Hiding in Plain Sight: Co-Enacting the Sustainable Worker Schema in a Consulting Firm

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Heaphy, Emily D.; Trefalt, Spela
• 署名单位: University of Massachusetts System; University of Massachusetts Amherst; Simmons University
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2020.14201
• 发表日期: 2024
• 关键词: work relationship development; ideal worker schema; sustainable worker schema; hidden social networks; work-life boundaries; work boundaries; BOUNDARY MANAGEMENT

摘要

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.