Workplace flexibility initiatives as a potential remedy for work–life conflicts are the focus of a considerable number of investigations. Despite their contributions, research findings reveal tensions and contradictions in the ways that employees, managers and organizations develop, enact and respond to these flexibility initiatives. This critical review identifies three primary tensions (variable vs fixed arrangements, supportive vs unsupportive work climates and equitable vs inequitable implementation of policies) that reveal inconsistent and sometimes contradictory findings. We tie these tensions, and the management of them, to an overarching dilemma in implementing workplace flexibility, the autonomy–control paradox. To develop alternatives for handling these tensions, we recommend reframing them through changing organizational cultures, adopting a philosophy of adaptability, customizing work and making workplace flexibility an employee right. We conclude by urging organizations and society to reframe the tensions between work and life, to treat them as enriching rather than competing with each other and to transcend these opposite poles through exploring third spaces.

Models of career development have focused on important vocational influences such as self-efficacy, exposure, and gender prescriptions but have glossed over the role of communication in socializing adolescents toward or from various careers. We investigate academic interests in math and science and related career aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Drawing on data from 38 focus groups (241 students), the proposed Vocational Anticipatory Socialization (VAS) model of STEM depicts factors that influence adolescent academic-career interests including communication associated with gender prescriptions; cultural membership/socioeconomic status; experiences; personal factors (self-efficacy, exposure, resilience); and importantly, the sources and significance of VAS messages for the development of academiccareer pursuits. Article at UQ Library on June 18, 2015 mcq.sagepub.com Downloaded from

The authors offer a multidimensional reconceptualization of organizational assimilation developed from a reexamination of the Organizational Assimilation Index (OAI). Using a sample of 656 employees in the United States, the OAI was extended to include a seventh factor and used to detect group differences between men and women, managers and nonmanagers, and members with lengthy and short organizational tenure. Evidence for construct validity was found in relationships between the OAI factors and related variables. Results demonstrate the utility of conceptualizing assimilation as a set of interrelated processes that fluctuate based on various characteristics of organizational membership. The authors discuss implications for assimilation research and offer directions for future scholarship in the area.

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Immigrant women comprise one of the fastest growing groups of business owners in the United States and other urban economies; however, a greater proportion of immigrant women business owners shut down their business within a year compared with their nonimmigrant peers. In an attempt to address this challenge, the study reported here explores the communication strategies adopted by immigrant women entrepreneurs as they manage key identities (gender, ethnicity, religion, and immigrant status) that may influence their success. Drawing on a structurational model of multiple identities and linking that with intersectionality research, this study examines the experiences of 60 immigrant women entrepreneurs from 30 different countries in New York City as they (dis)connect with their various identities. In addition to insights about each separate identity, we identify three tensions at the intersection of multiple identities, business sector, and sociocultural and historical context: visible versus invisible, expressive versus silent, and revealing versus concealing. Furthermore, we show how strategic communication practices are adopted to negotiate these tensions, and hence secure and/or increase business opportunities and business survival.