Beyond time-binds: Rethinking work–family dynamics for a mobile world

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Hughes, Karen D.
  • Silver, William A.

• Contemporary work is increasingly mobile, sparking new challenges for scholars of work and organizations. In this review article, we argue that a ‘mobilities lens’ offers strong potential for rethinking established approaches, focusing on one important sub-field: workfamily studies. Drawing on a ‘problematization’ approach (Sandberg and Alvesson, 2011), and a systematic literature review (SLR) of work-family research published from 1995-2015, we show how theoretical assumptions about time, space, and place have narrowed the scope of workfamily studies, focusing attention on ‘time’ and ‘time-binds’, and a limited subset of mobilities (e.g. telework, commuting). We argue that a mobilities lens can help us ‘think differently’ about work-family dynamics, prompting theoretical and methodological reorientations that recognize the inextricable connection of time and space (as ‘time-space’) and the need for a more encompassing excavation of the power, practice, and meaning of employment-related mobility (ERM) in work-family life. We sketch out a ‘mobilities inspired’ agenda to illustrate how ideas from mobilities studies can enrich work-family inquiry. We also discuss how mobilities studies can benefit, in turn, from greater engagement with work-family and organizational research.

• Date created

  2019-01-26

• Subjects / Keywords

  • work-family dynamics
  • work-family interface
  • work-family studies
  • mobilities studies
  • new mobilities paradigm
  • employment-related mobility
  • work-related mobility
  • time
  • space

• Type of Item

  Article (Draft / Submitted)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-z6w5-2z11

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International