Participants

Henrik Lund, RU, Annette Kamp, RU, Helge Hvid, RU, and Helle Holt, SFI

Purpose of the project
The project will develop a conceptual framework for studies of working hours and working environment in boundaryless work. By extension, it will be investigated how the nature of the temporal environment of/at the workplace affects the psychosocial working environment for good or bad. Finally,it is the ambition of this project  to explore opportunities of intervention in the temporal environment and thereby improving the psychosocial working environment, through both individual and collective approaches.

Short description of the project
The project aims at studying the new temporal environments that occur in workplaces affected by the spread of boundaryless work. The project will develop the concept of temporal environment as an analytical category. As a starting point, the concept of temporal environment is understood as the temporal structuring of tasks, rhythms and routines of work.

The new temporal environments are believed to create an erosion of the collective rhythms and routines of work, which is assumed to include psychological stress as well as an opportunity for personal development. Similarly, it is assumed that working time in boundaryless work becomes simultaneously more important and less significant. Working time becomes more important in flexible forms of production, because time awareness is crucial when work is regulated by, for instance, just-in-time and lean principles. At the same time, however, working time becomes less significant as a yardstick because productivity and actual working hours embedded in the task are subordinate to the actual criterion of success: that the task is performed on time. Working time becomes more abstract and independent of the actual working hours.

As part of the methodological setup, the project will search for practical knowledge on the possibilities to intervene in the temporal environment at the enterprise level. It is assumed that it is possible to develop temporal environments which allow improvements to the quality of the psychosocial working environment. This intervention-oriented study is carried out through six case studies within the globally oriented industry, the experience-industry and the education sector.

Read an extended project description (only in Danish)

Read an article about the project (only in Danish)

Download the Literature Study: "The balance between work and family life, with a special focus on job satisfaction, gender and time" (only in Danish)

Download the report: "New concepts of time and work - a time-sociological perspective." (only in Danish)
 
Contact
Associate Professor Henrik Lund, RU: 46742605, Mail llund(at)ruc.dk
Associate Professor Annette Kamp, RU: 46742885, Mail kamp(at)ruc.dk
Professor Helge Hvid, RU 46742913, Mail hh(at)ruc.dk 
Senior scientist Helle Holt, SFI 33480948, Mail hh(at)sfi.dk