Flexible working in charitable organisations: An exploration of barriers and opportunities.

This thesis explores, records, and furthers the embryonic understanding of flexible-working arrangements, formal and/or informal, within the charity sector with focus placed upon medium-sized charitable organizations (income threshold between £500k and £5 million) registered in England and Wales. A multi-method research programme (Phase I: postal-questionnaire and Phase II: semi-structured interviews in four service-providing charities) was undertaken across a sample population of charitable organizations with varying core charity activities. The study considers the influencing factors, impacting upon both employees and employers. Fundamentally, the research outlines the inter-play between perceived and real barriers and enablers impacting upon the successful/unsuccessful implementation and/or operation of flexible-working arrangements within medium-sized charitable organizations. At the time of writing, minimal work had been published regarding flexible-working practices within the charity sector. The present research adopts an interpretive approach where knowledge is gained or at least filtered through social constructions such as language, consciousness and shared meanings by both junior and senior employees. This interpretive approach, supported by the Glaserian branch of Grounded Theory, does not pre-define dependent and independent variables, but focuses on the complexity of human sense-making surrounding the emerging flexible-working situation. Throughout this research, there were a number of recurring themes supporting established HRM theory; but the pivotal finding focused upon the rewarding in-house "family" relationships, and intimate "team" bonds enjoyed by the female junior staff members, surpasses the immediate concerns of reduced funding. Their philanthropic beliefs, charitable ethos, commitment to each other and the charitable organization, gives them a strength and stability to accept change and enables them to adapt and modify to survive against external influencing factors. Through this ubiquitous "family" team characteristic, reinforced by volunteer support, and familial biased language; these distinguishing traits were found to be at the heart of the emergent Female Junior Informal Flexible-Working Model.