Representations of work—life balance support
分析了10家公司24个网站上的文本，发现雇主对工作—生活平衡的支持表述存在矛盾：明面支持，但隐含信息将其视为特权，并强化了传统理想员工和父母的规范。
This article explores how employers portray themselves as supporters of work—life balance (WLB) in texts found on 24 websites of 10 different companies. With a theoretical framework based on a critical reflection on strategic HRM, feminist studies of organizational culture and hegemonic power processes, we examine implicit and explicit messages of work, life, and WLB support. We study the cultural norms that can be distilled from these articulations, including the concepts of the ideal worker and the ideal parent and discuss the possible (unintended) effects of the implicit and explicit messages. Our analysis shows the ambiguity of the different messages conveyed on WLB support. In contrast to the explicit supportive messages, implicit messages present WLB-arrangements as a privilege. The majority of websites reproduce traditional cultural norms regarding ideal workers and parents and the power of hegemony is not broken. Apparently, WLB support does not always signify support.