Discussion

working week, then the unions often do not resist very strongly against that wish of the employer” (de Beer, 2022:22:05)

Regarding the power of academics, Professor Grin emphasized how academics can influence transition processes such as WTR by taking the role of a ‘reflexive practitioner’. Reflexive practitioners look from a wider perspective to critically guide practices in way ordinary

participants are unable to do, for example by questioning norms around notions of efficiency and effectiveness and reframing issues to make new paths clear (Grin, 2022:33:14).

5.2.4 State Actors

While interviews with State actors could not be conducted, ‘the State’s’ view on work can be approximated using a speech from the President of the House of Representatives concerning part time work and the CNV’s WTR proposal. The government argues that in the context of the labour shortage and an expensive welfare state, policy should encourage individuals to work more hours:

‘expanding the number of hours…offers opportunities not only for the individual, but also for society. An aging society needs sufficient shoulders to bear the burden of our welfare state.’

(Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Wekrgelegenheid, 2020).

In response to the CNV’s proposal it was stated:

‘The government does not see this as the solution to the pressure on workers to combine work and private life. However… the government does share the CNV's analysis that the pressure on workers must be relieved’ (Ibid:12)

Rather, the government looks to relieve pressure through policies like parental leave, or by providing tax incentives for women to work longer hours so they can earn higher income (Ibid:4-5). In this regard, the government looks to the ‘social partners’ including trade unions to

“promote the extension of hours worked” by negotiating collective labour agreements which harmonize work and care responsibilities, for example through parental leave (Ibid: 11).

Altogether, the government is opposed to WTR’s and is looking to find opportunities for people to work more hours on a sectoral basis so they can better contribute to the Dutch economy.

conclusions about how transition management theory may be applied to exploit opportunities for and overcome barriers to greater implementation of WTR.

The thematic analysis provides several insights. First, WTR’s capacity to contribute to social sustainability – by bettering work-life balance, improving health outcomes, achieving gender equity, or lengthening leisure time – was the primary benefit identified by actors from all three groups. Additionally, far more emphasis was placed on WTR’s contribution to gender equity than was anticipated based on the results of the systematic review. While gender equity was frequently mentioned and is inextricably linked to work-life balance, only one article in the review (Weeks, 2009) studied gender as a primary outcome. However, gender was the most discussed social benefit by academics and union representatives. The emphasis on WTR and gender equity appears to be unique to the Netherlands, wherein nearly 60% of women work part time, which is three times the OECD average and over three times the rate for Dutch men (OECD, 2019). Consequently, gender equity in the labour market is salient national issue.

Second, while the social improvements delivered by WTR were seen as a self-evident benefit for academics, union actors demonstrated that social benefits were inextricably linked to, and partly desirable for their resultant economic benefits. Market actors valued social benefits only insofar as they left untouched or contributed to profits. The instinctive valuation of all things in monetary terms is evidence of a well-known cultural institution or constitutive schema (Scott, 2014:68) that leaves the premise of growth economics unquestioned. Bakari (2014) has referred to this as the ‘current socio-economic paradigm of development’. What this simple observation suggests is that the scope for advancing WTR in the Netherlands may depend on the proliferation of alternative metrics to measure the benefits of WTR. As Meadows (1998, quoted in Hayden and Wilson, 2017:185) notes “changing indicators can be one of the most powerful and ... easiest ways of making system changes”. In this sense, a transition towards WTR may require a ‘search for new value systems’ that deprioritize profit in favour of human health and wellbeing, or environmental sustainability.

Notably, only academic actors were previously aware of the environmental benefits of WTR. Therefore, while environmental benefits may result from WTR initiatives, this does not appear to be a motivating factor for actors considering WTR. Nevertheless, it remains the case that WTR is considered by scholars and researchers for its environmental benefits. Furthermore, when informed of WTR’s environmental benefits, union and market actors expressed

enthusiasm. Therefore, it is possible that as the debate on WTR expands, this component will gain salience amongst non-academic actors.

Regarding costs and barriers to WTR in the Netherlands, all actors ascribed the most importance to economic barriers, mainly concerning profitability and the labour shortage. Given that prospects for greater uptake are constrained by a profit motive, it appears as though either changing the metrics of measurement or employing strategies to offset the potential costs of WTR, perhaps through government subsidies for experimentation, offer some potential paths forward for WTR from a market perspective.

The second main barrier was a simple lack of demand for shorter working hours. This can be construed as a normative institutional barrier to WTR (Scott, 2014:65). As Anttila et al, (2005:189) note “The number of hours one ‘should’ work is socially constructed, and strongly affects perceptions of work”. From this perspective, workers have notions of appropriateness in relation to working hours, as was demonstrated in responses from the market actors (Robles, 2022:4:15). This barrier may also be linked to WTR’s economic feasibility, as forms of WTR that trade wages for leisure may be out of reach for lower income employees.

Table 1: Barriers, Opportunities, and Power Identified by Actors.

Finally, actors’ perception of their own or other’s power over WTR reveal several things.

First, the market actors seem to have the widest discretion to implement WTR if they see fit, as well as to maintain normal standard working hours if they choose. While market actors do not have the ability to exercise transformative power by setting policy, their power over

experimentation is broad. Therefore, one can observe that market actors have the widest breadth to exercise both innovative and reinforcive power over WTR. In contrast, unions have the ability to negotiate collective labour agreements. This might be viewed as an exercise of transformative power if these agreements legally lower the work week, as was the case with Achmea’s

collective labour agreement that established a 34-hour work week. Unions also exercise

reinforcive power by determining what goals to pursue or not to pursue. Academics can be said to have the capacity to exercise innovative power by creating new resources or methods for evaluating the effects of policy. For example, by challenging the prevailing logic of profit and arguing for the valuation of social or environmental benefits when considering WTR.