Discussion

As a result of the dynamic nature of business environments and growing evidence that employees prefer to be treated individually in workplaces (Bal & Dorenbosch, 2015), the use of flexitime is becoming more common in workplaces (World at Work, 2013), yet research to date has revealed an incomplete picture, focusing mainly on the impact of receiving entitlement to flexitime. This is surprising, given that “employees and employers often have mixed experiences with these practices” (Kossek & Thompson, 2015, p.2), and variations in its implementation within and across organizations have remained unexplored (Nishii & Wright, 2008). However, differentiation of HR practices may be a double-edged sword, as the presumed positive effects of such practices on those in receipt of them must be counterbalanced against the negative effects on the unentitled. Moreover, the impact of the work context has largely been considered to be invariant.This study has introduced two novel elements, employees’ overall

fairness perceptions and normativeness of flexitime, to explore the effects of non- entitlement to flexitime.

Role of overall fairness perceptions as a mechanism between non-entitlement to flexitime and affective commitment: Non-entitlement to flexitime has both direct

(H1) and indirect influences (via overall fairness perceptions, H2a) on employees’

affective commitment. These are the first results to shed light on the nature of the relationship between non-entitlement to flexitime and employees’ fairness

perceptions, as well as the downstream consequences for employees’ affective

commitment toward their organization. Specifically, the association between non- entitlement to flexitime and affective commitment is mediated by employees’

fairness perceptions, underlining their role as a crucial mechanism. Prevailing theories explaining the effects of workplace flexibility include job control, work–

family role conflict, and boundary and border theories (Kossek & Thompson, 2015; Golden, 2007). While these theories are useful in providing an understanding of the effects of entitlement to flexitime, they are less able to explain the negative effects of not receiving flexitime in workplaces where others are in receipt of such benefits. In adopting fairness theory, this study therefore makes a theoretical contribution to the flexitime literature, enabling discussion of the mixed consequences of flexitime (Allen et al., 2013) while encouraging a focus on the drawbacks of flexitime (Kossek & Thompson, 2015).

From an HR differentiation perspective, previous researchers have argued that organizations gain from implementing HR practices differentially across groups of employees (Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Lepak & Snell, 2002). According to this perspective, certain HR practices should be reserved for groups of employees who, for example, are strategically valuable to the organization (Clinton & Guest, 2013), are most likely to drive organizational performance (Becker & Huselid, 2011), or have been identified as high performers or as having high potential (Gelens et al., 2013). However, this approach is not necessarily justified for the workforce as a whole. Differential implementation of HR practices raises questions regarding the implications for employees who are not provided with the same opportunities. Despite its importance, the research stream on HR differentiation (Lepak & Snell, 2002; Nishii & Wright, 2008) has overlooked the potentially negative implications of HR differentiation for unentitled employees, particularly in workplaces where such HR differentiation exists. This is important because, when employees are singled out for access to a form of HR practice which is made available to others at the same time, organizational performance is

expands theorization on HR differentiation, such as career customization, workforce differentiation and human capital theories, by focusing on the reverse of the coin.

A few previous studies have explored how differentiation is beneficial to its recipients using theories of work adjustment (Bal & Dorenbosch, 2015), social exchange (Marescaux, De Winne & Sels, 2013) and high performance work systems (Ogbonnaya et al., 2016). Fairness theory may be an important angle from which to explore the downside of HR differentiation. This study’s focus on overall fairness therefore brings a new perspective on the HR differentiation literature which may be useful in exploring the downside of such practices, especially in contexts where the norm is to provide differentiated HR practices for certain employees.

Normativeness of flexitime influencing the association between non-entitlement to flexitime and overall fairness perceptions. This study has found that normativeness of flexitime, as a social context and boundary condition, influences overall fairness perceptions emanating from non-entitlement to flexitime (H3). This adds value to recent research which has begun to focus on the prevalence of FWPs and their impact on employee outcomes: Focusing only on those who benefited from telecommuting, Gajendran, Harrison and Delaney-Klinger (2015) found that in workplaces where telecommuting normativeness was high, the intensity of telecommuting was positively associated with task performance, while Golden (2007) report that teleworking prevalence is negatively associated with co-worker satisfaction. The present study appears to be the first to question the assumption of an invariant workplace regarding the prevalence of flexitime. Moreover, from a measurement perspective, previous research on flexitime has built on the implicit assumption that the implementation of flexitime is standardized both within a company and across most, if not all, employees (e.g. Baltes et al., 1999; Thompson, Payne & Taylor, 2014). Although these previous studies asked employees to indicate whether flexitime applied to them, the possibility that some employees within a workplace may be entitled to it while others are not, and the potentially negative implications of this for non-recipients, have not been taken into account. This might be viewed as a considerable

omission. The present study goes beyond previous research, which has relied on

either managers’ or employees’ reports of the proportion of employees or co- workers who telecommute (Gajendran et al., 2015; Golden, 2007) to calculate normativeness. In this study, for each workplace, a percentage for prevalence of flexitime (i.e. normativeness) has been calculated, which is more objective than other measures of normativeness, and hence adds rigour to this research stream. Considering the model as a whole, this research answers calls to focus on particular types of FWP (Chadwick, 2010; Kinnie et al., 2005; Paauwe, 2009). The aspects and implications of each FWP for outcomes are different and unique. It is likely that flexitime, flexi-location and taking leave to take care for the elderly or children operate differently, with unique antecedents as well as consequences (Allen et al., 2013; Kossek & Thompson, 2015). Nevertheless, researchers have only recently started to focus on particular types of FWP, namely telecommuting (Golden, 2011) and, to a certain extent, flexitime (Thompson & Aspinwall, 2009). Focusing solely on flexitime, this study contributes to this research stream by delineating the fairness implications of non-entitlement to flexitime and the role of normativeness of flexitime.