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    The impact of global economic crisis and austerity on quality of working life and work- life balance: a capabilities perspective

    Chatrakul Na Ayudhya, Uracha and Prouska, R. and Beauregard, T. Alexandra (2019) The impact of global economic crisis and austerity on quality of working life and work- life balance: a capabilities perspective. European Management Review 16 (4), pp. 847-862. ISSN 1740-4762.

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    Abstract

    This paper draws on the capabilities approach as a framework for examining the impact of the global economic crisis and austerity on quality of working life and work-life balance. Our paper focuses on Greece, an extreme case of a country in economic crisis, characterised by a weak institutional basis. We build on the work of Barbara Hobson and colleagues who first applied the capabilities approach to explore work-life balance capabilities. Our study contributes to the development of theory by emphasising the sense of entitlement concept within the capabilities approach and by proposing a modified conceptual framework that encapsulates the link between capabilities, agency, and the sense of entitlement, where the latter acts as a cognitive ‘filter’ that enhances or weakens an individual’s perception of her/his agency to enact on her/his capabilities. Drawing on the accounts of twenty Greek professional and managerial workers, we illustrate how the crisis and austerity measures have eroded working conditions and thus the sense of entitlement, leading to the weakening of our participants’ agency and capabilities to achieve quality of working life and work-life balance.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Quality of working life, work-life balance, capabilities approach, agency, sense of entitlement, economic crisis, austerity, Greece
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Business School
    Depositing User: Alexandra Beauregard
    Date Deposited: 05 Jun 2018 15:54
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:42
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/22685

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