Understanding men's utilization of paid parental leave: an identity perspective

In today’s organizations, supervisors expect employees to be highly productive throughout their workday, no matter how long they work or when they work. These expectations have been termed the “ideal worker norm” (Davies & Frink, 2014). The ideal worker prioritizes their work over other life domains and shows this dedication to work by working overtime and non-traditional hours, being always available, visibly working (e.g., sending emails during non-work hours), and being unhampered by non-work obligations (Kelly et al., 2010; Reid, 2015; Sallee, 2012). The nascent ideal worker literature has focused on defining the norm, but the effects of the ideal worker on employees has been little studied. For example, gendered social roles, in which women are caretakers and men are breadwinners, may affect perceptions of female employees’ ability to fulfill the ideal worker norm, regardless of family context, negatively affecting their careers. Likewise, for men who deviate from this expectation, such as those who request flex time or parental leave (Sallee, 2012), they may be perceived as unable or unwilling to live up to the ideal worker norm. This paper symposium explores the effects of the ideal worker norm on the careers of male and female employees. Family-to-Work Conflict, Ideal Worker Norm Violation and Trust: Gender Bias in Evaluations Presenter: Jennica R. Webster; Marquette U. Presenter: Gary A Adams; Marquette U. Presenter: Andrea Schneider; Marquette U. Just Not Good Enough: How Supervisor Sexism Beliefs Affect Employee Promotability and Development Presenter: Clarissa Rene Steele; Kansas State U. Who are “Ideal Workers”? Intersection of Age, Gender, and Race Presenter: Vanessa Burke; Pennsylvania State U. Presenter: Alicia A. Grandey; Pennsylvania State U. Presenter: Teresa Frasca; Pennsylvania State U. Individual Worker and Managerial Characteristics that Influence Granting of Working from Home (WFH) Presenter: Alyson Gounden Rock; McGill U. - Desautels Faculty of Management “We Deserve Work-Life Balance Too”: Experiences of Dual-Career Professional Couples Without Children Presenter: Galina Boiarintseva; Niagara U. Presenter: Souha R. Ezzedeen; York U. Presenter: Julia Richardson; Curtin U. Presenter: Christa Wilken; York U. Getting Down to Brass Tacks: The Effect of Focusing on Results Instead of Ideal Worker Cues Presenter: Aurora Turek; -

This research studies changes in ideal worker culture as experienced by working mothers across organizations in the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the experiences of 53 interviewees in how they attended to increased responsibilities across both work and family domains, we observed an entrenchment of the ideal worker culture across nearly all organizations and professions. This manifested in three levels, as (1) a reinforced ideal worker culture in the workplace through work-intensification, increased competitiveness, and surface-level support; (2) the reinforcing of organizations’ ideal worker norms at home, with gendered division of space and labor, and (3) experienced internalized ideal worker norms in the expectations working mothers maintained for themselves. These findings offer insight into the careers of working mothers during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the challenges which have pushed many mothers to adapt their career strategies, such as reducing work hours, changing their jobs, or leaving the workforce. Highlighting the intricate nature of the entrenchment of the ideal worker culture informs implications for theory of gendered organizations and for organizational practice.

We study shifts in the ideal worker culture as experienced by working mothers across organizations in the United States during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Experiences of 53 interviewees who attended to increased responsibilities across both work and family domains revealed an entrenchment of the ideal worker culture across nearly all organizations and professions. This manifested in three levels: as (1) a reinforced ideal worker culture in the workplace through work intensification, increased competitiveness, and surface‐level support; (2) the reinforcing of organizations' ideal worker norms at home, with gendered division of space and labor; and (3) experienced internalized ideal worker norms in the expectations working mothers maintained for themselves. These findings offer insight into the lives of working mothers during the COVID‐19 pandemic and the challenges which have pushed many mothers to reduce work hours or leave the workforce. Highlighting the intricate nature of the entrenchment of the ideal worker culture informs implications for theory of gendered organizations and for organizational practice.

The ideal worker norm is associated with specific ways of working. The ideal worker is a man who works long hours, is constantly available, and highly productive. Emerging research suggests that the shock of COVID‐19, which forced millions of employees to work from home, may have been powerful enough to disrupt the ideal worker norm. We therefore ask: how did working from home during the pandemic impact the ideal worker norm? We apply Acker's ideal worker norm to determine whether different groups of women employees who worked from home during the pandemic worked in ways which aligned to the norm. We conduct this analysis through the lens of two modalities of time: being clock time and (feminine) process time. Our examination of how employees experienced time extends existing, yet limited, research focused on time use during the pandemic. We used a mixed‐method design to analyze survey data from almost 5000 Australian employees to show that significant proportions of women, women carers, and disabled women worked in a manner aligned more to the ideal worker norm, compared with pre‐COVID times. We therefore conclude that a multidimensional ideal worker is emerging and one which works to both clock time and process time. This is an important finding as we seek to better understand how employees can work in a hybrid environment and what this means for organizations and employees.

Bibliometric analysis is a systematic process of reviewing and evaluating relevant sources through a literature survey on a specific topic. Bibliometric analysis is frequently employed to examine scale development and adaptation studies in music, enabling researchers to determine current trends and key research in this field. This study aims to evaluate the last decade (2014–2024) by presenting scale development and adaptation studies in music published in the TR Dizin database through various sub-problems (publication year, journal, keywords, sample group, publication type, citation count, etc.). The goal is to contribute to future scientific research in scale adaptation and development in music education. Within the study’s scope, articles on scale development and adaptation in music published in the TR Dizin database between 2014 and 2024 were screened (n=312), and eligible articles (n=30) were included. The results were analyzed bibliometrically and presented via descriptive tables, including content analysis and percentage-frequency distributions. Findings indicate that the highest number of studies were conducted in 2020 (n=8), the most cited study had 11 citations, scale development studies were more common than adaptations, and most publications appeared in university journals.

This paper analyzes the portrayal of work-life balance in the movie <i>The Intern,</i> focusing on the character of Ben Whittaker, played by the iconic Robert De Niro, who takes on the role of a senior intern at a bourgeoning fashion e-commerce company under the leadership of the young, dynamic, and driven chief executive officer (CEO), Jules Ostin, portrayed by the brilliant Anne Hathaway. Two research questions were posed (How is the work/life of Jules Ostin portrayed in <i>The Intern</i>?; How does this portrayal shape conceptualizations of work and life in important ways?”) to understand how this cultural artifact adds to the literature on work-life balance. The analysis reveals that while some representations reinforce the ideal worker norms, others challenge them and suggest that work and life can coexist in balance. However, the role reversal mentoring and power dynamics in the film raise concerns about whether it subtly perpetuates traditional organizational structures and stereotypes. Two themes emerged from the analysis: Normalized Work and Ideal Worker Norms, and Reverse Power Dynamics concerning Gender and Age. The first theme shows how Ben and Jules navigate ideal worker norms. The second theme examines the reversal of power dynamics by age and gender. The film depicts a young woman as CEO and an older man as her intern, normalizing work and reinforcing ideal worker norms. Additionally, Ben’s dressing style visually reinforces societal expectations of an ideal worker, normalizing the work concept.

While working towards tenure, faculty members are rewarded for enacting ideal worker norms (Acker, 1990) or prioritizing work resulting in high levels and quality of production over other components of one's life. Striving to meet ideal worker norms has real costs to faculty members who may experience high levels of stress, negative health outcomes, or strained relationships. However, failing to comply with these norms also has implications and may impede individual's career advancement. Having achieved promotion and tenure, mid‐career faculty are uniquely positioned to renegotiate their relationship to ideal worker norms in the academy and can use their agency to contest them. Accordingly, this chapter examines the construct of the ideal worker (Acker, 1990) and how it affects faculty work before providing insight on how mid‐career faculty may change their relationship with ideal worker norms and notions of productivity in their lives and at their institutions.

This thesis is concerned with identifying the conditions under which it is possible for mothers and fathers to successfully combine career progression and parenthood in an organisational context. I developed the ‘family-adaptive’ theoretical framework in order to examine the extent to which a) organisations can adapt to facilitate the changed working conditions of new parents associated with childbirth, and b) employees can find ways, through the use of formal entitlements and informal arrangements, to adapt to their new role as parents while maintaining their professional identities and career goals. The framework, which has its foundations in the theory of gendered organisations and identity theory, identifies how the gendering of a range of formal and informal organisational processes and practices interacts with individuals’ processes of identity negotiation and resource constraints at various levels in the organisation to determine how ‘family-adaptive’ an organisation is. The research focuses on the ‘parental leave process’, defined as the time spanning from when staff members inform the organisation about their intention to go on leave, through the parental leave period and including the time when they return to work while they avail of entitlements associated with parental leave. A single organisational case study methodology was adopted, focusing on general staff in an Australian university. A ‘qualitative dominant’ mixed methods approach was followed. The primary data source comprised of qualitative interviews carried out with 28 participants in a range of roles in the case study university. This rich data source was supplemented with quantitative analysis of parental leave provisions in the Australian university sector. Three specific levels of analysis were examined: senior managers at the organisational level, middle managers at the work unit level and non-managerial employees at the work unit level. The research findings indicated that gendering processes interacted with identity and resource constraints in a variety of ways across the three levels of analysis to contribute to family-adaptiveness. At the senior management level I focused on formal parental leave policy development. Evidence suggested that senior managers adopted a narrow business case focus in enterprise negotiations regarding parental leave policy. Their stance was dictated by a concern with resource constraints, whereby the short-term costs, but not the long-term benefits of improvements, were acknowledged. While the rhetoric surrounding the university’s provision of parental leave was framed in terms of a concern with gender equity, evidence suggests that these ‘social justice’ motivations were strongly entangled with strategic business motivations. Additionally, evidence suggested that the gendered understructure, based on the male-breadwinner norm, shaped management’s approach to parental leave negotiations. The reliance on a narrow business focus coupled with the male-breadwinner organisational logic resulted in a parental leave policy that reaffirms male-breadwinner norms and has limited potential to promote a family-adaptive environment. At the middle management level the focus was on policy implementation across the parental leave process. Evidence suggested that while resource constraints inhibited managers in their approach to policy implementation, they had some discretion to implement informal practices to manage work-family needs. The extent to which managers were willing to exercise this discretion was related to the salience of their managerial and/or parent identities. Three distinct approaches to the management of work family issues were identified, which resulted in differing gendered effects. ‘Family blind’ managers displayed highly salient managerial identities and took a restrictive approach to policy implementation. ‘Family first’ managers generally displayed salient parent identities and were likely to utilise informal practices to enable employees achieve work-family balance. ‘Family fair’ managers straddled a line between these approaches, displaying salient parent and managerial identities. The approach taken by managers had implications for family-adaptiveness, with the family first approach most likely to result in gender equitable outcomes in work and care while the family blind approach was associated with gendered effects which inhibited family-adaptiveness. At the employee level the salience of respondents’ professional and parent identities was a key factor in shaping their approach to the management of their career and caring responsibilities. The ways in which employees invoked their identities could significantly affect family-adaptiveness, both in terms of their own work-family balance and in terms of broader organisational processes. Those who contested gendered norms surrounding work and care had the greatest potential to contribute positively towards a family-adaptive environment. Women who invoked a prominent professional identity were most successful in challenging the male-breadwinner, female-carer norm and could open up opportunities for career progression. Similarly, men who invoked a salient parent identity could challenge the ‘ideal worker’ norm and develop opportunities for alternative work practices which facilitated their greater involvement in childcare. Overall, the findings indicated that individuals at various levels within the organisation had the potential to influence family-adaptiveness and that the interaction of gendering processes with identity work and resource constraints across all three levels was crucial in determining how family-adaptive an organisation is.

Life and Work Today: New Choices, New Challenges

This inductive study of 44 consultants in a prominent consulting firm examines how consultants set work-life boundaries without getting stigmatized and how they develop their workplace relationships into sources of help for this process. Within this organization, dominated by the ideal worker norm, we found a hidden, self-sustaining network of consultants who delivered excellent work while violating the ideal worker norm without stigmatization. Their way of working was based on a coherent set of beliefs about work and the work-life interface we named the sustainable worker schema, which contrasted with the ideal worker schema in all ways except in the ultimate goals: high performance and excellent work. Essential to this way of working was not only effective management of boundaries between work and life outside of work (work-life boundaries) but also effective management of boundaries around each work task or project (work boundaries). Consultants who embraced the sustainable worker schema worked fewer hours and achieved higher satisfaction with work-life balance than their counterparts. Together, these findings highlight the importance of embracing the centrality of work in work-life research; underscore the power of invisibility when challenging the ideal worker norm; and paint a rich picture of boundary work as a network-level phenomenon. Funding: This work was supported by Simmons University [Diane K. Trust Chair in Leadership Development, President’s Fund for Faculty Excellence] and University of Massachusetts Amherst [John F. Kennedy Faculty Fellowship].

This study draws on identity theory to explore parental and work identities. It examined gender differences in identities, as well as the moderating role of gender in the effects of individuals’ sociostructural characteristics. A sample of 148 couples with young children completed extensive questionnaires. As hypothesized, couples’ paid-work strategy moderated gender differences in the salience and centrality of parental and work identities. Whereas significant differences in identities were found between stay-at-home mothers and their breadwinning husbands, no differences were found among dual-earner couples. Moreover, men’s work identity centrality increased when they had more and younger children, whereas women’s work identity centrality decreased. Finally, men’s parental identity centrality increased with their income, whereas women’s parental identity centrality decreased the more they earned. These findings attest to the importance of examining differences within as well as between genders, by taking into account the interactive effects of gender with other sociostructural characteristics.

This mixed-methods study explored the centrality and meanings of men’s and women’s parental and work-related identities by comparing semi-traditional, equal-sharing, and role-reversed couples. Quantitative analysis involved 2,813 British parents (1,380 men, 1,433 women) who were primary caregivers, primary breadwinners, or equal sharers with at least one child aged 11 or under. Qualitative analysis drew on 60 in-depth interviews with 10 couples from each of the three groups. Results indicated that the centrality of parental and work identities varied by role rather than gender, as both male and female caregivers reported less central work identities and more central parental identities compared to breadwinners and equal-sharers. Equal-sharers and role-reversers were characterized by women’s central work identity and men’s low centrality of work identity. In these couples, a `half and half` parenting ideology underlined the construction of mothering and fathering as equivalent interchangeable identities, each forming only one half of a child’s parenting. Intertwining their maternal identity with an equivalent construction of their partners’ identity allowed women to reconcile a good mother ideal with central work identities, by redefining mothering as a responsibility for only half of the caregiving.

This article explores novel forms of proactive support for fathers in organizations and analyzes how newly instituted organizational promoters of father‐friendliness in Germany (organizational consultants, fathers' representatives, and fathers' networks) legitimize and strengthen organizational acceptance of fathers' use of family‐friendly workplace arrangements. Bringing together the notions of organizational masculinity, the ideal worker norm, and postfeminism, the paper focuses on caring formations of postfeminist masculinity at work and how they contribute to gender change in organizations. The analysis shows that organizational promoters construct father‐friendliness in three ways (I) by constructing a new, “caring” organizational masculinity, (II) by creating organizational value for care‐related practices, (III) by framing father‐friendliness as a prerequisite for gender equality. Our theoretical argument is that configurations of positive masculinities are possible within a postfeminist culture, and they produce incremental yet limited gender change through a reshaped organizational masculinity and a reframed “ideal worker” within organizations. The study of a rather unique group of change agents in organizations shows how additional offerings for fathers might contribute to changing gendered assumptions about care in organizations.

ABSTRACTThis study examines the extent to which the use of part-time work and parental leave is accepted at German workplaces. Is there evidence for a weakening of ideal worker and ideal parent norms? Interviews were conducted with 95 employees in different status positions in hospitals, police stations and industrial companies. The results indicate that even though ideal worker norms and ideal parent norms still prevail, especially in higher-status positions and typical male professions, they have shifted partially for some employees. Partial change can be observed for mothers in high-status positions (part-time) and for men up to mid-level positions (parental leave). There is greater acceptance of fathers’ parental leave, mainly due to the reform of the German parental leave legislation. Part-time for women in upper-level positions has become more accepted due to work-life balance policies at the company level. Norm changes, however, have stalled at the halfway mark. Fathers are still expected to prioritize their career and to schedule parental leave according to their organization’s business needs. Part-time working mothers in high-status positions are expected to deliver performance similar to that of full-time workers. Moreover, norm changes are hindered by economic constraints, mainly staff shortages.

This symposium intends to broaden our understanding of individuals’ identity work within organizations by focusing on new sources and means of social influence. The burgeoning identity work literature has provided a rich understanding of how individuals in one’s immediate work environment – such as group members and superiors - affect identity work processes. In particular, this research illuminates how others contribute to identity formation, presentation, and maintenance. This symposium expands upon this scholarly work by (1) investigating additional sources of social influence within and outside of professional settings and (2) exploring how these social factors both contribute to and complicate identity work. For example, while mentors within an organization may be important for providing social feedback and serving as role models, influential figures outside of work may shape professional identity formation as well. Moreover, these myriad individuals may occasionally hinder identity work processes, such as when social feedback casts doubt on an aspirational identity. The combination of beneficial and detrimental influences from a variety of social forces creates a more complex, yet comprehensive, understanding of professional identity work. Collectively, the papers in this symposium expand the scholarly conversation in identity by illuminating how these less understood forms of social influence both enable and inhibit professional identity work and overall career advancement. Threat or Opportunity? Pathways of Leader Identity Development Presenter: Catarina R. Fernandes; Harvard U. Presenter: Lakshmi Ramarajan; Harvard U. Presenter: N Andrew Cohen; The George Washington U. Identity Work Within and Beyond the Professions: Toward a Theoretical Integration and Extension Presenter: Douglas A Lepisto; Boston College Presenter: Eliana Crosina; Boston College Presenter: Michael G. Pratt; Boston College Manufacturing Self-Authenticity: A Reflexive Process of Crafting Authenticity at Work Presenter: Beth A. Devine; INSEAD Presenter: Jennifer Louise Petriglieri; INSEAD Approach and Avoidance: How Parental Role Models Influence Professional and Family Identity Work Presenter: Rachel D. Arnett; Harvard U. Presenter: Robin Ely; Harvard U. Presenter: Kathleen L. McGinn; Harvard U.