Examining the link between flexible working arrangement bundles and employee work effort

• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Date: 01 July 2019
• Author: Ioulia Bessa,Argyro Avgoustaki
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21969

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Examining the link between flexible working arrangement

bundles and employee work effort

Argyro Avgoustaki

1

| Ioulia Bessa

2

1

Department of Management, ESCP Europe

Business School, London, UK

2

Work and Employment Relations Division,

Leeds University Business School, Leeds, UK

Correspondence

Argyro Avgoustaki, ESCP Europe Business

School, 527 Finchley Road, London NW3 7BG,

UK.

Email: aavgoustaki@escpeurope.eu

Funding information

Spanish Ministry of Economics and

Competitiveness, Grant/Award Number:

ECO2012-33308

Abstract

Empirical evidence regarding the link between flexible working arrangements (FWAs)

and work effort is mixed, with the literature showing that some practices are linked

to more while others to less work effort. In this study, we argue that this discrepancy

may be due to the existence of different types of FWA bundles with potentially dis-

tinct effects on work effort. Using Understanding Society, a British national survey,

and building on theories related to social exchange, the study examines the link

between employee-centered and employer-centered FWA bundles, and work effort.

This study further tests whether these relationships differ depending on employees'

family responsibilities. Based on a sample of 13,834 employees, results show that

both employee-centered and employer-centered FWA bundles are negatively associ-

ated with work effort, and findings for the latter bundle are more pronounced. These

negative associations are somewhat stronger for employees with fewer family

responsibilities. We infer that employees appear to use employee-centered FWAs

for their intended purpose, that is, to balance life and job demands, while they might

perceive employer-centered FWAs as unfair, resulting in less work effort in an

attempt to restore fairness.

KEYWORDS

bundles, extensive work effort, flexible working arrangements, intensive work effort, social

exchange theory

1|INTRODUCTION

Many organizations have turned their attention to flexible working

arrangements (FWAs), such as flexitime, job sharing, and work from

home (Kelly & Moen, 2007; Kossek & Lautsch, 2018). FWAs are com-

monly used as a tool to enable employee flexibility, with the objective

to improve well-being, work–life balance, and firm performance

(Anderson, Coffey, & Byerly, 2002; de Menezes & Kelliher, 2011;

Ortega, 2009; Schieman, Milkie, & Glavin, 2009). Despite the prolifer-

ation of FWAs, however, evidence regarding how FWAs are associ-

ated with employee outcomes remains mixed. Some studies find that

FWAs are associated with better well-being (Almer & Kaplan, 2002;

Gajendran & Harrison, 2007; Glass & Finley, 2002) and higher

productivity and performance (Baltes, Briggs, Huff, Wright, & Neu-

man, 1999; Bloom, Liang, Roberts, & Ying, 2015; Perry-Smith & Blum,

2000), yet others suggest that the link between FWAs and firm per-

formance is at best absent (Bloom, Kretschmer, & Van Reenen, 2011)

and the link to employee outcomes possibly negative. For example,

FWAs have been associated with low job quality (McGovern,

Smeaton, & Hill, 2004; Stavrou, 2005; Wilson, Brown, & Creagan,

2008) and increased work effort (Kelliher & Anderson, 2010).

One employee outcome that has attracted considerable interest

among scholars in the human resource management (HRM) and eco-

nomics literature (Burchell & Fagan, 2004; Green, 2001; Kelliher &

Anderson, 2010) is the effort employees expend at work, both in

terms of work intensity and overtime. Work effort is important from

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21969

Hum Resour Manage. 2019;58:431–449. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 431

the employee's point of view because it has implications for their

well-being and career progression (Avgoustaki & Frankort, 2018). Per-

haps as a consequence, work effort has become a prime focus of the

literature on the employee-level implications of FWAs. Indeed, empiri-

cal evidence regarding the link between FWAs and work effort has

started to accumulate, yet here too evidence remains mixed regarding

how FWAs and work effort are related: Some studies show that

FWAs are associated with more work effort (Bloom et al., 2015;

Kelliher & Anderson, 2010), while others find the reverse (Avgoustaki,

2016; White, Hill, McGovern, Mills, & Smeaton, 2003).

In the face of such equivocal evidence, we identify and aim to

address two issues that have remained underexplored in the literature

on the implications of FWAs for employee work effort. First, prior

research has tended to examine one or a small number of FWAs and

their relation to work effort. However, firms commonly expose

employees to multiple related FWAs (Bloom et al., 2011; Pas, Peters,

Doorewaard, Eisinga, & Lagro-Janssen, 2011; Piasna, 2018; Stavrou,

2005). Thus, focusing on only a subset of such practices might be

problematic because employees likely respond to the bundle of com-

bined FWAs rather than individual practices in a vacuum. This is

important because bundles of practices can produce effects that are

distinct from the individual practices comprising the bundle

(Ichniowski, Shaw, & Prennushi, 1997), a key point made by the stra-

tegic HRM (SHRM) literature (Delery, 1998; Huselid, 1995;

MacDuffie, 1995). Bundle effects can derive from the fact that human

resource practices may strengthen or weaken one another, and so

understanding the combined aggregate effects of such relations

requires a focus on bundles of practices.

Second, although one might conceive of FWAs as comprising a

single bundle, such an approach does not consider the possible exis-

tence of different types of FWAs. Prior research has categorized

FWAs broadly into two types: employee-centered FWAs and employer-

centered FWAs (Alis, Karsten, & Leopold, 2006; Chung & Tijdens,

2013; Stavrou, 2005). Employee-centered FWAs are those practices

that primarily serve employees’interests, whereas employer-centered

FWAs are of greater primary interest to employers. As such, these two

types of FWA likely fall into two separate bundles of internally consis-

tent practices and, because in the first instance they serve the inter-

ests of either employees or employers, the two FWA types might

have distinct effects on employee work effort. A focus on two FWA

bundles seems important, therefore, because it allows the different

bundles to have their own implications for work effort—implications

that may be distinct.

Consequently, in this study, we ask the following question: How

are employee-centered and employer-centered FWA bundles associated

with employee work effort? Building on the SHRM literature, we

develop the idea that FWAs fall into separate, composite bundles with

potentially distinct effects on work effort. To develop our hypotheses,

we draw on theories related to social exchange, which for both FWA

bundles provide competing predictions regarding how they are linked

to employee work effort. One key principle underpinning social

exchange theories is the act of reciprocation (Akerlof, 1982), in which

employees may perceive employee-centered FWAs as a gift, and this

is likely to result in additional work effort in exchange. Yet, if

employees feel entitled to these practices or regard them as a norm,

then such practices might no longer be perceived as a gift in need of

reciprocation (de Menezes & Kelliher, 2017). In that case, employees

might use employee-centered FWAs for their intended purpose, that

is, to facilitate their needs and balance life and job demands, resulting

instead in less work effort. FWAs can also be employer-centered

when introduced as cost-containment strategies to reduce labor cost

while enhancing efficiency, which is likely to result in increased work

effort. Yet, employees might express doubt or perceive unfairness

(Spector & Fox, 2002) regarding the provision of employer-centered

FWAs. As such they might not reciprocate but instead respond with

counterproductive work behavior, such as reduced work effort.

We test these predictions using wave 2 (2010–2012) of Under-

standing Society, a national survey conducted in the UK. This data set

contains detailed information about FWAs at the individual level and

allows us to control for a broad set of individual-level and firm-level

characteristics. These data also allow us to examine whether the fam-

ily responsibilities of employees, as proxied by gender, marital status,

and the number of children, moderate the role of FWAs in shaping

work effort.

Our study contributes to the SHRM literature by elevating the

analysis of the implications of FWAs from the individual practice to

the level of two different types of FWA bundles. The basic distinction

we propose between bundles of employee-centered and employer-

centered FWAs, and how these relate to work effort, has the potential

to advance an understanding of the implications of FWA bundles for

work effort. Conceptually, the basic distinction between employee-

centered and employer-centered FWAs allows us to elucidate the dif-

ferent mechanisms through which either bundle of FWAs can affect

work effort. Empirically, the distinction allows the two different bun-

dles to have effects of their own. We also contribute to the literature

by adopting an individual-level perspective, which addresses the need

to consider outcomes more proximate to the practices of interest, that

is, employee work effort rather than firm performance. Finally, in light

of prior research on the role of family responsibilities as potential

moderators (e.g., Kelly et al., 2008; Konrad & Mangel, 2000), we

assess the differences in these relationships according to the idiosyn-

cratic family responsibilities of employees.

2|CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND

2.1 |FWA types

FWAs are working practices that allow more control with regard to

where,when, and how work is done (Chung & van der Horst, 2018; de

Menezes & Kelliher, 2017; Kossek & Lautsch, 2018), such as flexitime,

compressed hours, and work from home. Building on this definition,

Kossek and Lautsch (2018) further add the dimensions of how much

work is done, referring to practices such as part-time, term-time, and

job sharing (Chung & van der Horst, 2018), and for how long work is

done, referring to practices such as parental or sick leave.

432 AVGOUSTAKI AND BESSA