Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The fallacy of integration: work and non‐work in professional services

The fallacy of integration: work and non‐work in professional services Many organisations are encouraging their staff to integrate work and non‐work, but a qualitative study of young professionals found that many crave greater segregation rather than more integration. Most wished to build boundaries to separate the two and simplify a complex world. Where working practices render traditional boundaries of time and space ineffective, this population seems to create new idiosyncratic boundaries to segregate work from non‐work. These idiosyncratic boundaries depended on age, culture and life‐stage though for most of this population there was no appreciable gender difference in attitudes to segregating work and non‐work. Gender differences only became noticeable for parents. A matrix defining the dimensions to these boundaries is proposed that may advance understanding of how individuals separate their work and personal lives. In turn, this may facilitate the development of policies and practices to integrate work and non‐work that meet individual as well as organisational needs. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Women in Management Review Emerald Publishing

The fallacy of integration: work and non‐work in professional services

Download PDF
10 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/the-fallacy-of-integration-work-and-non-work-in-professional-services-yokbgGG6ZG

References (28)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
0964-9425
DOI
10.1108/09649420410541254
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Many organisations are encouraging their staff to integrate work and non‐work, but a qualitative study of young professionals found that many crave greater segregation rather than more integration. Most wished to build boundaries to separate the two and simplify a complex world. Where working practices render traditional boundaries of time and space ineffective, this population seems to create new idiosyncratic boundaries to segregate work from non‐work. These idiosyncratic boundaries depended on age, culture and life‐stage though for most of this population there was no appreciable gender difference in attitudes to segregating work and non‐work. Gender differences only became noticeable for parents. A matrix defining the dimensions to these boundaries is proposed that may advance understanding of how individuals separate their work and personal lives. In turn, this may facilitate the development of policies and practices to integrate work and non‐work that meet individual as well as organisational needs.

Journal

Women in Management Review – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jun 1, 2004

Keywords: Professional services; Lifestyles; Family life; Gender

There are no references for this article.