University of Twente Student Theses

The effects of new ways of working : An empirical study of municipalities in the Netherlands, looking at the relation between New Ways of Working and social cohesion, work life balance, and performance and the moderating role of leadership on these effects.

Pierik, L. (2011) The effects of new ways of working : An empirical study of municipalities in the Netherlands, looking at the relation between New Ways of Working and social cohesion, work life balance, and performance and the moderating role of leadership on these effects.

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Abstract:	In the last couple of years New Ways of Working (NWW) has become more popular. This flexible work concept of working anytime, anyplace, anyhow has been implemented in many organizations, including municipalities. Because Twynstra Gudde, an organizational advisory bureau, wants to be able to advise companies in this organizational change they want to oversee the consequences of implementing NWW. This research therefore explains the components of NWW and tests its relationship with social cohesion, work life balance, and performance. Another important aspect of this research is leadership. In this research a matching leadership theory and styles for NWW will be explained, and leadership will be tested as a moderator between NWW and its effects. The goal of this research is to test theory and to develop new insights. The findings will be discussed and practical implications will be given which can be used by Twynstra Gudde in order to advise their clients. By developing a theoretical framework, hypotheses for this research were created. This framework also served as a way to operationalise the main variables in this research. In order to gather data, an online survey was used. This survey was based on two self-constructed, and five existing scales. Five municipalities participated in this research and the survey was completed by 117 respondents. Based on an analysis of the data, six out of eight hypotheses were rejected, however new and unexpected relations were found. The most important findings are: (1) a positive relation between NWW and performance, (2) a positive relation between NWW and social cohesion, (3) positive relation between social cohesion and work life balance, and (4) positive relation between social cohesion and performance. The components of leadership, task and relationship behaviour are positively related to both social cohesion and performance. Leadership was found to be no moderator between NWW and its effects. Based on these findings some practical implications can be made. Social cohesion influences organizational performance and work life balance and so therefore a focus on social cohesion is needed. When focusing on the preservation and improvement of social cohesion, training in communication media is recommended. It is also important to explain the importance of social cohesion, and make employees aware of the possible negative side effects of NWW. It is important for leadership to focus mainly on relationship behaviour because it has a positive influence on performance and social cohesion. In fact, it was even found in the data from the survey that 95% of the employees are self-directed which means that they do not need high task behaviour from their leaders. For improving both social cohesion and leadership, the use of Social Network Sites (SNS) for collaboration in teams and between a leader and his team is recommended. Suggestions for further research include longitudinal research, objective measures of performance and a different measure of work life balance. It would also be interesting to assess the influence of social maturity on the readiness level of employees. Another possibility would be the use of a different leadership theory in order to define leadership styles.
Item Type:	Essay (Master)
Clients:	Twynstra Gudde, Amersfoort, the Netherlands PMC Huisvesting & Vastgoed, the Netherlands
Faculty:	BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:	85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:	Business Administration MSc (60644)
Link to this item:	https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/62939
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