Work-Life: Cross-national Conversations. Context theorizing in work-life research

International Conference | Paris – May 17, 2011

Venue: Paris downtown – RBS Paris Executive Campus, 9 rue d’Athènes, 75009 Paris

Conference organizer: Ariane Ollier-Malaterre: [email protected]

Program |

Session format |

Registration |

Accommodation |

Call for submissions

Program

9:00-9:15	Welcome coffee
9:15-9:30	Introduction, Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Rouen Business School
9:30-10:00	Keynote speaker Pr. Ellen Kossek, Michigan State University
10:00-12:15	Session 1 – INDIVIDUALS IN A GLOBAL WORLD Chair: Monique Valcour, EDHEC, France – Sara De Hauw, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Belgium – Samba Deme, David Alis & Marc Dumas, Université de Rennes 1, France – Jamie Ladge, Northeastern University and Judith Clair, Boston College, US – Jean-Charles Languilaire, Malmö University & Halmstad University, Sweden – Suzan Lewis, Middlesex University Business School and Sweta Rajan-Rankin, Brunel University, UK – Pamela Lirio, EDHEC, France – Marcel Lourel, Université d’Artois, France – Jiafang Lu , The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong – Camilla Quental, Audencia, France	Session 2 – THE INDIVIDUAL/ ORGANIZATION INTERFACE Chair : Anne Bardoel, Monash University, Australia – Alexandra Beauregard, London School of Economics and Patrizia Kokot, Aberystwyth University, UK – Anne-Marie Dieu & Annie Cornet, Egid (HEC-ULG) and CESEP, Belgium – Laure Guilbert, Université de Rouen, France – Christina Matz-Costa, Boston College, US – Pascale Peters & Beate van der Heijden, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, The Netherlands – Caroline Ruiller, Université de Rennes 1, Paris – Mark Smith & Caroline Straub, Grenoble Ecole de Management, France
12:15-13:30	Lunch
13:30-14:00	Keynote speaker Pr. Maurice Thévenet, CNAM and ESSEC
14:00-16:15	Session 3 – CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISONS Chair: Tammy Allen, University of South Florida, US – Laura den Dulk, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands – Jarrod Haar, University of Waikato and Maree Roche, Waikato Institute of Technology, New Zealand – Karen Lyness, Baruch College and Michael Judiesch, Manhattan College, US – Chris B. Mahoney, Cleveland State University, US – Katty Marmenout, EM Lyon, France – Margarita Mayo & Shainaz Firfira, IE Business School, Spain – Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Rouen Business School, France – Aarti Ramaswami, ESSEC, France – Jing Wang, Saint Mary’s University, Canada	Session 4 – COUNTRY CONTEXT Chair : Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Boston College, US – Rene Carapinha Pretorius, Boston College, US – Heather Hofmeister, RWTH Aachen University, Germany – Clare Kelliher, Cranfield University, UK – Marie-Thérèse Letablier, Université Paris 1, France – Sharon Lobel, Seattle University, US – Dominique Méda, Centre d’Etudes de l’Emploi, France – Susan Prentice, University of Manitoba, Canada – Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay, UQAM, Canada
16:15-17:15	Closing plenary: Recommendations from the groups Wrap up by Jeffrey Greenhaus, Drexel University and Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, RBS
17:30-18:30	Cocktail

Sessions format

Statements submitted to the conference will be distributed a couple weeks before the conference takes place. Please read the statements of scholars in your group and prepare questions and suggestions to use in group discussions.

Each individual or team (as listed in the program) is expected to elaborate on their conference statement for 5 minutes, summarizing

• How they theorize national context in their research;
• The questions and challenges they encounter to do so;
• Collaborations they would like to initiate.

Group discussions can either follow each presentation or take place once everyone in the group has presented.

Each group will elaborate a set of 5 implications or recommendations regarding how researchers might most effectively incorporate national context into their thinking and research, and have the chair or another group member present these implications during the closing plenary.

Space will be provided to display small posters (A3 format) or 2-3 PowerPoint slides, presenting the broader implications of your research for national context rather than a single piece of research.

 

Registration

Registration is open to anyone wishing to attend: Registration 

Registration fee: 80 € (30 € for students). The fee includes conference attendance, coffee breaks, lunch and cocktail.

Please address inquiries regarding accommodation or registration to Stéphanie Bertin: [email protected]

For all other inquiries, please contact Ariane Ollier-Malaterre: [email protected]

Accommodation

Hotel Villathena

23 rue d’Athènes

Tel. 00 33 1 44 63 07 07

Email: [email protected]

Price for a single room: 169 €

 

ATN Hotel

21 rue d’Athènes

Tel. 00 33 1 48 74 00 55

Email: [email protected]

Price for a single room: 171 €

 

Hôtel de Genève

36 rue Londres

Tel. 00 33 1 48 74 33 99

Email: [email protected]

Price for a single room: 112 €

Call for submissions 

Numerous appeals for the greater consideration of context in management research have been made. Recently, an AMJ editorial urged scholars to go “beyond contextualization” and use “context theories to narrow the micro-macro gap in management research” (Bamberger, 2008).

Work-life researchers are well aware of the need to account for national context in particular. National context can be understood from an institutional perspective and/or a cultural perspective. National context notably translates into values and attitudes towards work and life and into public provisions. These values and public provisions may influence individuals’ experiences of work-life fit as well as their expectations towards employers and the State, lay the ground for supervisors’ varying degrees of supportiveness, promote or discourage employers’ work-life initiatives and inform social policy. Additionally, national context matters from an epistemic point of view, since it often influences work-life researchers’ choices of research questions, theoretical frameworks and research designs.

However, little research has thought to use or build frameworks able to “context theorize” work-life issues. Drawing on examples from our research, how can we contribute to narrow the micro-macro gap in work-life research and beyond?

In France, work-family and work-life issues are rapidly picking up. In the past five to ten years, employers, policy makers and scholars have been actively experimenting and learning about making work and life work, in a social and institutional context that is both unique and globalized. The most recent token of this interest is the recruitment by French business schools of several work-life scholars, adding to an already vibrant French community of scholars.

Rouen Business School research group Contemporary P@thways of Career, Life and Learning, in association with the Special Interest Group Diversity and equal opportunity of the French-speaking Academic Association of HRM, will be holding an international conference in Paris, with two primary objectives:

1. To bridge academic communities researching work-life in different countries and from different disciplines such as organizational behavior and management, industrial psychology, industrial relations and sociology, so as to broaden our perspectives and hopefully facilitate future collaborations.
2. To reflect on the role that national context plays in work-life research, both for the production of research itself (influence of national context on researchers’ approaches) and on the phenomena we are studying (at the individual, organizational and social policy levels).

References

Bamberger, P. 2008. Beyond contextualization: Using context theories to narrow the micro-macro gap in management research. The Academy of Management Journal, 51(5): 839–846.