In Breaking the Mold, Lotte Bailyn argues that society's separation of work and family is no longer a tenable model for employees or the organizations that employ them. Unless American business is willing to radically rethink some of its basic assumptions about work, career paths, and time, both employee and employer will suffer in today's intensely competitive business environment. Bailyn's message was bold when this book was originally published in 1993. Now thoroughly updated to reflect the latest developments in the organization of work, the demography of the workforce, and attitudes toward the integration of work and personal life, this second edition is even more compelling.

Bailyn finds that implementation of policies designed to allow "flexibility" is rarely smooth and often results in gender inequity. Using real-life cases to illustrate the problems employees encounter in coordinating work and private life, she details how corporations generally handle these problems and suggests models for innovation. Throughout, she shows how the structure and culture of corporate life could be changed to integrate employees' other obligations and interests, and in the process help organizations become more effective.

Drawing on international comparisons as well as many years of working with organizations of various kinds, Bailyn emphasizes the need to redesign work itself. Breaking the Mold allows us to rethink the connections between organizational processes and personal concerns. Implementation of Bailyn's suggestions could help employees to become more effective in all realms of their complicated lives and allow employing organizations to engage their full productive potential.

About the Author

Lotte Bailyn is the T Wilson (1953) Professor of Management, Emerita, at the MIT Sloan School of Managemen. She is the author of Living with Technology: Issues at Mid-Career and coauthor of Beyond Work-Family Balance: Advancing Gender Equity and Workplace Performance.

Reviews

In the second edition of Breaking the Mold, Lotte Bailyn presents a compelling case for moving away from restrictive assumptions of organizational life and creating a new set of assumptions to facilitated success at work and at home. Bailyn has revised and updated her short and immensely readable work in light of the political, social, and economic changes the country has undergone since the publication of the first edition in 1993, including a significant shift in the demographics of the workplace. The result is a timely and thoughtful look at how employers and employees today must reconsider the conditions of employment and the link between the public and private spheres in a changing world. Throughout the book, Bailyn uses well-integrated vignettes and case studies to illustrate how outmoded assumptions about work and life can negatively impact both employers and employees, and what those willing to rethink these assumptions can achieve.

-- Delaney Anderson * Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law *



Book Information
ISBN 9780801489983
Author Lotte Bailyn
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint ILR Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 16mm