetary cost for title formalisation.

Few studies have examined the extent of title formalisation cost in sub-Saharan Africa. Most of these studies tend to overlook several indirect costs and give misleading cost reportage or focus on social cost. The study analyses land title formalisation cost from individual land/property owners’ standpoint. The paper incorporates indirect costs and gives an idea as to the cost trend. Being first of its kind, the study presents a new dimension to the assessment of land title formalisation cost in Ghana for policy formulation and practice.

Previous theoretical and empirical literature has advocated growth in the access and use of flexible working arrangements by establishing their link with individual and especially parental subjective well-being. Given this, the current research investigates impact that their own or their partners’ transition to flexitime and teleworking has on parental subjective well-being. The cross-partner dimension has not been explored yet by prior studies. Measures for cognitive, subjective well-being include satisfaction with life overall, satisfaction with the amount of leisure time, and satisfaction with health. Ordered logit longitudinal models are estimated using Understanding Society data from 2009 to 2019. Corroborating prior studies, the current analysis finds that mothers’ transition to flexitime and teleworking has a positive impact on their leisure time and health satisfaction. For fathers, switching to telework improves satisfaction with their amount of leisure time, while adopting flexitime can take a toll on self-reported health satisfaction. However, contrary to expectations, mothers’ move to teleworking can be injurious for fathers’ life satisfaction levels, yet fathers’ adoption of flexitime fosters mothers’ satisfaction with their leisure time amount.

Telework – the practice of allowing employees to work in locations other than traditional workplaces – has had a roller-coaster ride since the early 1970s, when it was argued that home-based networked computers would enable employees to work remotely and, thus, outdate the old factory–style model of corporate life. It was assumed that telework, or telecommuting, would be widely accepted and indeed it was much sought after by employees, particularly by women; but management fears of, and resistance to the practice – for a variety of reasons – meant that by 2019 in the United Kingdom, for example, only 5% of the labor force worked mainly from home.

The chapter summarizes the history of telecommuting, discusses the reasons for employers' and managers' refusal to allow it, and how the crisis of Covid-19 may have persuaded managers worldwide – with government support – to implement and improve the entire practice of working from home as a permanent aspect of workplace diversity.

This study analyses the future job characteristics that are preferred by economics and business administration students in three specific regions of Spain, Colombia and Ecuador, and estimates their willingness to accept each.

A discrete choice experiment (DCE) is carried out in these three regions. The econometric approach is based on the Random Parameter Logit model, which accounts for both the observed and unobserved heterogeneity by the use of socio-demographic variables and correlated random parameters.

The main conclusions indicate that the most important job characteristic for students in all three countries is the long-term career prospects at the company, while a permanent contract is one of the least important job attributes. Regarding the more specific conclusions related to each country, the Ecuadorian students seem to have a higher preference for training opportunities, given the strong relationship between the level of education and the job category. The Spanish students seem to value their commuting time more highly than the South American students.

To authors’ best knowledge, this is the first DCE-based study of economics and business administration students’ preferences for future jobs that has been conducted simultaneously in three countries on two different continents. Furthermore, this study presents fresh cross-country data that allow authors to compare student choices between South American and European countries. As a result, by focusing on the DCE approach, this study estimated the monetary amount that students from each country are willing to accept for each of the analysed job characteristics. Thus, this research fills a vacuum in the literature on student job preferences between three Latin speaking countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the employment trajectories, aspirations, work‐life balance and career mobility of women working as part‐time managers.

In‐depth, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 16 female part‐time managers and four of their line managers in public and private‐sector organizations. Interviews explored women's career trajectories before and after the transition to part‐time work and focused on career mobility, aspirations and work‐life balance.

The part‐time managers in this sample held varied careers while working full‐time but careers stalled once a transition to part‐time work was made. The majority were career focused, worked intensively and felt frustrated with their lack of mobility and career progression while working part‐time. The majority worked in excess of their contracted hours and did not experience an appropriate reallocation of work when they reduced hours.

This paper is of value to both researchers and policy makers. Policy implications point to the limitations of the current UK legislation on the right to request flexible working. The paper states that further research would be beneficial on the ways in which managers employed on part‐time and other flexible contracts, operate successfully in organizations, with the aim of championing alternative working patterns and breaking down traditional long hours cultures which act as a barrier to women and part‐time workers.

This paper explores the employment profiles and experiences of a little studied and rare group of female workers.

The size and number of employment subcenters have increased in large metropolitan areas as the spatial distribution of jobs has become increasingly decentralized. Although employment decentralization is not a new phenomenon, only recently have concentrations of employment outside the central city begun to rival the traditional central business district (CBD) in size and scope. Because of this change, neither theoretical nor empirical models in urban economics now rely solely on the traditional monocentric city model of Muth (1969) and Mills (1972). Instead, recent research incorporates some version of a polycentric model, a trend that Anas et al. (1998) document in their excellent review article.

Results of an in‐depth study of the electronic publishing (EP) industry, with particular emphasis on the consumer marketplace, are presented. EP was defined as the use of electronic media to deliver information to users in electronic form or from electronic sources. EP is contrasted to electronic‐aided publishing, which is the use of electronic means to format and produce a conventional information product. An “information chain” model of the information flows between publishers (or producers) and users was helpful in understanding the boundaries of EP and defining its markets. Following a review of the conventional publishing industry, a model of the forces driving the EP industry was derived. Although technology is the strongest driving force, it is by no means the only one; the others are economics, demographics, social trends, government policies, applications growth, and industry trends. Each of these forces is described in detail in a “cause and effect” scenario, from which keys to success in the EP marketplace are derived. Although there is some turmoil in the industry, with new services continuing to appear and disappear, the overall picture is one of optimism. EP should be a significant part of consumers' lives by the end of the decade.

The growth of telecommuting is occurring at an ever‐expanding rate and bringing with it the challenge to organizations to enhance development opportunities for both telecommuters and their managers. Reports a survey of the use of telecommuting by a sample of 91 companies among the top 1,000 firms in Canada. Found that telecommuting is typically introduced for reasons of economic efficiency, and little thought is given to the development needs of telecommuting employees despite a clear need for telecommuting expertise. Concludes that telecommuting will bring significant changes in management‐employee relationships and the need for new designs in human resource development programmes.