Organizational Paradigms Of Reduced-Load Work: Accommodation, Elaboration, And Transformation

Abstract

This study examines variation in organizational responses to part-time work arrangements among professionals and managers. Analyses of over 350 interviews generated three paradigms of differences in ways organizations implemented and interpreted reduced-load work: accommodation, elaboration, and transformation. The paradigms can be viewed as representing firms' proclivity to engage in organizational learning by using individual cases of reduced-load work as opportunities for learning new ways of working and new possibilities for core business priorities.