Tuesday 26 June 2012

Flexible friends? Flexible working time arrangements, blurred work-life boundaries and friendship

an article by Vivi Bach Pedersen (Aarhus University, Denmark) and Suzan Lewis (Middlesex University Business School, UK) published in Work, Employment & Society Volume 26 Number 3 (June 2012)

Abstract

The changing nature and demands of work raise concerns about how workers can find time for activities such as friendship and leisure, which are important for well-being.

This article brings friendship into the work-life debate by exploring how individuals do friendship in a period characterized by time dilemmas, blurred work-life boundaries and increased employer- and employee-led flexible working. Interviews with employees selected according to their working time structures were supplemented by time-use diaries.

Findings indicate that despite various constraints, participants found strategies for making time for friendship by blurring boundaries between friends and family and between friends and work. However, the impacts of flexible working time structures were complex and double-edged.


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