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2014 Cambridge Business & Economics Conference (CBEC)
DIFFERENCES IN TRANSNATIONAL CUSTOMER-PROVIDER RELATIONS AND
IMPLICATIONS ON WORK -LIFE BALANCE
By Sunrita Dhar-Bhattacharjee1 and Helen Peterson2
Abstract
With the development of the information society qualified knowledge work, such as different
kinds of professional services, research and engineering, is increasingly performed in
different locations for the same company. This has various implications on an individual’s
work-life balance. Local policies in workplaces in India can undergo changes when
globalised companies start to promote work-life balance policies and implement corporate
policies from the West. However, previous studies problematize this view by showing how
corporate policies in global firms are transformed in local contexts. In this paper, we study
four organisations based in Bangalore and Kochi. Two small start–up IT organizations
managed by the Swedes and the other two subsidies of a large multi-national IT company
headquartered in the UK and France. All four companies have different work-life balance
policies yet an individual’s work-life balance varies widely if they work for a Swedish, US, or
European, customer. The study relates to the questions how policies from the West are
transformed in local contexts and how this has implications on work-life balance in
transnational organisations. The analysis highlights how these implications vary depending
on differences in transnational customer-provider relations in the four companies. The
findings highlight how work-life balance for IT professionals and software developers can
differ not only depending on whether they work in a Swedish or US based company. The
working conditions that influence work-life balance can also differ greatly within the same
company depending on the specific project that the software developer is currently involved
in. The project management, i.e. the customer, thus decides on the working conditions for
their projects, and can disregard company policies and instead give priority to finishing the
project fast.
Keywords: transnational, IT professional, WLB, offshoring, customer-provider relation.
Introduction
Software production outsourcing has been common for many years but since the late 1980’s this has
increasingly occurred across national and cultural borders, contributing to a phenomena known as
‘global software outsourcing’ (Sahay et al., 2003). Software work undertaken at geographically
separated locations takes places within an extremely dynamic and diverse global marketplace, which
is populated by organizations big and small from countries developed and developing. This has
various implications on an individual’s work-life balance.
In this paper, we investigate the transnational customer-provider relation in high end IT offshoring
focusing on work-life balance issues, from the employees’ perspective. We study four organisations
with offices in India but with company headquarters in Sweden, UK and France respectively.
Although they differ in size all four companies have work-life balance policies. We problematize
what happens when these globalised companies start to promote work-life balance policies in the
local, traditional contexts in India. We draw for example on previous studies that have shown how
Western, corporate policies are transformed in local, Eastern contexts in transnational companies. The
paper contributes to previous research by highlighting how work-life policies are overridden by the
demands from the customer. The possibilities for the employees in the IT companies we study to
1
2
Lecturer, Lord Ashcroft International Business School, Anglia Ruskin University, UK.
Associate Professor, Department for Gender Studies, Linköping University, Sweden.
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balance work and family seem less dependent on the corporate policies but more on the customer
demands.
The paper is structured as follows. The next section describes the methodological considerations and
the empirical data. The subsequent section outlines previous research focusing on transnational
customer-provider relations and work-life balance issues. After that the findings and analysis are
elaborated. The paper concludes with a discussion of our results and some implications for future
research.
Methodological considerations
This paper draws on interviews made in four ICT firms all employing professional IT workers with a
higher education background in Sweden and India. Three of the firms were based in Bangalore and
the fourth in Kochi in India. Members of the research project ‘OFFSWING’ conducted the interviews.
‘OFFSWING’ is a research project coordinated at Uppsala University in Sweden, focusing the socalled “soft” issues in advanced ICT offshoring from Sweden to India. In this section, we discuss the
four organisations we studied in details.
Initially, a number of IT organizations were approached who were working with outsourced IT
projects through researchers’ personal contacts in December 2011. Of the four organizations we
studied, two are start-ups and the other two are well-established large multi-nationals. Organization
A is a small start-up IT organization set up by the Swedes in India. It comprises of less than 100
employees in India and only works with Swedish clients. The projects are mainly outsourced from
Sweden, which involves high end IT programming. Organization B and C are subsidies of large multinational IT companies headquartered in the UK and France. Organization B is a multinational IT
company headquartered in the UK. They entered the Swedish market by acquiring a previously
Swedish-owned company, and gradually expanded its operation worldwide. This is a big organization
compared to Organization A and the employees here work in different offshoring projects serving
various clients from Europe, US and the UK. Organization C is a multinational company
headquartered in France. They work with several European and non-European clients, have worldwide operations and provide a range of professional services including IT, outsourcing and consulting.
Organization D is a small start-up set up by a Dutch. The company has offices in Northern Europe
and two offshore offices in India, one of these in Kochi where we conducted interviews with the
employees.
The interviewees were selected after initial discussions with senior management in each company. A
number of issues were discussed with these organizations - data collection procedures, gaining access
to employees working with Swedish projects, anonymity and confidentiality of data collected,
publication of data and ethical considerations. The researchers had to sign an agreement with
organisation B and C that none of the employees would be asked any questions relating to pay or
attrition. Data was collected by face-to-face interviews with senior managers, project managers and
expert employees between April 2012 and July 2013. The interviews were conducted in Sweden and
India. Most of the interviews were face to face. The researchers mostly conducted the interviews in
Stockholm and Gothenburg in Sweden. In India, the interviews mainly took place in Bangalore,
Chennai and Kochi.
In all, over 150 people were interviewed in all the four organizations, and of them about 10 were in
HR/senior management. About 30 people were interviewed from each organization and both women
and men were interviewed. About 20% of the interviewees were women. Majority of the interviews
were conducted in the respective offices in their meeting rooms. Senior management in liaison with
different project managers initially selected the candidates who were interviewed. However, as time
went on, a number of interviewees recommended and suggested others who were then interviewed.
Thus this followed a snowballing effect.
Each interview lasted between 30 minutes to an hour and half. Almost all the interviews were
recorded. All the interviews in India were in English while the interviews conducted in Sweden were
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mostly in Swedish, as the interviewees expressed their preference to speak in Swedish. The interviews
conducted in Sweden were not translated and transcribed in English due to cost implications.
However, all the interviews conducted in India were transcribed. The quotations from the Swedish
interviews used in this paper were translated by the authors of the paper.
The interviews were semi-structured and an interview guide was used for expert employees and a
separate one for senior/HR managers, although not always applied exactly the same way in all
interviews, instead allowing for flexibility and specific follow up questions. The employee
questionnaire mainly asked questions around the employee’s background, position, work tasks,
communication procedures with the client, WLB, cultural differences between Swedish and Indian
managers, differences in organizational cultures between Sweden and India and differences of
working with different client and customers other than Swedish and Indian. They were also asked to
comment on their educational background and previous work experiences, their current working
conditions, relations with colleagues, managers and customers and career aspirations.
The senior/HR manager questionnaire mainly focussed on how the initial co-operation between
Sweden and India started, how the managers put together a team to manage and deliver the projects,
initial phases of the project and challenges regarding setting up communication procedures. They
were also asked to comment on the cultural differences that affected everyday work, failures in
communication and delivery, WLB, and differences in organizational cultures between Sweden and
India that had an effect on cooperation. The interviews were analysed using the qualitative data
analysis software ATLAS.ti. As a complement they were also analysed using traditional content
analysis and coding (Fereday and Muir Cochrane, 2006; Finfgeld-Connett, 2013). The coding
involved a combination of inductive and deductive techniques. An existing framework of previous
research and theoretical concepts was used, but within this framework the primary objective was to
understand, interpret and represent the subjective viewpoints of the interviewees without any
preconceptions in order to capture the qualitative richness of the phenomenon. The broad category, or
core theme, that this paper focuses deals with work-life balance issues. Some of the subthemes
belonging to this broad category that emerged from the data are presented in this paper.
The method used to collect the data could possibly have some limitations. Firstly since the interviews
took place within the organization, it is possible that some interviewees were not able to freely
express themselves. The interviewees in all the four organizations were also initially selected by the
senior management in liaison with project managers who briefed them about the research, funding
body (Swedish Research Council and Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and
Welfare) and anonymity and confidential issues. It is likely this could possibly have intimidated some
interviewees in taking a critical stance to their responses.
Previous research
The transnational, Indian context
The transnational customer-provider relation introduces new working conditions for offshore
employees. Offshore development centres (ODCs) set up by multinational companies and Indianowned software companies are responsible for carrying out the outsourced software services. This
industry is very diverse encompassing a wide range of activities, types of work, skills levels from
high-end research and development to low-end services like customisation, systems maintenance. The
ODCs operating in India undertake both low-end and high-end work, however much of the ‘frontline’ work is seen as particularly suitable for women (Belt et al., 2002) and these skills are often
unacknowledged but they are arguably gendered (Webster, 2004). India’s software services
outsourcing industry is a prime example of the globalisation of knowledge work (Upadhya, 2009) and
the industry has grown phenomenally because of liberalisation policies that have pushed towards
technological modernisation and significant state support (Heeks 1996). Some of the important factors
for the growth of this industry in India are the people - a freely available large pool of engineers, an
outcome of Nehruvian state led-development and private and public higher education system
(Upadhya, 2009), location, tax benefit, and revenue.
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The Indian labour market has relatively high levels of English language competence and expertise in
mathematics, science and engineering, and nearly over 50% of the population are under the age of 25
years (NASSCOM, 2006). This is seen as offering particular advantages in terms of levels of skill,
knowledge, expertise as well as attitude (Walsh & Deery, 2006). India produces over two –million
English speaking graduates every year who are ready to work for salaries that are as much as 80%
lower than those paid to their western counterparts (Budhwar et al., 2006). Inspite of Indian
employees’ high educational qualifications, ability to respond to highest number of calls within a set
target time, they have the lowest levels of job discretion, highest levels of monitoring and surveillance
coupled with the lowest labour costs (Howcroft and Richardson, 2010) India has an established
infrastructure that offers telecom services, technology parks, improved international bandwidth,
several global industry standards like SEI-CMM, ISO, TQM, COPC, Six Sigma Quality, Government
incentives like a ten- year tax holiday and rebates in custom duties, a well-established software
industry, and an existing base of blue-chip companies (Budhwar et al., 2006). Most ODCs have
international quality certifications such as the International Standards Organisation (ISO) 9000,
capability maturity Model (CMM) level 5 mainly to establish legitimacy in the market leading to
standardisation and rationalisation (Upadhya, 2009).
Tschang (2001) puts forward that software services companies follow the ‘human resources
augmentation’ model of project management in which revenue is directly related to the number of
projects executed and the number of people working on a project. Within this management context
control over software labour process and the workers time allocation is very crucial. These
multinational IT companies deploy a wide range of management techniques and organisational
policies to find the optimum formula to handle their resources and efficiently manage projects
(Upadhaya, 2009). Global software and IT companies often have a flat management structure, flexible
management practices and a more informal work culture, and the Indian IT companies represent
themselves as offering top quality and value for money consultancy importing management models
from America (Upadhaya, 2009).
Some like Gephart (2002) argue that this new ‘managerialism model’ (Thrift, 1999) – the more
popular corporate agenda of late capitalism (Taylor, 1998) where management models from the
American IT industry are imported and employees are represented as highly skilled knowledge
professionals creates new structures of power and inequality. Thrift (1999) suggests that this soft
capitalism requires total commitment of the individual and involves ‘super-exploitation’ of both the
managers and the workers. A strong corporate culture imbibes a self-motivated and committed
workforce (Kunda 1992) and this is important in the industry where induction workshops for new
employees are replete with phrases like ‘customer is God’3.
Upadhya (2009) states that while Indian companies adopt this new age management in part to project
a professional and global image to potential clients and to conform with customer expectations, these
practices are also considered to be crucial to manage the high rates of employee attrition and retaining
employee loyalty is particularly important in these knowledge-based industries (Alvesson, 1993).
Team work, peer control and peer surveillance coupled with good salaries are some of the normative
management techniques used by ODCs to create self- managing and self-motivating employees.
Research on lean management and Total Quality Management (TQM) emphasize the centralised ICT
enabled monitoring and information systems that allow the management to extract surplus value from
workers (Ezzamel, 2001). Most of the projects are customer-driven, where the client retains the
responsibility of controlling most of the processes, technology-driven surveillance systems are
employed to monitor the offshore teams (Upadhya, 2009).
The quality management processes ensures that in order to maintain control over processes, it must be
quantified, measured and reduced to quantifiable ‘metrics’ of time, effort, productivity and output for
3
National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) (2006) ‘Coding culture: Bangalore’s software industry’,Film
series by Gautam Sonti in collaboration with Carol Upadhya, Bangaluru
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each worker and team on a daily and weekly basis with detailed monitoring, measuring, and
evaluation of work completed – a system of panoptical control through electronic surveillance (ibid).
Work-life balance
Work life conflict (WLC) is a result of a situation where work demands make it difficult to cope with
demands in the private life or the reversed; when demands in the private life render it impossible to
manage a full-time employment (Voydanoff, 2005). The conflict is linked to the employers’ demands
based on the traditional work ideal in the labour market that depicts an ideal employee as someone
that work long hours, is mobile and accessible anytime and anywhere (Peterson, 2005). The other
aspect of WLC is linked to family and care responsibilities and is therefore most often associated with
parents to young children and a problem of immediate relevance in especially women’s lives, as they
often take on the main care responsibilities for children or relatives (Maume, 2006). Lately, WLC has
become the concern not only of employees but also of employers in companies with high attrition
rates. To attract and retain employees the companies aim to manifest a “family-friendly” attitude and
implement work-life policies (Felstead et al., 2002; Todd and Binns, 2013).
Different types of corporate work-life policies help facilitate a work-life balance (WLB) for the
employees. Many of these WLB policies involve different aspects of flexibility for the employee; for
example working from home, flexitime (flexible start and finishing times), reduction of working hours
and various other types of arrangements (Lippe et al., 2006). Flexibility at work thus entails a
temporal aspect; i.e. that it is not important when the employees are working. Instead all that matters
are the results and what the employees accomplish. Flexibility here also involves a spatial aspect; i.e.
that where the work is performed is of less interest to the employer. Work could be located to nonstandard work places, for example work at home (Peterson, 2011).
The ICT business constitutes an interesting setting for a study about WLC and WLB. Companies in
the ICT business are especially associated with work ideals that promote overwork and long hours,
dedicated employees and a blurred boundary between work and other parts of life (Peterson 2011).
However, ICT has also been suggested to be able to support different kinds of flexible work
arrangements and thereby be able to reduce conflicts between work and family (Chesley, 2005;
Roman and Peterson, 2011).
As Chandra (2012) points out, the way work and family is viewed is different in eastern and western
countries. These differences in perspective also have consequences for how WLC and WLB is
considered and understood. Generally, Western companies rank higher in global rankings of best
practices in WLB than Eastern and Asian companies. Some of these differences have been ascribed to
the varying degree that national gender equality setting supports organizational and corporate WLB
policies. It is thus important to contextualize an analysis of WLB within a framework of cultural
traditions, family structures and social institutions (Lyness and Kropf, 2005).
This paper concerns WLB policies in the corporate context in India but the Swedish policy context is
highly relevant due to the studied organizations’ base and background in Sweden. Sweden is a
country often referred to as a good practice case when it comes to WLB policies. The Swedish
welfare system distinguishes the country from for example the US and the UK in that it supports the
reconciliation of parenthood and professional life through structural measures such as paid parental
benefit (a total of 480 days per child), public childcare, child allowance and temporary parental
benefit for care of children in case of sickness (Duvander and Ferrarini, 2013). When it comes to
vacation the minimum is five weeks each year. This is a context where national policies and
government programs support and encourage corporate WLB policies (Lyness and Kropf ,2005). This
constitutes a different national gender equality setting compared to the Indian context.
Smitha Radhakrishnan (2008; 2009) for example illustrates that many Indian women, even in the ICT
business, idealize the life of a housewife and that the staying at home to take care of husband, children
and in-laws very much is still a norm in India (cf. also D’Mello, 2006). This is very different from the
dual-earner norm that permeates the Swedish society. The position of work in the individual’s life is
also different. According to Chandra (2012) some of the differences between West and East concern
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lack of acceptance of negotiating for shorter work hours in Asian countries as working long hours is
seen as a commitment to the job. Hours worked is one important aspect to consider for WLB. Glass
door4 ranking of hours worked by country shows that India tops the statistics with 2400 hours
compared to the UK with 1673 hours, US with 1972 hours and Sweden with only 1564 hours.
Comparing Sweden and India thus illustrates that people in Sweden only work 65% of the hours
people work in India (Chandra, 2012).
Chandra (2012) also shows that there are significant differences between WLB policies between
American and European multinational companies and Indian companies. The American and European
policies focus on facilitating flexibility between work and life outside of work for the employee. The
Indian companies instead target employee welfare with their policies, including cultural, recreational,
health and educational programmes. They also include socializing after working hours as an important
part of WLB, something that is rarely at the core of WLB policies in Western companies.
Further, WLB policies in transnational companies are interesting to investigate further due to the
process of transformation or translation in the local context. Gertsen and Zølner (2012) highlight how
corporate values, including WLB policies, in a Danish multinational company become
recontextualised in the context of one of its subsidiaries in India. Here the WLB policy about flexible
working hours presupposed that the employees had a task-oriented perspective, i.e. that they planned
their work and completed their tasks in time. However, the employees seemed to interpret the policy
as allowing them to always leave work at 5.30 pm.
In this paper we have left out the discussion on issues concerning socializing, as an important part of
Indian corporate WLB policies. Another central aspect of WLB that is mostly left outside of the
discussion in this paper is maternity and paternity leave, as well as child and elder care. The reason
why we leave these essential and interesting aspects of WLB outside of the discussion is that it was
mostly other aspects that were discussed by the software developers in relation to customer-relations,
which are the focus of this paper. We will analyse the other aspects of WLB elsewhere. Thus, in this
paper we focus on a definition of WLB that includes working hours and overtime; (spatial and
temporal) flexibility; and, vacation and holidays. These were aspects of WLB that were mentioned in
interviews in all organizations, and by more or less all interviewees.
The paper now continues with outlining a preliminary analysis of the different aspects of WLC and
WLB the interviewed employees discussed when they were asked to describe the corporate WLB
policies they used to balance paid work and private life.
Empirical findings
Working hours and overtime
Within a ‘new age’ management model, the employees in Organization A were encouraged to
promote a ‘self- work ethic’ (Heelas, 2002), motivate and identify themselves with the organization
(Ogbor, 2001). The first employees who were recruited in this company worked round the clock
initially to set up the reputation of the organization. Some stayed overnight in the office continuously
for a couple of days to satisfy the client (Swedish). The employees discussed how the employees and
the management worked as a group, almost like a family, to satisfy the client. Although this meant
carrying on working at non-contracted hours (weekends, evenings and all night), the employees were
not paid overtime. The first batch of employees who were recruited in this organization we spoke to
were all young men, mostly fresh graduates, who didn’t mind the unpaid overtime in anticipation of
travelling abroad to client site. One of them explained:
“Previously I used to stay here continuous three to four days. We used to work for weekends
Saturday and Sundays. Everyday. But that was previously.” (Employee, Organization A)
4
Glassdoor.com (Glassdoor.com is your free inside look at company ratings and reviews – including employee
satisfaction and CEO approval rating.)
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The next set of recruits in the same organization talked about the nature of the work and compared
with their previous experience of working with other European and US clients in other organizations.
The work pressure was intense in Organization A, yet relatively few stayed overnight or worked
weekends to finish a job. They compared their individual work-life balance with other companies and
felt they were better off working here.
A similar work ideal, involving overtime and long hours, was described by some of the employees in
Organization D. Here this kind of work ethic of Indian programmers was emphasized as a positive
aspect in the competitive market (cf. Chandra, 2012). One of the Indian employees explained:
“The work culture is totally different between Europe and India but the main thing is the
approach to the work. It is somewhat different because in India we are working hard for the
project or the task but they are doing… […] They stop at the right time and they go outside
and they enjoy the evening. Maybe our developers may be ready to spend more hours in office
because they have the dedication to the project or the work. They have an agreement with the
client for some day; they will need to finish at that day; they will meet the deadline. That’s the
quality of Indian programmers.” (Employee, Organization D)
Another employee, a woman, in Organization D was asked if she had experienced any differences in
approach or attitude to work between Swedish and Indian employees. She replied by describing that
the Swedes were strict when it came to working hours and not staying late in the office, something
that also affected the work culture in India:
“They [the Swedes] are very punctual. They come to work at 9:00 and leave at 6:00. And I
think they are more concentrated at working. […] Suppose I have to work more time after my
working time, yeah I can work. But I have found that other people they can’t work. They have
to leave office. And that means that we are getting little more freedom in our work
atmosphere.” (Employee, Organization D)
However, this dedicated employee who longs work long hours was a work ideal that appealed to the
organizations in India is reflected in how the recruitment process was described. The recruitment
manager (an Indian woman) at Organization A mentioned how efficiently they were able to recruit the
right people for the right job. She explained in details how she managed to enquire details about a
candidate’s personal life (married/single, siblings/caring responsibilities) through informal discussions
with them while accompanying them from the waiting room to the interview room. She explained
scrutinising candidates (informally) and getting an insight into their lives gave her an edge in making
decisions on selection and recruitment. Although the senior management in this organization wanted
to imbibe the consensus Swedish organizational culture in the Indian context, yet there were obvious
leaks which hinder this as the local manager (unknowingly or not deliberately) stops this from
happening. It is also illegal in many countries to make recruitment and selection decisions based on a
candidate’s personal circumstances (marriage, childcare responsibilities, disabilities etc.), yet the local
manager here tries to gather this information in an informal setting and turns this into a selection
strategy. This clearly shows how local managers can transform policies from the west into local
contexts.
“For women, I have one typical question which I will ask whether she is a married or an
unmarried woman. If in case she’s an unmarried woman, I’ll always ask her, like, when is
she planning to get married because lot of things depend on that also and if, like, she’s
already engaged, okay. Because if she’s in some project, okay, and suddenly she says,
tomorrow I’m getting married, I will not come to an organization, so it’s a difficult task for
us. So I should prepare the project manager accordingly then, see, this person will stay in the
organization for one year, not more than that because she is planning to get married. And
similarly, my second question with the married woman is, like, do they have plan of getting
their family increased…” [HR manager, Organization A]
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The IT industries are known for a 24/7 working hours culture, overseas travel in short notices where
women than men have mobility issues. Women have more domestic responsibilities and childcare
commitments and hence this explains why they are vertically segregated in the workplace (Tattersall
et al., 2007). The informal selection strategy explained by the senior manager above gives an insight
as to how recruitment and selection currently takes place where the obvious preference weighs more
towards a single individual ideally without caring responsibilities available 24/7.
However, in Organization D the programmers’ WLB was also described as the concern of the
managers and as part of the organizational culture. One of the Indian employees in Kochi explained,
as he compared his organization with other IT companies in India:
“The difference I see from many other IT companies is that here [in Organization D] we’ll be
working from 9:00 to 6:00 nobody will insist you to work after 6:00. If we are sitting after
6:00 somebody will ask why you don’t have to go home. Somebody will ask this.” (Employee,
Organization D)
Employees from Organization B and C had a wider experience of working with different clients and
they were able to compare and contrast their WLB while working with Australian, US, UK, and
Swedish clients. They explained how working with Australian, US or UK clients meant late night
working and tight deliveries, whereas working with Swedish clients meant normal working hours. An
employee from Organization C explained how much she struggled to cope with her family life when
she worked for the client based in the UK.
“I was in the UK shifts, that time it was a bit of a problem for me because I was the analyst I
couldn’t ask for a nine to six shift because it’s also all UK clients we were supporting. So
during the UK hours, the daycares don’t function here. So I had to request a lady to keep my
daughter from afternoon till 10:30 at night and then pick her up go back home so it was a bit
of concern during that time.” [Employee, Organization C]
Another employee from Organization B explained how working unsociable hours for the Australian
and US client took a toll on her heath. She had to take a 3 month unpaid break as she started suffering
from depression.
“Well, it had an adverse effect on my health because we lose lots of sleep. Even the food
timetable also gets changed because early morning we log in, we don’t feel like eating. We
have our breakfast somewhere around 8 o' clock in the morning. 2:30 ends my shift and
before that, 1:30 also I will not be able to go and have my lunch because that is the time
where you will actually be working and you want to finish this work to be done, so that you
can log out. After going home, you'll have your lunch. Say 2:30 if I log out. 3 o' clock I get
my cab and I'll reach my home by 4 o'clock. So 4 o'clock is my lunch break. And sometimes
during the night, if I feel like eating – If I have the appetite, I eat. Otherwise, no dinner
because all this --- after going home only sleep will be in your mind. You just want to put
yourself on bed.” [Employee, Organization B]
Although Sweden and India fall within different time zones, employees working in Swedish projects
do not seem to have stretched themselves to the point being stressed, instead interviewees mostly
agreed being comfortable.
“… people [Swedes]are very friendly, you know though they have that hierarchy defined on
the chart, when they go out or when they’re working they work as counterparts, that eases out
the tension a lot, whereas in UK it is not so, the hierarchical nature or hierarchy is strictly
followed and British’s are bound to do that… That hierarchical strictness is little less and
that eases out a lot of tension, and that eases out a lot of complications, this is one thing I
wanted to say…. With the Swedish I felt more comfortable. ” [Employee, Organization B]
The employee from Organization B here raises the issue of how the client/customer [Swedes] try to
imbibe a consensus culture in the Indian setting, and this is successfully working in terms of how the
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employees informally interact with senior managers to discuss various issues. These informal
interactions are often rare in other hierarchical organizational settings where a formal distance is
encouraged and maintained between an employee and a manager.
We examined four organizations and have seen how policies from the west are transformed in local
contexts and this has implications on an individual’s WLB. The two multinational organizations we
studied certainly have policies that encompass WLB policies, yet what really makes a difference to an
individual’s WLB depends on the specific project that the software developer is currently involved in.
In these instances, the customer-provider relation becomes more relevant which actually contributes
to a better WLB for the individual and not policies at the organizational level.
Flexibility
Measures that involve different kinds of flexibility for the employees are often central for corporate
WLB policies. They can relate to the scheduling of work, e.g. flexi time or tele-working, or to the
duration of work, e.g. part-time work and reducing working hours. The interviewees in all our four
organizations mentioned these kinds of WLB policies and appreciated them. However, the policies
were of different character in the different organizations and the possibilities for the employees to use
them were sometimes limited. The employees in Organization B clearly had experience of working in
different projects. Yet in their opinion the WLB was better when they worked with Swedish clients.
One interviewee explained:
“We have a very good work-life balance and I have to say this because the first thing when
I’m taking a resource, I try to highlight this point in first meeting or first few sentences that
I’m talking to the person. Because concept wise mine is if you come to the office by nine and
if you leave by six that’s the xxx (name of organization) working hours giving few break times
and all that. You can do and work a lot of stuff. So I tell them try to maintain this time and
you will never have to work after six or before nine. And people don’t believe it but for the
last three four years its happening and none of my team members ever stayed after six
because of work.” (Employee, Organization B)
The interviewees in Organization B also talked about the work culture in different projects and
compared it with other British and American clients.
“About Swedes compared with UK and US. Swedes are very open minded. But they are also
restrained, so it can look like everything is OK but suddenly there is a question which has
been there for some time. Working for the US is much more hectic. In the AAA [name of
project] team there is never pressure, they are cool, there are no issues. If we explain that we
may not be able to do this and that exactly on time, they accept a new timeframe.” (Employee,
Organization B)
The employees in Organization A mentioned how they had restrictions in terms of flexible working
procedures. Flexible working arrangements were only possible for employees who reached a certain
seniority within the organization (only PM and above). Anyone employed below PM were closely
monitored and exceptions were only made on an individual basis. The employees in Organization A
had limited number of annual leave per annum with no provision of paid sick leave. If unwell, the
employees had to sacrifice their annual leave.
However, in comparison to Organization A, in Organization B the flexible working conditions were
explained to apply to all, irrespective of position and hierarchy:
“Times in XXX[ organization B] the timing is flexible, you can come by 9:00 and leave by
6:00. Or you can come by 10:00 and leave by 7:00 it’s up to you. If you are getting late you
just have to call or message our manager or you have to sign a mail. (Employee,
Organization B)
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One of the employees, a woman, in organization D described a form of spatial flexibility; to be able to
work from home as something unique in the Indian labour market. According to her this was not
common in Indian companies and to her this was a great advantage:
“Another best thing is the option to work from home if you need to, that’s very important,
than I even say that because there might be days when my son is sick and I could just be at
home and be with him but I can work from there also so it’s … I have never seen any Indian
company with that option. I think this is the only company that… yes, known to have that
option in coaching, not sure. But yes, it’s very flexible.” (Employee, Organization D)
Flexibility seems to be certainly better for an individual if they are working for a Swedish client
compared to the others and in these instances customer-provider relations seem to override the
policies even at the organizational level.
Vacation and holidays
Vacations and holidays are important parts of the WLB and the conditions differed between the
different companies also when it came to this aspect. Although the organization does not allow taking
more than two weeks leave at a time, employees working with Swedish clients were able to negotiate
longer annual leaves in Organization B:
“And annual leaves policy also in this company [organization B], in our team especially if
the Swedes go for five weeks’ vacation, so they never say “why you are going…?” For we
can take one month vacation. Nobody will question, in our team especially because we are
working with the Swedes and they have a habit of taking long leaves.” (Employee,
Organization B)
An employee in Organization D explained that there were differences between Swedish and Indian
working culture and was asked to elaborate about his experiences of the Swedish working culture and
replied as follows:
“It’s good because often they are given [IB] holidays and everything but in here in India you
can’t… it’s hard to get holidays. They have to get sanctioned before two or three months. But
in here it’s different. We’re just following the world culture of Europeans, so if you are in
need a holiday I can inform the client. […]Most of the Indian companies will not allow you to
take more than two or three weeks for a particular trip or anything like that.” (Employee, D)
In our study, transnational customer-provider relations not only seemed to over-ride policies with
regards to working hours and flexible working but also vacation and holidays.
Women and work-life balance
Work-life balance issues are important to consider from a gendered perspective as women to a higher
degree than men experience so called combination pressure due to the fact that women often have the
main responsibilities for domestic tasks and children (cf. e.g. Maume 2006). One coping-strategy that
women frequently use in order to balance work and family is to leave a full time employment for a
part-time employment. Women, and especially mothers, work part-time to a much greater extent than
men and fathers do (Plantenga & Remery 2005; Reynolds 2005).
In our study women employees especially preferred to work with Swedish clients for better WLB.
One employee left the organization and returned back simply because the WLB was better working
with Swedish clients. She explained:
“Say for example here a woman here many prefer to work to xxx[ organization B] European
company because of cultural capability, the working hours, work life balance, women try to
work here, women also love to work in YYY [another competitor], because YYY has got about
38% women, and almost 90% of the women work from home, they don’t and when I was there
we used to give them €110, €110 per month as incentive for working from home. As support
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for working from home but we used to tell that because you are working from home, the office
pays the same, the power, electricity, cafeteria or subsidy everything is same and you are
spending money for your internet connection, telephone and office an and the power. So, we
used to be paid €110 more but now it is stopped.” (Employee, Organization B)
None of the women we interviewed in India were working part-time. Although part-time working
opportunities are available in most of the organizations, few avail it (Dhar-Bhattacharjee and TakruriRizk, 2011). This woman from organization B explained the nature of her dilemma and how she
copes:
“Interviewee: …there is flexibility in terms of your working hours so if there is something at
home you can kind of balance it out so those are the pluses again that is a
good thing.”
“Interviewer: Yeah so actually you are not planning moving upwards but moving sideways
because of the work-life balance?
Interviewee:
Yes not on the vertical level but a horizontal may be a change in a kind of a
role where then I’m not required to be in operations it’s a individual give me the work I’ll
finish at home or if I have the option working from home I would be more than happy.
Interviewer:
Yeah can you do that now …?
Interviewee:
I can see even if I today say that my son is not well I can't come to office
because I can't leave him in the day care they give me the option, but my conscious says that I
can't give 100% from home because these operations I have to be looking onto the screens I
have to see what people are around, are they really seriously doing their work or not these
workings I can't do it from home, being in operations. So I feel it from inside that I'm not
giving 100% so sometimes if very often I need I will restrict myself not to ask work from home
option.” (Employee, Organization B)
Previous research (Dhar-Bhattacharjee, 2013) shows that parent organisations based in Europe tended
to more devolved and therefore offered a better work-life balance for their employees, whereas if the
parent organisation was based in the US, a greater standardisation was expected to be maintained
across the offices globally where even the basic structure of the Performance management system
could not be altered. This study shows how differences in customer-provider relations can affect
retention or attrition for employees, especially women.
Concluding discussion
In this paper, we have focused on three different aspects of WLB – working hours and overtime,
flexibility and vacation and holidays. Based on the empirical findings four main conclusions can be
drawn, as summarized below:
1) The WLB was restricted by customer and limited by the work pressure in the specific project.
The study highlights the critical role of the customer-provider role on the possibilities of the
employees to utilize WLB corporate policies. The critical role the customers had for WLB
became apparent in the interviews. Utilisation of work-life policies was reported as being
dependent upon the customer. The customer thus had prerogative over companies’ policies
concerning for example working hours and flexibility. The workload of each employee also
varied according to the different customer. Further, the interviewees suggested that there were
country-specific differences between customers from Australia, Sweden, the US or other
European countries. Working for a Swedish customer limited the workload and increased
WLB.
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2) The WLB was better when the interviewees worked with a Swedish client compared to a US
or a UK one.
Our findings show that the WLB policies offered in the companies are very much appreciated
by the employees. When making the choice to stay in a company, employees also take into
consideration if they will be able to work with customers that support their WLB. European
countries have fewer working hours and more generous amount of annual leave than the
counterparts in US or Asia. And results show that WLB in larger companies are better than
smaller start-ups and it is even better if the customer is Swedish compared to an Australian,
American or British one.
3) The WLB policies offered affect companies’ retention of employees.
Our findings show that differences in customer-provider relations can affect retention or
attrition for employees, especially women who normally bear the responsibilities of balancing
domestic tasks and children.
4) WLB policies are especially important for women employees.
The study relates to the questions how equality diversity policies from the West are
transformed in local contexts and how this has implications on work-life balance in
transnational organisations. The analysis highlights how these implications vary depending on
differences in transnational customer-provider relations and the different types of knowledge
transfer in the three companies. The findings also highlight how work-life balance for
software developers can differ not only depending on whether they work in a Swedish or US
based company. The working conditions that influence work-life balance can also differ
greatly within the same company depending on the specific project that the software
developer is currently involved in. The project management, i.e. the customer, thus decides on
the working conditions for their projects, and can disregard policies in the company and
instead give priority to finishing the project fast.
We find that our results support the argument that transnational companies operating in India are welladvised to take cultural aspects into consideration (cf. Chandra, 2012). They should also be aware of
how customer-provider relations affect WLB for their employees.
The analysis in this paper is limited as it only provides the perspective of the employees. Further
analysis of the interviews with the managers will add an important dimension to the discussion about
work-life balance policies in these companies (cf. Todd and Binns, 2013). Family-friendly corporate
policies are put into practice in different ways by women and men. These practices could thus not be
understood as detached from gendered practices that are imbued in society. A further analysis of these
results must thus apply a gendered perspective.
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