The Evolving Landscape of Flexible Working Arrangements: Navigating Tensions in Hybrid Work, Return-to-Office, and Work-from-Anywhere

The Evolving Landscape of Flexible Working Arrangements: Navigating Tensions in Hybrid Work, Return-to-Office, and Work-from-Anywhere

This thesis examines the evolving landscape of flexible working arrangements in the post-pandemic workplace, where organisations have diverged into distinct trajectories: returning to pre-pandemic office norms through return-to-office (RTO) mandates, institutionalising hybrid models that combine remote and on-site work, or adopting work-from-anywhere (WFA) arrangements that decouple work from shared office space. Building on research that conceptualises flexible work as characterised by persistent, often paradoxical tensions, the thesis adopts a qualitative interpretivist approach to examine the lived experiences of supervisors and employees at the individual level across these contexts.

The thesis comprises three interrelated qualitative studies. Paper 1 examines how organisations manage the challenges of reduced co-presence in hybrid work. It shows that intentional engagement and inclusion practices at both collective and individual levels mitigate connection and coordination challenges, thereby supporting the long-term viability of hybrid work. Paper 2 focuses on supervisors navigating RTO mandates when organisational directives conflict with employees’ expectations for continued flexibility. It illustrates how their emotional engagement with the mandate shapes how they interpret tensions and adopt different paradox mindsets and responses, leading to distinct supervisory profiles. Paper 3 explores how employees in WFA arrangements make sense of extensive location flexibility and actively construct work–life boundaries. It shows how integration and segmentation of work and life domains can intentionally coexist through structured fluidity, making WFA viable.

Across the three studies, the findings show that flexible work is not simply an organisational policy or benefit but an ongoing accomplishment in practice, continuously interpreted, negotiated, and shaped as managers and employees navigate persistent tensions in everyday work. By examining flexible work through a paradox lens and focusing on the lived experiences of organisational actors, the thesis advances understanding of flexible work as a lived, interpretive, and tension-filled phenomenon. In doing so, it offers both theoretical insights and practical implications for organisations seeking to design, implement, and sustain flexible work arrangements.

Keywords:flexible working arrangements; paradox; tensions; hybrid work; return-to-office; work-from-anywhere; supervisors; boundary management

Thesis director

Prof. Almudena Cañibano, Full Professor of Work and Human Relations, ESCP Business School

Referees & Suffragants:

• Prof. Emmanuelle LEON, Associate Professor of Human Resource Management, ESCP Business School
• Prof. Tatiana ANDREEVA, Associate Professor in Management and Organisational Behaviour, Maynooth University School of Business

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