One of the most controversial HRM topics that have received extensive attention from academics and practitioners communities over the past two decades is flexible working hours (FWH) and its impact on productivity. Nevertheless, the work is focused almost exclusively on business and organizational aspects neglecting the employees’ and social perspectives, and thus far lacks a strong theoretical foundation, particularly social theory. Therefore, unlike other work, the present study focuses heavily on the employees’ perspective based on a social theory; namely: social exchange theory (SET). This study aims to explore and evaluate the antecedents for requesting FWH, mainly: employee and social-related factors, which affect their productivity. SET was found valuable to serve the aim of the research because it magnifies the importance of the employee as a partner who is in reciprocal social relations. Two mixed triangulated sets of qualitative data were collected, namely: semi-structured interviews and document analysis (cross-sectional and longitudinal). Thirty-two interviews were conducted with employees and with management. Document analysis is a novel source of data that was extracted from the company’s internal technological platform and contains employees’ first-hand computerized typewritten comments about FWH. The analysis of the findings reveals that the most significant factors found affecting employees’ decision to demand FWH for productivity are midday breaks, traffic/transportation, schooling, and social life. Moreover, the findings suggest that HR practitioners need to recognize employees’ social factors before applying FWH practice. This present research makes an original and important contribution to HRM scholarship and reflects theoretical rigor (social exchange theory), methodological (mixed triangulation methods), empirical, and practical. For example, theoretical contributions regarding SET’s reciprocity “black box” were highlighted. Moreover, the implication of the findings assists HR, in particular in Saudi organizations, to ensure the FWH contributes to overcoming these identified employees’ related antecedents.

过去二十年来，最具争议性的人力资源管理话题之一是灵活工作时间（FWH）及其对生产力的影响，受到学术界和从业者群体的广泛关注。然而，这项工作几乎完全集中在商业和组织方面，忽视了员工和社会的观点，因此缺乏坚实的理论基础，特别是社会理论。因此，与其他工作不同的是，本研究主要关注基于社会理论的员工视角；即：社会交换理论（SET）。本研究旨在探讨和评估要求FWH的前因，主要是：影响其生产力的员工和社会相关因素。人们发现 SET 对于实现研究目标很有价值，因为它放大了员工作为互惠社会关系中的合作伙伴的重要性。收集了两组混合三角定性数据，即：半结构化访谈和文档分析（横向和纵向）。对员工和管理层进行了 32 次访谈。文档分析是从公司内部技术平台提取的一种新颖的数据源，包含员工对 FWH 的第一手计算机打字评论。对调查结果的分析表明，影响员工决定要求 FWH 提高生产力的最重要因素是午休、交通/运输、学校教育和社交生活。此外，研究结果表明，人力资源从业者在应用FWH实践之前需要认识到员工的社会因素。本研究对人力资源管理学术做出了原创性的重要贡献，体现了理论严谨性（社会交换理论）、方法论（混合三角测量方法）、实证性和实践性。例如，强调了关于SET互惠“黑匣子”的理论贡献。此外，调查结果有助于人力资源部门（特别是沙特组织的人力资源部门）确保 FWH 有助于克服这些已确定的员工的相关前因。