The extended business case for childcare and leave arrangements in Western and Eastern Europe

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose an “extended conceptualization of the business case” including both organizational characteristics and institutional conditions to analyse employer involvement in extra statutory childcare and leave arrangements. Special attention is given to Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. Design/methodology/approach The (multi‐level) multinomial regression analyses included company‐level data on human‐resource practices of 2,865 firms nested in 19 countries, representing all European welfare state regimes. Findings The extended business case appeared fruitful in order to explain variations in employer involvement. Particularly, state support was found to be negatively related to employer involvement. In the liberal regime, employer involvement was high, but variations across organizations were significant. In CEE‐countries, employer involvement was lowest, and did not vary by organizational business‐case factors. Research limitations/implications The paper used data from a cross‐sectional survey. To capture the long‐term trends, dynamics and nuances in employer involvement within and across various institutional contexts, a longitudinal in depth study is needed. Practical implications While state support in many CEE countries is declining, the analyses showed that employers will not automatically step in by providing additional work‐family arrangements. Social partners could use institutional pressure to stimulate a balance between state support and employer involvement. Originality/value The extended business‐case perspective contributes to the theory on the institutional embeddedness of decision making of employers. Moreover, it adds to the knowledge on employer involvement in institutional contexts which have hardly been studied before.