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covering three annual performance cycles of the firm. For more
details on the intervention timeline and a visualization of our
expectations, see Figure 2.
In our sample of 434 respondents who had filled out all the
surveys for the three waves, 29% were women, and 43% were
parents. The average age was 34.32 years (range 19-61 years),
and the actual hours worked were 44.3 hours per week. In our
final sample, in the first year, 47 employees customized down,
and 37 employees customized up, leaving 380 employees in
the common profile. In the second year, 64 employees custo
mized down, and 25 employees customized up, leaving 345 em
ployees in the common profile. The high number of employees
in the common profile is probably the combined result of our
strict definition (i.e., customizing on only one dimension does
not count), the organizational culture and the economic crisis,
in that employees feared to lose their job more than before.
To examine our research questions, we carried out different
statistical analyses. For example, to test whether MCC is benefi
cial for employees’ career outcomes in different life stages (e.g.,
mothers versus fathers, parents versus non-parents) we used
a General Linear Model – ANCOVA to compare means within
subgroups over time and across subgroups at one point in time.
In addition, we assessed the role of supervisors in shaping
intended implementation outcomes (e.g., lower employee turn
over intentions and higher engagement levels) with the use of
Latent Growth Modeling (Straub et al., 2018).
Involving supervisors turned out to be crucial
A very positive finding is that employees maintain high levels
of work engagement and low levels of turnover intentions over
time which confirms our assumptions that MCC reduces attri
tion and fosters employee engagement. However, as expected,
this was only the case if employee use of MCC was promoted
and supported by their supervisor.
Like earlier studies (Cooper/Baird, 2014, Nielsen/Randall,
2009), our findings show that a supervisor can influence inter
vention success, as employees indeed perceive an improvement
in support for combining career and care within their organi
zation in the MCC implementation. Improved perceptions of
support result in higher work engagement and lower turnover
intentions (see Table 1 for mediation results). Considering that
overall engagement levels declined, and turnover intentions
increased in our sample, supportive supervisors turned out to
be genuinely instrumental in achieving positive intervention
outcomes.
Not everyone benefitted from MCC
Different MCC choices (up or down) play out very differently
for employees, often depending on their gender and parental
status (see Table 2 for changes in means). Customizing up trig
gers an increase in career ambition, while there is a decrease
Figure 2:
Timeline of events and expected outcomes
Common profile – general downward trend (as observed prior to MCC)
Customized profile – general upward trend
June 2009
Time 1
1st Questionnaire
Pre-test
September
2009
MCC choice
selection together
with supervisor
MCC choice
selection together
with supervisor
Start of MCC
June 2010
Time 2
2nd Questionnaire
Pre-test
September
2010
June 2011
Time 3
3rd Questionnaire
Pre-test
As the organizational culture of many PSFs is often inherent
ly contradictory and ambiguous: they support and hinder em
ployees by expecting demanding work (e.g. long hours), and, at
the same time, provide flexibility (e.g. telework), we were also
interested in the role that supervisors played in the MCC im
plementation process, and their role of performance managers,
in shaping MCC outcomes. Thus, we assessed employee per
ceptions of supervisors’ support with MCC and their influence
on employee perceptions of organizational supportiveness.
Fitting with the research questions above, we expected that
customization would make employees feel better, thus have
positive effects on their work engagement, career satisfaction
and ambition, performance evaluations, and reduce turnover
intentions. We expected supervisors to influence perceptions
of the organizational culture positively.
How did we design our research?
Fitting with the growing demand from career researchers to
provide longitudinal data on individual careers, we developed
an online survey which was sent out to the entire workforce of
the firm in the Netherlands (n = 5605), shortly before MCC was
formally rolled out in 2009. The survey included items on de
mographic information, measures on employee perceptions of
organizational culture and supervisor support, and subjective
and objective career outcomes. We used well-established and
validated measures from the Organisational Behavior literature
(Cronbach Alphas for all measures were above .80). Over the
course of two years, we sent out two more waves, effectively
Quelle: Eigene Darstellung
