IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rai/mamere/doi_10.1688-1861-9908_mrev_2007_03_kattenbach.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Right to Part-Time: Practical Implications from the Managerial Point of View

Author

Listed:
  • Ralph Kattenbach

    (University of Hamburg, Centre for Personnel Research)

Abstract

In 2001 the employee’s right to reduce working-time according to their own preferences was implemented in Germany. This legal title hardly effects the slowly but steadily growing number of part-time jobs. Nevertheless, data from the socio-economic panel suggest that about 25% of employees wish to reduce their working-time even if this is associated with a loss of income. The HR-manager is seen as a mediator and is expected to play a major role moderating the effect of the legislative implementation. Therefore the HR managers’ concepts and attitudes towards part-time as well as the psychological contract are the subject of the presented study. 42 HR-managers have been interviewed. The data are analysed according to qualitative content analysis. In common use the right to reduce one’s working-time is rather seen as a matter of negotiation than an obligation to comply. Indeed, the majority of the HR-managers express their goodwill but the acceptance of the part-time requests is dependent on general beliefs, work ethic, and role concepts. Regarding the right to part-time, these are indicators for a weak direct impact of labour law on the managerial reality.

Suggested Citation

  • Ralph Kattenbach, 2007. "The Right to Part-Time: Practical Implications from the Managerial Point of View," management revue. Socio-economic Studies, Rainer Hampp Verlag, vol. 18(3), pages 350-366.
  • Handle: RePEc:rai:mamere:doi_10.1688/1861-9908_mrev_2007_03_kattenbach
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hampp-verlag.de/hampp_e-journals_mrev.htm#307
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Part-time; Reduced Working Hours; Psychological Contract; Human Resources; Work Ethic;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • J53 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Labor-Management Relations; Industrial Jurisprudence
    • M10 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rai:mamere:doi_10.1688/1861-9908_mrev_2007_03_kattenbach. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rainer Hampp (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.hampp-verlag.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.