The everyday challenges faced by workers �struggling to juggle� competing commitments of paid work, home and family remain stubbornly persistent and highly gendered. Reinforcing these problems, many employers regard work�life balance (WLB) provision as too costly. In response, this paper explores the learning and innovation advantages that can result from WLB provision in knowledge-intensive firms, as part of a WLB �mutual gains� research agenda. These synergies are explored through a case study of IT workers and firms in two high-tech regional economies � Dublin, Ireland and Cambridge, UK � prior to (2006�8) and subsequent to (2010) the economic downturn. The results suggest that by making available the kinds of WLB arrangements identified by workers as offering meaningful reductions in gendered work�life conflicts, employers can also enhance the learning and innovation processes within and between firms, which are widely recognized as fundamental for firms' long-term sustainable competitive advantage.
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