Background

There is an increased global interest in occupational health across small businesses as they represent a large share of employers in many societies. In the model of healthy work organisations, employee health is a prerequisite for higher productivity and profitability and management practices are considered as determinants of organisational health. A better understanding of how managers in effective companies use their time can offer a better understanding of how this can affect employees’ well-being and business effect-iveness. Managers’ long working hours and share of time spent on Management by Walking Around (MBWA) are considered important characteristics of managers’ work that might have consequences for employees’ and managers’ own health outcomes, as well as for organisational effectiveness. MBWA is a management technique common for successful companies in regard to their effectiveness; providing an opportunity for a spontaneous manager-subordinate interaction that might be important for employee health and wellbeing. Studies of managerial work have to some extent not clearly placed managers’ time use in the broad context of leadership, often missing to link it with leadership behaviour theories, health and effectiveness.

Objective

The objective of this study was to explore, on the one hand, the total amount of working hours that managers spent, and on the other, their patterns of time allocation to different activities in effective SMEs. Research questions were: 1) What patterns regarding managers’ working hours can be identified across socio-demographic variables, leader-ship experience factors and leadership profiles in effective SMEs? 2) What patterns regarding proportions of total working hours spent on MBWA can be identified across socio-demographic variables, leadership experience factors and leadership profiles in effective SMEs?

Method

The study used data collected within the project, “Successful Companies in Gästrikland”. Annually the project nominates 120 companies for the award based on companies’ financial indicators. The study employed a cross-sectional design and analysed responses to questionnaires collected within the project during years 2014-2018. The inclusion criteria were small and medium sized companies (more than four and less than 250 subordinates), high-level managers having subordinates. Data analysis were carried out using descriptive statistics and regression analysis.

Results

The results section is being processed and will be reported on the conference.