Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Appliquées à la Gestion

Professional Service Firms (PSFs) are currently under considerable pressure for economic reasons (low growth, pressure on cost), but also from the e mergence of individual demands for work-life balance (WLB) from professionals, which challenge traditional ways of organizing both projects and careers. While major difficulties in the imp lementation of WLB measures in PSFs and other project-based organizations have often been attributed to a lack of support from partners, this arti- cle investigates enablers of WLB arrangements beyond social support. Drawing on case studies of two consultancies, we first show that WLB is addressed through informal tailor-made arrange- ments rather than formal HR policies. We then id entify the key determinants of the success of these arrangements on five levels: (1) individual c haracteristics (autonomy and generalist skills), (2) project characteristics (duration, location, and resource slack), (3) social support (from both partners and clients), (4) organizational characteristics, and managerial choices (the leverage structure of the firm, its market strategy, the heterogeneity of its practices, organizational resource slack, and fee billing practices) and finally (5) ser vice characteristics (in terms of knowledge base, client interaction and customiz ation). We then elaborate a model that accounts for the existence of a configuration favouring the success of indi vidualized WLB arrangements based on these dif- ferent factors. This paper contributes to the stu dy of WLB in PSFs by highlighting the role played by micro-characteristics of the work and the org anization in the success of individual WLB mea- sures in practice, and advocates agains t universal solutions in the matter.