Professor Stephen Wood contributes to a British Psychological Society workshop and IWP conference 2010
A key finding of his research is that, whilst family-friendly management does not directly increase organizational performance, it strengthens the relationship between employee commitment and key economic outcomes, as the relationships between family-friendly management and productivity or quality are stronger in organizations where the workforce is highly committed; a result that is consistent with social exchange theory.
Such research concentrates on family-friendly management conceived within the terms of current policy parameters which can help reduce what Susan Sturm calls first generation discrimination, but may leave largely untouched the more subtle and complex forms of biases that constitute second generation discrimination or obstacles to satisfactory work-life balances, such as those entailed in job designs. Wood concluded by outlining ways in which we can develop conceptions of employers' practices to capture the practices that contribute to second generate discrimination, which build on the arguments of Lotte Bailyn (MIT) and Susan Lewis (Middlesex University), who also talked at the workshop.
Wood also was a participant in a round table session at the Institute of Work Psychology Conference on Work, Well-being and Performance, in Sheffield, June 29th-July 1th 2010. The round table was on Work-life Balance: What is the way forward for European/Global Research and Practice?, and included Suzan Lewis (Middlesex University), Almuth McDowall (University of Surrey), Alex Beauregard (London School of Economics), and Anna Allan (Meyer Allan Ltd).
