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Employees working nonstandard schedules outside the daytime hours of the Monday-Friday work week are increasing. Using Social Exchange Theory (SET), the purpose of this paper is to hypothesize relationships between scheduling preferences, attitudes, and retention indicators.

Survey data were collected from 343 US Postal Service mail processors (day, evening, or night shift; all shifts working weekends) from three cities. Multivariate analysis of covariance and multiple linear regression were used to test hypotheses related to participants’ perceptions of scheduling preferences and attitudes.

The authors found that preferences and attitudes toward shift worked had stronger relationships with each other and employee retention indicators for the night and evening shifts than the day shift, and these same relationships were stronger for the day shift when focussing on days of the week worked.

Although limited by generalizability concerns, this study provides a distinctive application of SET to work schedules and offers a unique perspective on how working nonstandard days and nonstandard times, individually, impact the employment relationship.

Better work schedule management, with increased flexibility and control, may be one way of reducing negative employee reactions to nonstandard schedules.

This study goes beyond the typical examinations of standard vs nonstandard shifts, to study multiple nonstandard shifts and examines the relationships of these schedules on employee retention variables, focussing on both shift and weekend work.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a multilevel framework for examining the links between part time work, productivity and institutional context. The authors emphasize the importance of integrating different theoretical perspectives to enrich the understanding of nonstandard work arrangements such as part time and organizational effectiveness such as productivity.

The authors used data from 2,839 businesses in 21 OECD countries. At the firm level, primary data were collected from the 2008 to 2010 survey of the Cranet research network. At the national level, the authors used information from OECD and Botero et al. (2004). The authors analysed the data using hierarchical linear modelling.

Firm use of part time work relates negatively to employment legislation but positively to gender empowerment. The relationship between part time work and productivity at firm level is moderated by employment legislation.

This study provides a basis for research in nonstandard work, firm outcomes and institutional policies to further advance.

Results indicate how managers should consider the relevant institutional context when deciding whether to promote the use of part time work. Results also show that policy-makers should be careful since employment policies may have adverse effects on use of part time in specific contexts.

The authors make theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of nonstandard arrangements by introducing a framework that better captures the complex interrelations between use of part time work, productivity and institutional context. Theoretically, the authors combine the resource based view with institutional theory into a multilevel framework that challenges the conventional model of the flexible firm.

The purpose of this study is to analyse levels of generalized trust among employees who have adapted to increasing demands for flexibility in their working lives (nonstandard work) compared with employees in traditional employment (standard work).

Data were collected using a self‐administered questionnaire distributed to randomly selected individuals in Sweden (2004, n=5,080) and a workplace survey study of temporary agency workers (2008, n=119). Data were analysed using chi‐square tests and logistic regression analysis.

The results reveal that people in nonstandard positions display significantly lower levels of generalized trust compared to standard employees, where age, gender, and socio‐economic position are constant.

Since trust has proved to be a prerequisite for innovativeness, and both flexibility and innovation are officially accepted solutions for the troubles of post‐industrial society, the findings point to a possible paradox in the “new economy”.

The results of this study are unique in that they provide valuable support for the theory that flexible working conditions lead to decreasing levels of trust in society.

Despite the pressure on work-family polices arising from the increase in nonstandard working times in various sectors, only a few studies have addressed management practices in 24/7 workplaces. This paper aims to investigate the challenges Finnish managers face in meeting the various tensions stemming from nonstandard working hours and services operating 24/7. Two typical 24/7 work contexts are focused: the hospitality and retail industries and flexibly scheduled early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. The emphasis is on management practices relating to the planning of work shifts and children’s care schedules.

Study 1 comprises focus group interviews with middle managers (N = 20) working in hotels, stores and service stations with restaurants and shopping facilities. Study 2 uses survey data on directors (N = 20) of centers offering flexibly scheduled ECEC services.

The results showed that management in 24/7 workplaces raises issues of fairness and social responsibility. Managers in both sectors were faced with constantly varying service demands, leading further to changes and unpredictability in employee working times. Alongside organizational goals, the business managers reported needing to consider employee needs and the ECEC service directors the well-being of parents and children. They also reported seeking the most cost-effective way to deliver services at a time of budget cuts.

The relatively small sample sizes and non-representative nature of the data restrict the generalizability of the results.

Service organizations need to design a 24/7 strategy that includes organizational communication and guidelines on fair work scheduling. Key issues in management are finding ways to enhance predictability within unpredictability, discussing the most common ethical problems and developing the skills needed to manage diversity. These are elements that should be included in management training.

The study contributes to the literature by focusing on seldom studied issues and innovately approached by comparing two work sectors.

The notion of worker vulnerability is often seen as synonymous with disadvantage in discussions of nonstandard work. The purpose of this paper is to separate and examine these two notions by considering economic, social and psychological perspectives and exploring the reality as experienced by agency workers.

In total, 178 Australian clerical agency workers employed by eight agencies completed a mail questionnaire. Personalised responses were subjected to computer-assisted template analysis.

Sample characteristics revealed a gendered and heterogeneous workforce. Findings showed evidence of economic, psychological and social vulnerabilities although favourable features were also reported. This apparent contradiction suggests linkages between the features of nonstandard work, worker preferences, individual characteristics and the experience of worker vulnerability.

The notion of varying degrees of worker vulnerability offers a new lens to investigate agency work. The relatively small sample size, focus on clerical work and features of the Australian context may limit generalisability.

Findings demonstrate the nature and extent of agency worker vulnerability which allows us to offer policy interventions for governments, agencies and user organisations and insights for prospective agency workers.

The widespread use of agency workers provides an imperative for frameworks to assess the nuances of the agency work experience. This study presents the reality of agency work as experienced by the workers and reveals the good and bad aspects of agency work.

Research on work status differences has yielded inconsistent results and is not relevant for today's workforce, economic circumstances, or the changing nature of work. Inconsistencies may be due to substantial heterogeneity, rather than homogeneity, within each group (part-time (PT) and full-time (FT)). Thus, researchers created a PT worker typology based on demographics and personal life roles. Systematic differences in attitudes and behaviors across derived groups of PT workers were found. The purpose of the current study is to test the applicability of this PT worker typology on FT workers and to extend the typology's foundational theory, partial inclusion theory (PIT).

The current study employs cluster analysis on three diverse samples (n=3,747) to establish a basis for the generalizability of the FT typology.

Strong support was found for a similar, but distinct, FT employee typology. Attitudinal and behavioral differences were also found among the various FT groups which were similar to the differences found among the PT groups.

The current study has implications both for the application of PIT as well management and human resources. Targeted wellness and retention programs can be designed for various groups of FT employees, including scheduling flexibility and benefit plans.

This is one of the first studies to examine the heterogeneity of the FT workforce, understanding that FT workers also have substantial life roles outside of work that likely affect their involvement and attitudes at work.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a synthesis of the contingent work field and to advocate a sustainable career perspective on contingent work.

Adopting a broader review approach allowed to synthesize the contingent work literature across contingent work types (temporary agency work, gig work and freelance work) and develop a sustainable career perspective on contingent work. The authors searched for empirical, conceptual and review articles published from 2008 to December 2021. In total, the authors included 208 articles.

The authors advocate a sustainable career perspective that allows for organizing and synthesizing the fragmented contingent work literature. Adopting a sustainable career perspective enables to study contingent work from a dynamic perspective transcending one single organization.

The field is suffering from fragmentation and most importantly from an oversight of how contingent work experiences play a role in a persons’ career. This paper addresses this problem by adopting a sustainable career perspective on contingent work.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the literature to assess the relevance of the S‐shaped model of family labor supply for industrialized countries.

Studies use a wide variety of methodologies and therefore are not readily comparable, but instead they cover a wide range of relevant factors such as historical trends, fringe benefits and home mortgages, ethnic differences, farm labor, low‐income households, child care, the impact of welfare benefits, and the problem of the measurement of work hours.

In spite of welfare systems that blur somewhat the predicted income effect at lower wage levels (forward falling segment primarily for women), this model appears to still bear some relevance for these countries, in particular in the face of declining real wages. Families have generally moved up higher along that curve, with less differentiated gender roles, women's stronger labor force attachment, and assortative mating of educated women.

The model is mostly relevant for LDCs and has far‐reaching practical consequences, while the review highlights the complexity of labor supply in industrialized countries.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

This paper aims to identify which types of creative R&D employees prefer which daily and weekly working schedules.

This paper builds on an original repeated survey of creative R&D employees from Estonia and presents multinomial logit regression estimates based on a sample of 153 individuals from 11 entities.

The probability of women preferring their weekly work to be concentrated in three to four days is 20 percentage points higher than in men, and the case is similar for less-educated creative R&D employees. The more educated prefer the standard five-day working week. Men have a stronger preference for their week of work to be dispersed over six to seven days. Sleep patterns appear to relate to working time preferences as morning-type individuals have a stronger preference for a working day with fixed start and end times. Those who sleep 7 h or more per day prefer the standard five-day working week more, while employees who sleep less than 7 h favour a working week of six to seven days. Employees who desire more creativity intensity at work have a stronger preference for irregular daily working hours, as do those with poorer general health.

The results indicate that individual characteristics have a significant impact on the preferences for working time arrangements. Similar working time regulations for all employees appear outdated, therefore, and may make work inefficient and harm individual well-being, at least for creative R&D employees.