Choice of Work Hours & HR Management

This research critiques the article identified below this paragraph. The critique considers the relevance of the article to human resource management, the logic and completeness of the authors' argument, the reviewer's perception of the weaknesses and strengths of the article, and the reviewer's disagreement or agreement with the key points stated in the article. The article critiqued was obtained from the main library at the University of British Columbia.

Kahn, Shulamit, & Lang, Kevin. (1992). Constraints on the choice of work hours. The Journal of Human Resources, 27(4), 661678.

The relevance of this article to human resource management lies in developments over the past two decades in which such concepts as flextime, the fourday week, job sharing, and other concepts affecting work hours have been introduced into organizational environments (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1986, p. 126). Organizations developed and implemented such initiatives as one means of developing structures and systems that would permit them to integrate often conflicting demands. One set of often conflicting demands pits employee pressures for changes in the standard 40hour per week, eighthour per day work week against organizational demands for productivity increases. A change in the standard work week need not lead to productivity reductions. The effect of such a change on productivity will depend largely on the s

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ent lies in the trends over the past 12 years in which traditional fulltime employment has been eroded by parttime employment, job sharing, and other alternative forms of employment arrangements (Kassalow, 1989, pp. 7598). The structure of work in the American economy is in a period of transition in the early1990s. Externally, both international and domestic pressures demand increased productivity from organizations. Internally, employees demand greater participation in the organizational decisions that affect their lives. Zeytinoglu (1992, pp. 489499) pointedout that most literature indicates that motivations for employers to hire parttime workers are wage savings and cost savings related to employee benefits. The author found, however, that such factors were of relatively minor importance in decisions between fulltime and parttime employment (Zeytinoglu, 1992, pp. 489499). By contrast, Zeytinoglu (1992, pp. 489499) found that the principal motivations for an employers hiring parttime workers were the employers' desire to gain greater flexibility in scheduling work, and the desires of employees for part time work. The desire by employers for greater flexibility in the scheduling of work is consistent with ef
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2384
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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