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An Organizational Communication Challenge to the Discourse of Work and Family Research: From Problematics to Empowerment
Abstract
Using a discourse perspective, we articulate four problematics, (a) boundaries, (b) identity, (c) rationality, and (d) voice that underlie work-family theory, research, and practice. We situate existing interdisciplinary research within each problematic, showing how such research examines outcomes and effects rather than the process of constructing such outcomes. We supplement these studies with emerging communication research to illustrate new ways of thinking about each problematic. We highlight the role of daily microlevel discourses as well as macrodiscourses of organizations and families in creating the current processes, structures, and relationships surrounding work and family. We link each problematic with an agenda for empowerment through (a) questioning boundaries, (b) integrating identity, (c) embracing practical knowledge and emotionality, (d) seeking diverse voices, and (e) developing a communal orientation.
... A number of alternative conceptualizations have cropped up to describe the relationship between work and life, such as work-life 'management' (Kirby et al., 2003); 'integration' (Kossek and Lambert, 2004); 'juggling' (Loflin and Musig, 2007); 'spillover' (Crouter, 1984); 'imbalance' (Kunin, 2012); 'collision' (Pocock, 2003) and 'failure' (Blithe, 2015b). While all of these metaphors offer useful conceptualizations, we align our research interests with those scholars using the term 'work-life management' (Golden and Geisler, 2007) to describe the ways individuals make decisions about how to allocate their time between competing responsibilities at work and in other areas of their lives. ...
... Scholarship on work-life management originated from separate sphere ideologies (Golden and Geisler, 2007;Kirby et al., 2003). Separate sphere theories assume that work (public sphere) is distinct from home (private sphere), and that individuals must navigate their roles and responsibilities in each realm by constructing distinct boundaries between the two (Gill, 2006;Jorgenson, 2000;Nippert-Eng, 1996;Wieland, 2011). ...
... Early scholarship about work-life focused primarily on work-family boundaries (Clark, 2000;Kirby et al., 2003). However, more recent scholarship has moved to a more inclusive notion of work-life management (Blithe, 2015a;Kirby, 2006). ...
In this chapter, the authors present data from participants about how legal prostitutes manage work and life boundaries. They argue that work-life management practices are different for stigmatized workers because they must cope with occupational stigma by segmenting work and life realms in acutely distinct ways. The data revealed that work-life boundaries are disciplined by legal mythologies and ambiguities surrounding worker restrictions, occupational ideologies of “work now, life later,” and perceived and experienced effects of community-based stigma. These legal, occupational, and community constructs ultimately privilege organizations’ and external communities’ interests, while individual dirty workers carry the weight of stigma.
... Feminist organizational communication and interdisciplinary scholars are calling for an increased focus on work-life relationships, specifically in areas that involve unconventional work situations, work-life relationships for marginalized populations, and people who embrace alternatives to the work-life dichotomy (Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003). Incorporating more multi-faceted populations and situations into the work-life canon is important to further this scholarship because until recently, much research has perpetuated a work-life dichotomy and has presented White, heterosexual, dual career couples as representative of worklife issues. ...
... Central to a feminist critique of the work/life relationship is the acknowledgement that the "myth of separate worlds" (Kanter, 1977) creates and maintains a gendered and essentialist system, where men are expected to perform the role of worker/breadwinner in the public sphere, and women are expected to perform the role of homemaker/nurturer in the private sphere (Ferguson, 1984;Fraser, 1989;Hochschild, 1989Hochschild, , 1997Kanter, 1977;Kirby et al., 2003;Schor, 1991). Though women have entered full-force into the public/paid sphere, the gendered myth of separate spheres has perpetuated, and women are still responsible for the "second shift" of 1 I would argue, also, that women may be better positioned to engage in entrepreneurship; though men have historically dominated entrepreneurship, women are less confined by public sphere expectations that might communicate to men that entrepreneurial failure is not acceptable, or that "good male employees" are loyal "organization men" (Whyte, 1956). ...
... Of course, on the other hand, women are also denied open access to the public sphere in terms of job advancement and access to funding and resources (CWBR, 1993;Hisrich & Brush, 1986;Moore, 1999;Shefsky, 1994) which may create more obstacles to entrepreneurship for women. housework and childcare/nurturing in the private/unpaid sphere (Hochschild, 1989(Hochschild, , 1997. 2 The intersection of women's full time paid work in the private sphere and women's full time unpaid second shift has been described as role conflict, work-family conflict (Clancy & Tata, 2005;Kirby et al., 2003;Hertz, 2005), and negative spillover (when demands of one realm negatively affect demands of another realm) (Mennino, Rubin, & Brayfield, 2005). Scholars have offered diverse conceptualizations of not only the relationship between work and life (at times confirming or perpetuating the "separate spheres" myth), but also how individuals frame and approach work-life. ...
Entrepreneurship in United States culture has been idealized as offering a flexible organizational identity, but has also been critiqued as subjecting individuals to organizationally preferred identities. An examination of work and life experiences for women entrepreneurs offers insight into the work-life relationship for people who ostensibly have more freedom and flexibility to make choices as to how to shape their material work-life as well as their work-life identity. In this empirical study, I apply Tracy and Trethewey’s (2005) theoretical concept of the crystallized self to explore the viability of entrepreneurship as a “solution” to work-life tensions and to draw out how women entrepreneurs discursively frame and manage their work-life relationship. I conclude that the crystallized self is evident in some women entrepreneurs’ conceptualizations of self, though they do not yet have a language to adequately express this. In addition, women entrepreneurs who over-identified with their businesses moved beyond the crystallized identity to experience a dis/integrated identity.
... A number of alternative conceptualizations have cropped up to describe the relationship between work and life, such as work-life 'management' (Kirby et al., 2003); 'integration' (Kossek and Lambert, 2004); 'juggling' (Loflin and Musig, 2007); 'spillover' (Crouter, 1984); 'imbalance' (Kunin, 2012); 'collision' (Pocock, 2003) and 'failure' (Blithe, 2015b). While all of these metaphors offer useful conceptualizations, we align our research interests with those scholars using the term 'work-life management' (Golden and Geisler, 2007) to describe the ways individuals make decisions about how to allocate their time between competing responsibilities at work and in other areas of their lives. ...
... Scholarship on work-life management originated from separate sphere ideologies (Golden and Geisler, 2007;Kirby et al., 2003). Separate sphere theories assume that work (public sphere) is distinct from home (private sphere), and that individuals must navigate their roles and responsibilities in each realm by constructing distinct boundaries between the two (Gill, 2006;Jorgenson, 2000;Nippert-Eng, 1996;Wieland, 2011). ...
... Early scholarship about work-life focused primarily on work-family boundaries (Clark, 2000;Kirby et al., 2003). However, more recent scholarship has moved to a more inclusive notion of work-life management (Blithe, 2015a;Kirby, 2006). ...
Across occupations, people contend with the difficult task of managing time between their work and other aspects of life. Previous research on stigmatized industries has suggested that so-called ‘dirty workers’ experience extreme identity segmentation between these two realms because they tend to cope with their occupational stigma by placing distance between their work and personal lives. Through a qualitative study of Nevada’s legal brothel industry, this article focuses on the prevalence of boundary segmentation as a dominant work–life management practice for dirty workers. Our analysis suggests that work–life boundaries are disciplined by legal mythologies and ambiguities surrounding worker restrictions, occupational ideologies of ‘work now, life later,’ and perceived and experienced effects of community-based stigma. These legal, occupational and community constructs ultimately privilege organizations’ and external communities’ interests, while individual dirty workers carry the weight of stigma.
... The term MotherScholar's significance challenges traditional bifurcation and balance metaphors for work-life-related identities (Burrow et al., 2021;Lapayese, 2012). Historically, communication scholars focus on work-life through an either/or lens (Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003), describing each as distinct, overlapping spheres exploring the female breadwinner (Meisenbach, 2010), maternity leave (Buzzanell & Liu, 2005), breastfeeding policies (Turner & Norwood, 2013), childlessness by choice (Rick & Meisenbach, 2016), and the impact of organizational structures has on working mothers (Kavya & Kramer, 2020). Regarding maternal and academic spheres, some communication scholarship problematizes the bifurcation of these spheres through This section explores the coping that frames our study on MotherScholar in COVID-19. ...
... The examination of work/family scholarship was advanced through the metaphor of spheres, looking at each separately with spillover (Kirby et al., 2003). Our research morphed these two areas to address the driving research question: how does MotherScholar communication constitute coping in response to disruptions to personal, family, and work lives during COVID-19? ...
MotherScholars are women, mothers, and academics that intentionally blend these identities as an act of resistance to the academic institutions that often devalue and under support their respective maternal and professional roles. As MotherScholars, we experienced dramatic shifts during the onset and persistence of COVID-19 that precipitated in a re-imagining of MotherScholar coping. This collaborative autoethnographic study employs a modification of interactive interviewing to produce a verbal text of COVID-19 MotherScholar analyzed thematically. A discourse of MotherScholar coping and resiliency clustered in thematic stages: acknowledging a triggering event, triaging (adjusting the current situation), prioritizing (adjusting more as circumstances continue to change), misdiagnosing (using dark communication, such as guilt and questioning sense of self), and surviving (realization that life goes on).
... With roots in the industrial revolution, discursive constructs of work-life boundaries were shaped by the idea of separate spheres between work and family, affecting expanded relations on the labor market and putting focus on the role of discursive practice for maintaining and challenging such relations (Kirby et al. 2003). Social media today is a virtual context where boundaries between such cultural spheres are blurred, yet also restored, through discursive practices of normative managerial work (Backman & Hedenus 2019;Ollier-Malaterre et al. 2013;Trottier 2012). ...
... When interacting, we continuously choose which interpretative repertoires to use in order to make sense and describe ourselves in credible ways. Discourses of working life relations are hence both culturally and socially inherited, and situated in local contexts (Kirby et al. 2003). The increasing use of social media in society at large as well as organizations, might both problematize and enable management, confirming the emancipatory power in the use of interpretative repertoires (cf. ...
Given how social media are commonly used in contemporary Nordic countries, social media platforms are emerging as crucial for relational work between employers, employees, and potential employees. By means of a discursive psychology approach, this study investigates employers’ constructs of relational work on social media through the use of two interpretative repertoires: the repertoire of loss of control and the repertoire of ever-presence. The consequences of these interpretative repertoires are a masking of power relations, especially between employers and young employees in precarious labor market positions and those with limited digital knowledge or financial means. Further, the positioning of social media as part of a private sphere of life means the invasion of not only employees’, but also managers’ private time and persona. The result of this study hence calls for the need to understand relational work on social media as part of normative managerial work.
... The term balance is a point of contention in work-life research. To speak of work-life "balance" implies that balance is indeed possible or desirable and that anyone who is not sufficiently "balanced" is doing something wrong (Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003). I use the term balance throughout the book but do not continually identify the problematic nature of the word in the text. ...
... 1. As mentioned previously, balance is a highly problematized term because it implies balance is possible and can make individuals who feel imbalanced as if they are somehow to blame for not managing their lives in the right ways (Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003;Kunin, 2012 ...
Pressure to achieve work-life "balance" has recently become a significant part of the cultural fabric of working life in United States. A very few privileged employees tout their ability to find balance between their careers and the rest of their lives, but most employees face considerable organizational and economic constraints which hamper their ability to maintain a reasonable "balance" between paid work and other life aspectsand it is not only women who struggle. Increasingly men find it difficult to "do it all." Women have long noted the near impossibility of balancing multiple roles, but it is only recently that men have been encouraged to see themselves beyond their breadwinner selves. Gender Equality and Work-Life Balance describes the work-life practices of men in the United States. The purpose is to increase gender equality at work for all employees. With a focus on leave policy inequalities, this book argues that men experience a phenomenon called "the glass handcuffs," which prevents them from leaving work to participate fully in their families, homes, and other life events, highlighting the cultural, institutional, organizational, and occupational conditions which make gender equality in work-life policy usage difficult. This social justice book ultimately draws conclusions about how to minimize inequalities at work. Gender Equality and Work-Life Balance is unique as it laces together some theoretical concepts which have little previous association, including entrepreneurialism; leave policy, occupational identity, and the economic necessities of families. This book will therefore be of particular interest to researches and academics alike in the disciplines of Gender studies, Human Resource Management, Employment Relations, Sociology and Cultural Studies.
... In that sense, workplace practices traditionally privilege men and work, and subordinate life and family (Buzzanell and Liu, 2005). Indeed, many employers still describe a committed worker as someone who maintains a physical presence at work, confirmed by face-time and prioritizing work over family and other life experiences (Kirby et al., 2003). This situation would cause women to experience greater conflict, even as they progress through the life cycle and despite a decrease in responsibilities such as child care (Favero and Heath, 2012;Kirby et al., 2003). ...
... Indeed, many employers still describe a committed worker as someone who maintains a physical presence at work, confirmed by face-time and prioritizing work over family and other life experiences (Kirby et al., 2003). This situation would cause women to experience greater conflict, even as they progress through the life cycle and despite a decrease in responsibilities such as child care (Favero and Heath, 2012;Kirby et al., 2003). The traditional separation of roles largely remains in practice along with the widespread assumption that WL balance is predominantly a matter for women working with young children (Emslie and Hunt, 2009). ...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the availability and the real use of work-life (WL) benefits by employees. Most research focuses on adoption, and some studies have analysed the levels of use. However, it is yet to be explained why some firms offer formal WL benefits, which ultimately are not used by employees.
Design/methodology/approach
– The hypotheses developed here are tested using data from a sample of 146 Spanish private firms, which is very relevant because findings from research developed in Anglo-Saxon contexts cannot necessarily be extended elsewhere.
Findings
– The results reveal that availability significantly influences the level of use of WL programmes. Both the proportion of women employees in the organization and the formalization of the WL balance culture moderate the relationship between availability and use.
Practical implications
– These findings hold lessons for practitioners and researchers interested in WL balance and its actual diffusion among employees. Practitioners should consider WL balance in an unrestrictive way, thinking about different kinds of employees and not only women with caring responsibilities. The mere provision of benefits to a small part of the workforce does not guarantee any of the positive outcomes related to WL balance.
Originality/value
– Aside from exploring the availability-use gap, this research was conducted in a non-Anglo-Saxon context.
... Findings yielded two contractions between expected sources of stress from spillover and identity management strategy; gender structure can explain both of these contradictions. First, there is the belief that the male gendered domain of work possesses more power, with the normative expectation that work takes precedence over domestic tasks (Kirby et al., 2003). To comply with normative expectations, women will try to navigate a 'male' identity as entrepreneur (Nadesan and Trethewey, 2000) by acting 'ambitious', demonstrating the prioritisation of work by allowing it to creep into their home lives to attain credibility (Kirby et al., 2003). ...
... First, there is the belief that the male gendered domain of work possesses more power, with the normative expectation that work takes precedence over domestic tasks (Kirby et al., 2003). To comply with normative expectations, women will try to navigate a 'male' identity as entrepreneur (Nadesan and Trethewey, 2000) by acting 'ambitious', demonstrating the prioritisation of work by allowing it to creep into their home lives to attain credibility (Kirby et al., 2003). Because 'front' identities are considered approved and official, and 'back' identities are private and kept from display (Goffman, 1959;Poole and McPhee, 2005), these women are choosing the role of entrepreneur as a 'front' identity and the role of family member as a 'back' identity. ...
This research examines how women entrepreneurs are creating and recreating the gender structures that both restrict and enable methods for managing work and family demands. Specifically, we identify how entrepreneurial women have designed their businesses and structured their daily lives to mitigate work-family conflict. We develop a theoretical model identifying sites of tension for women as they navigate the work and family domains via a grounded theory approach. We offer implications for how gender, structuration, social cognitive, and border theories may be extended to understand entrepreneurial women's experiences.
... Another aspect of modern work environments is the blurring of the boundaries between personal life and work [35][36][37]. As technologies such as smartphones and laptops enable constant connectivity, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the boundaries between work and personal life. ...
Background
Modern work environments constitute an underrepresented part of psychosocial risk assessments at work. Little is known about whether there is an increased stress load at all and what possible improvements could be made in such a case.
Methods
Modern work environments were assessed in an online questionnaire in 33 companies across a period of more than 4 years. A total of 3431 employees participated in the study. Both quantitative and qualitative data was applied to obtain a differentiated picture.
Results
Increased stress caused by modern work environments was an issue for around a third of the sample. 31.6% of the participants at least sometimes struggled to balance work and private life. Quite a few of the participants (36.3%) worked sometimes or more outside regular working hours. For 32.4% of participants, the workload has increased due to new technologies, but for 30.4% it has not. The majority (81.4%) feel they can work productively in home offices. The data from 178 completed free text fields on improving modern work environments from the employees’ perspective was analysed. Many named suggestions relate to improvements in time management.
Conclusion
This study provides both detailed insights into various aspects of modern work environments and offers solutions to counteract possible negative consequences. Assessing modern work environments in psychosocial risk assessments would be a valuable addition to its completeness.
... Turning to organizational communication, the (biological) family has often been the central component in theorizing communication processes in organizations (Kirby et al., 2003). That is, the "family" often becomes a metaphor for organizations and for describing communication patterns in workplaces (Buckner et al., 2013). ...
In this essay, we move towards theorizing an asexual-affirming communication pedagogy. We position asexual-affirming (or ace-affirming) communication pedagogy as having two core commitments: (1) challenging allonormativity and (2) creating ace-affirming spaces. In developing pedagogical praxis points for these commitments, we address the tensions of challenging allonormativity on stolen land and offer classroom interventions designed to affirm intersectionally diverse asexual-spectrum individuals and communities in popular communication courses including intercultural and gender communication, interpersonal and family communication, mass media, organizational communication, and health communication. We weave interview data from 20 asexual-spectrum individuals to support our theorizing towards our goal of worldmaking radically affirming classrooms, curricula, and communities.
... Besides resilience, "It's Just a Part of Life" also is a case about work-life, specifically work-family, communication that can develop patterns for sustainable "balance" or perform satisfactory career and paid labor activities as well as personal life interests such as home, family, friendships, volunteering, and leisure. Work-life communication incorporates many tensions and contradictions that show up in conflicts, opportunities, and desires for flexibility in organizational policies (Putnam et al., 2014) and as problematics for research studies (Kirby et al., 2003). Communication and interdisciplinary studies have examined work-life balance through a variety of terms like boundaries, gendered household tasks, and caregiving. ...
In college, people who have learning differences or ADHD are provided an array of different resources (e.g., notetakers, tutoring, additional test time, counseling, etc.). People with these differences learn ways to manage them, but these strategies do not directly translate to the workplace. Resources are often not available in the workplace, leaving people with learning differences to manage on their own. The case study follows Suzie—a young professional diagnosed with ADHD at an early age—through a day in her new role as a communication coordinator. Suzie has accepted ADHD as a part of her identity, but she often questions the accuracy of her notes, has difficulty interpreting her notes, and finds it difficult to remember conversations. The case begins with Suzie in a meeting with her supervisor. After the meeting, she goes back to her desk to interpret her notes. In doing so, she attracts attention from her coworkers. The case provides opportunities to discuss concepts such as minority stress, stigma, self-disclosure, invisible disabilities, and workplace accommodations.
... This study is anchored on Hackman and Oldham job characteristics model of 1975. It is one of the most influential attempts to design jobs with increased motivational properties [32]. The theory is based on the assumption that jobs can be designed not only to help workers get enjoyment from their jobs but also to help workers feel that they are doing meaningful and valuable work. ...
... This study is anchored on Hackman and Oldham job characteristics model of 1975. It is one of the most influential attempts to design jobs with increased motivational properties [32]. The theory is based on the assumption that jobs can be designed not only to help workers get enjoyment from their jobs but also to help workers feel that they are doing meaningful and valuable work. ...
Tertiary institutions in southeast Nigeria have in the past been bedeviled with the challenge of achieving optimal performance as a result of seemingly poor job structure as exemplified by low skill variety and poor task identity which has lead to various industrial actions. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between job design and sustainability of tertiary institutions in South East, Nigeria. The study was anchored on Hackman and Oldham's (1975) Job Characteristics Model (JCM). The population of the study consisted of 9240 academic and non-academic staff of six tertiary institutions in South East, Nigeria. Taro Yamane formula was used to determine the sample size of 383. Hypotheses were tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient at 5% significance level. The findings confirmed that there was a significant correlation between skill variety and employee empowerment and between task identity and workplace flexibility. It was therefore recommended among others, that managers of tertiary institutions in the South-East should take a proactive role in designing jobs that take care of the main job characteristics in the institutions.
... Stephanie. I'm intrigued by work-life practices amidst such conditions (Kirby et al., 2003). The meaning of work-life has fractured during the pandemic along class and gender lines, and it seems the balance between one's worklife and one's private life has never been so salient. ...
Uncertainty is at the forefront of many crises, disasters, and emergencies, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no different in this regard. In this forum, we, as a group of organizational communication scholars currently living in North America, engage in sensemaking and sensegiving around this pandemic to help process and share some of the academic uncertainties and opportunities relevant to organizational scholars. We begin by reflexively making sense of our own experiences with adjusting to new ways of working during the onset of the pandemic, including uncomfortable realizations around privilege, positionality, race, and ethnicity. We then discuss key concerns about how organizations and organizing practices are responding to this extreme uncertainty. Finally, we offer thoughts on the future of work and organizing informed by COVID-19, along with a list of research practice considerations and potentially generative research questions. Thus, this forum invites you to reflect on your own experiences and suggests future directions for research amidst and after a cosmology event.
... Gendered normative expectations are amplified in traditionally male-dominated careers in STEM, where patriarchal expectations control and influence identities, practices, and work-life negotiations (Blair-Loy and Cech 2017; Kirby et al. 2003;Kisselburgh et al. 2009). Despite policies in place, organizational practices, occupational expectations, and gendered workspaces are significant barriers for women who opt for STEM careers and seek to maintain work-life balance (Buzzanell and Liu 2005;Kirby and Buzzanell 2014). ...
The dominant literature on interactivity of mobile phones treats it as a feature of the device that is neutral and value-free. Mostly quantitative studies of interactivity consider it as a stable construct, devoid of the contexts that constitute it. Of particular interest is the nature of interactivity in women’s lives within patriarchal home and work spaces. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 35 women in STEM careers in Singapore, I depict the gendered nature of mobile phone use, situated amid patriarchal structures, familial roles, and cultural norms. Specifically I examine the ways in which the meanings of interactivity are constituted amid gendered familial, sociocultural, and organizational spaces. The participants offer a conceptual framework of interactivity that challenges the techno-deterministic literature positioning new technologies as emancipatory solutions. The interactive features on mobile phones reproduce and magnify the gendered challenges experienced by the participants, adding new forms of reproductive labour. Gendered expectations of housework extend to interactions with the mobile device, with the device shaping the frequency, duration, and immediacy of interactions. Moreover, these interactive features afford specific forms of male interactions such as informal work chat groups that exclude women and simultaneously serve as spaces of decision-making. Features such as video chats and text messages further magnify the erasure of women in STEM amid patriarchal STEM cultures. Similarly, social media constitute structures that shape gendered performances although positive interactions on social media are seen as coping resources.
... These range from adjusting privacy orientations (Carmon, Miller, & Brasher, 2013) to shifting work times and work settings through telework (Golden, 2012), though these strategies are not persistently associated with an actual reduction of work-family tension or increase in well-being (for example, see Golden [2012] on the unintentional increase of tension for those engaged in high levels of telework). Yet we maintain (along with many other communication scholars, such as Day [2013] and Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, and Buzzanell [2003]) that for all of the diverse instrumental responses to work-family tension that have been catalogued there is insight to be gleaned from focusing specifically upon the communicative practices used to discuss the tension. Buzzanell (2010) has found that people use communication about difficult life experiences to craft normalcy, affirm identity anchors, maintain and use communication networks, put alternative logics to work, and downplay negative feelings. ...
This study complements existing research on responses to work–family tension by illuminating the constitutive role of communication in framing this tension at work. We used a memorable-messages format to investigate the most memorable message 892 participants shared with coworkers regarding work–family conflict. We used thematic analysis to code messages, resulting in a model of 20 themes. Themes varied in their focus on independence vs. interdependence and perceived efficacy vs. perceived inefficacy at work–family tension management. We concluded that messages coworkers craft about work–family tension could have implications for perceptions of self and others, as well as impacts on organizational communication.
... In addition to being foundational influencers in the career and work realm, parents also influence their children regarding their balance of work and family life (Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003; Medved et al., 2006). Men and women receive similar messages from parents about the role that work and family should play in adult life (e.g., " Your work defines you—it makes you who you are " ; Medved et al., 2006, p. 162); however, women receive significantly different messages than men about choosing particular careers and exiting the paid labor force in relation to anticipated family obligations (e.g., " It's important to establish yourself in a career before you raise a family " ; p. 162). ...
The parent–child relationship is one of the most influential, important, and meaningful relationships in an individual’s life. The communication between parents and children fuels their bond and functions to socialize children (i.e., gender, career and work, relationship values and skills, and health behaviors), provide social support, show affection, make sense of their life experiences, engage in conflict, manage private information, and create a family communication environment. How parents and children manage these functions changes over time as their relationship adapts over the developmental periods of their lives. Mothers and fathers may also respond differently to the changing needs of their children, given the unique relational cultures that typically exist in mother–child versus father–child relationships.
Although research on parent–child communication is vast and thorough, the constant changes faced by families in the 21st century—including more diverse family structures—provides ample avenues for future research on this complex relationship. Parent–child communication in diverse families (e.g., divorced/stepfamilies, adoptive, multiracial, LGBTQ, and military families) must account for the complexity of identities and experiences in these families. Further, changes in society such as advances in technology, the aging population, and differing parenting practices are also transforming the parent–child relationship. Because this relationship is a vital social resource for both parents and children throughout their lives, researchers will undoubtedly continue to seek to understand the complexities of this important family dyad.
... In addition to being foundational influencers in the career and work realm, parents also influence their children regarding their balance of work and family life (Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003; Medved et al., 2006). Men and women receive similar messages from parents about the role that work and family should play in adult life (e.g., " Your work defines you—it makes you who you are " ; Medved et al., 2006, p. 162); however, women receive significantly different messages than men about choosing particular careers and exiting the paid labor force in relation to anticipated family obligations (e.g., " It's important to establish yourself in a career before you raise a family " ; p. 162). ...
The parent–child relationship is one of the most influential, important, and meaningful relationships in an individual’s life. The communication between parents and children fuels their bond and functions to socialize children (i.e., gender, career and work, relationship values and skills, and health behaviors), provide social support, show affection, make sense of their life experiences, engage in conflict, manage private information, and create a family communication environment. How parents and children manage these functions changes over time as their relationship adapts over the developmental periods of their lives. Mothers and fathers may also respond differently to the changing needs of their children, given the unique relational cultures that typically exist in mother–child versus father–child relationships.
Although research on parent–child communication is vast and thorough, the constant changes faced by families in the 21st century—including more diverse family structures—provides ample avenues for future research on this complex relationship. Parent–child communication in diverse families (e.g., divorced/stepfamilies, adoptive, multiracial, LGBTQ, and military families) must account for the complexity of identities and experiences in these families. Further, changes in society such as advances in technology, the aging population, and differing parenting practices are also transforming the parent–child relationship. Because this relationship is a vital social resource for both parents and children throughout their lives, researchers will undoubtedly continue to seek to understand the complexities of this important family dyad.
... A second important consideration when exploring work-life balance from a communication approach is the importance of including both men's and women's perspectives about work-life balance. Previous research on work-life balance issues in the communication fi eld has been primarily led by scholars who focus on gender as part of their work and largely on women in particular (Buzzanell, Sterk, & Turner, 2004;Golden, Kirby, & Jorgensen, 2006;Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003). This focus on the female's perspective is problematic because it ignores the possibility of men taking a primary role in family care, and it also tends to present work-life more narrowly as a "work-family" issue. ...
... Some supervisors get frustrated when employees are not physically available at work (Bohen and Viveros-Long, 1981), and many CEOs are less positive about flex-place than are human relations managers (Peters and Heusinkveld, 2010). Some supervisors use standard criteria for all employees and embrace a philosophy of always fair, if not always consistent (Kirby, 2000), whereas others create inequities through administering these policies inconsistently (Kirby et al., 2003). For the most part, supervisors typically make decisions on a case by case basis, which often leads to idiosyncratic deals that privilege some employees over others and exacerbate concerns for fairness, favoritism and equity (Rousseau, 2001). ...
Flexibility is a key issue in organizational life, especially because organizations rely on work from remote locations and create policies to accommodate work-life balance. Most existing research examines workplace flexibility in primarily the individual or the organizational domain. Views of communication in these domains typically embrace transmission or transaction assumptions without concern for how organizational discourses shape the enactment of flexibility. This paper argues that workplace flexibility emerges from the intersection among the discourses linked to four domains: organizational policies and arrangements; workplace norms and practices; worker-supervisor relationships; and an individual’s sense of agency. We contend that the discourses rooted in and across these domains introduce contradictions that come from an organizational logic that perpetuates a competition between work and life. In this logic, the burden of workplace flexibility is placed on individual workers who must make choices about whether to ignore or rebuke normative organizational practices. Rather than placing the onus on individuals, we argue that organizations need to adopt a new philosophy grounded in a discourse of adaptability, one that both workers and employers embrace. The discourse of adaptability supersedes workplace flexibility and transforms workers’ needs and the organization’s objectives into a system of worker autonomy that incorporates fluidity in achieving both personal and organizational goals.
... Taken together, research and personal accounts suggest that the lack of organizational precedents and lack of acknowledgement in informal cultures can engender a sense of powerlessness and even isolation for academic couples. Such experiences reflect a pervasive work-family dialectic of "enterprise" versus "relatedness" (Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003). Yet, researchers have not thus far examined in systematic detail the communicative processes though which academic partners manage these tensions or how their identities are shaped as a result. ...
Increasingly competitive labor markets have created new challenges for academic partners who are seeking faculty positions in the same location. Mismatches between career aspirations and available opportunities can precipitate struggles over the meaning and desirability of an academic career, triggering a need for sensemaking. This article offers an analysis of academic couples’ job search stories, focusing on how they jointly make sense of career events through narrative performances. Using dialogic/performance analysis, the article identifies several specific strategies by which participants collaboratively manage tensions between “self” and “other” and sustain positive identities. These strategies include bolstering the partner’s image through protective teamwork, minimizing status differences, and re-storying professional setbacks. Together, these strategies show how couples strive to make their experiences sensible to themselves and others and to forge new meanings of career passages that, in many cases, depart from established models.
... Employers have taken on familial roles by offering flexible work arrangements (Cowan & Hoffman, 2007), family-leave policies and dependent-care benefits (Kirby & Krone, 2002), and health programs and linking spirituality and work (Kirby, 2006). Despite the dissolution of clear boundaries between individuals and organizations (Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003), identification scholars have just begun to understand how this home-work integration affects identities at work. Pratt (2000, p. 485) suggested that "as more facets of one's identity (e.g., business, family, and religion) become bound up in an organization, one's identification becomes deeper." ...
With the growth in workplace health promotion (WHP) initiatives, organizations are asking employees to enact their personal health identities at work. To understand this prominent yet poorly understood phenomenon, we surveyed 204 employees at a company with a WHP program and found that participation in the wellness program mediated personal health and organizational identities. Results fill a gap in communication literature by demonstrating the effect of individual identity enactment on organizational identification and contribute to recent research stressing the relationship between identity and health behaviors. In addition, findings illuminate the role of situated activity in identity negotiation, suggesting that certain activities in organizations, like wellness programs, serve as identity bridges between personal and work-related identity targets.
... Studying interpretive frames explains how power is accessed by social actors as they make sense of their own experience (Jorgenson 2000 ). For example, in our study of two groups of professional working women representing different generations, we found interpretive frames helped explain how women from different generations understood and reacted to the powerful discourses of "paying one's dues" and needing "face-time" at work (Favero and Heath 2012 ; see these discursive themes in other work: Kirby et al. 2003 ;Perlow 1997 ). We identifi ed that much confl ict resided around these discursive themes and that across generations, different interpretive frames were utilized to understand what it meant to pay one's dues or require facetime. ...
Women’s workforce participation and advancement still lag behind those of men. This is true despite two recent trends that could have been expected to facilitate women’s careers: The rise in knowledge work and the increase in flexible working. This chapter contrasts the potential of knowledge work and flexible working for facilitating gender equality at work with an analysis of their hidden and lesser discussed gendered implications. Certain characteristics of knowledge work pose challenges that women find disproportionately more difficult to deal with than men. Flexible working, especially when undertaken from home, often results in gendered practices and stigmatisation that hinder women’s careers. The chapter brings together empirical evidence from a broad range of studies to discuss these hidden consequences of knowledge work and flexible working for women’s workforce participation and advancement and to identify implications for research, practice and policy.
... The idea that spiritual labor takes place in organizations that commodify, codify, and regulate spirituality suggests that these organizations are more encompassing of their members' lives in the sense that matters of religion, spirituality, and morality are deeply embedded values (Altman & Taylor, 1973). Instead of clear boundaries between work, home, or third spaces (e.g.,Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000;Kirby, et al., 2003), members in institutions where spiritual labor is involved may find that the expectations of their organization are woven into their public and private persona more seamlessly than in other institutions (seeCarr, 2000). For example, teachers in parochial schools who accept the mission of the school to teach a certain type of spirituality and to socialize their students to be future church members are undoubtedly expected to be members of the sponsoring church not just in name, but in appearance, behavior, and reality as well (seeSullivan, 2001). ...
... That which is considered inherently real about women, such as emotionality (Mumby & Putnam, 1992), is often marginalized, and if females are to be successful, they best fake it to make it. Indeed, empirical analyses suggest that female employees attempt to leave the debased feminine parts of their identity, including their family commitments, outside the organization's doors, or at least hide them behind appropriate dress, language, and behaviors (Ashcraft, 1999;Kirby, et al., 2003;Nadesan & Trethewey, 2000;Trethewey, 1999a). Even in organizations in which members claim to value "feminine" relational orientations, women often describe their "real" selves in negative terms (Ashcraft & Pacanowsky, 1996). ...
... Some supervisors get frustrated when employees are not physically available at work (Bohen and Viveros-Long, 1981), and many CEOs are less positive about flex-place than are human relations managers (Peters and Heusinkveld, 2010). Some supervisors use standard criteria for all employees and embrace a philosophy of always fair, if not always consistent (Kirby, 2000), whereas others create inequities through administering these policies inconsistently (Kirby et al., 2003). For the most part, supervisors typically make decisions on a case by case basis, which often leads to idiosyncratic deals that privilege some employees over others and exacerbate concerns for fairness, favoritism and equity (Rousseau, 2001). ...
Workplace flexibility initiatives as a potential remedy for work-life conflicts are the focus of a considerable number of investigations. Despite their contributions, research findings reveal tensions and contradictions in the ways that employees, managers and organizations develop, enact and respond to these flexibility initiatives. This critical review identifies three primary tensions (variable vs fixed arrangements, supportive vs unsupportive work climates and equitable vs inequitable implementation of policies) that reveal inconsistent and sometimes contradictory findings. We tie these tensions, and the management of them, to an overarching dilemma in implementing workplace flexibility, the autonomy-control paradox. To develop alternatives for handling these tensions, we recommend reframing them through changing organizational cultures, adopting a philosophy of adaptability, customizing work and making workplace flexibility an employee right. We conclude by urging organizations and society to reframe the tensions between work and life, to treat them as enriching rather than competing with each other and to transcend these opposite poles through exploring third spaces.
... Several communication scholars have argued that work and life roles are established by communicative interaction (Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003;Kirby et al., 2006Kirby et al., , 2012Shumate & Fulk, 2004). As Shumate and Fulk (2004) contend, "Communication is necessary not only for establishing roles, but also maintaining boundaries among an individual's multiple roles" (p. ...
The purpose of this study was to investigate employee perceptions of the influence of communication technology use outside of regular work hours on perceptions of work life conflict, burnout, turnover intentions, and job satisfaction. An online survey of 168 employees from more than 30 companies in a Midwestern city was conducted to assess relationships among these variables. The results indicated that hours of work-related communication technology use outside of regular work hours contributed to perceptions of work life conflict. However, positive attitudes toward communication technologies predicted decreased work life conflict. Controlling for worker age, perceived life stress, and attitudes toward communication technologies, work life conflict was found to predict job burnout and job satisfaction, but not turnover intentions. The authors discuss implications of the study findings for management practices, limitations of the study, and directions for future research.
... Understanding how to discursively reframe STEM careers and their associated environments to accommodate work-family and work-life demands offers a challenge to current organizational and family communication studies (Golden, Kirby, & Jorgenson, 2006). Current research on work-life Discourse suggests that the presence of policies is not sufficient for accomplishment of work-life goals, since discursive constructions discouraging their use tend to maintain the status quo even as the presence of official texts suggest their possibilities for worklife balance (Buzzanell & Liu, 2005;Fogg, 2003;Kirby, 2000;Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003;Kirby & Krone, 2002). Empowering women to take advantage of these work-life policies requires occupational and cultural change as well as acknowledgment of the varied structures and discursive positionings in which careers take place Jorgenson, 2002). ...
In this chapter, we offer communicative perspectives and challenges related to gender representation and the gendered organizing and career processes in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) areas. We focus on the meaning of work in STEM and how these meanings are (re)created and communicated through d/Discourses. Using a discursive approach, new perspectives on the issue of the underrepresentation of women in STEM careers derive from the constructed nature of STEM work itself and its meaningfulness to different groups, particularly women. Engagement in STEM careers also provides a context to evaluate and expand theory, research, and practice in communication. We use multidisciplinary lenses to examine developmental, educational, media, technological, sociocultural, and organizational perspectives on STEM work and careers. In summary, this chapter examines the discursive roots of contemporary constructions and images of STEM work, careers, education, and organizations, offering an opportunity to address a socially relevant issue and context for further examination and explication of communication research, theories, and practices across specialties.
... However, understanding the ways in which families enact gender must go beyond investigations of objective time expenditure patterns. A growing body of scholarship has examined family and work life from communication perspectives (for a review see Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, & Buzzanell, 2003). Medved (2004) urged scholars to investigate the routine interactional micropractices of family and work life. ...
The purpose of this study is to examine the role of transparent internal communication from multiple communication entities within organizations—CEO, supervisors, and peers—in employees’ internal and external advocacy, respectively, with a consideration of the two mediators: employee-organization relationship (EOR) and employee empowerment. Results of an online survey with 403 full-time employees in the United States suggested that transparent communication from direct supervisors was positively related to employee advocacy via heightened EOR and empowerment. In addition, positive associations between CEOs’ transparent communication and employees’ external and internal advocacy via a favorable EOR were found, while transparent peer communication was positively related to employee advocacy through empowerment. Theoretical and practical implications for strategic internal communication are discussed.
Critical scholars have critiqued workplace health promotion (WHP) discourses for extending managerial influence on workers’ lives, shifting health responsibilities to workers, and disregarding occupational health and safety (OHS) and other structural issues. This essay promotes a worker-centered framework for workplace health, featuring (1) the holistic integration of WHP, OHS, and wellness as well as economic, environmental, and consumer health, (2) substantive worker voice, and (3) structural mechanisms to support worker interests. A case study of five Equitable Food Initiative (EFI)-certified farms demonstrates how these features can be enacted in practice. EFI is a multi-stakeholder, third-party verification and consumer labeling initiative aimed at improving farm working conditions, promoting food safety and environmental stewardship, and boosting business outcomes. Although EFI was not designed as a traditional OHS or WHP initiative, the certified farms in this study model an integrated and participatory approach to employee well-being that also encompasses fenceline communities and consumers.
“It's Just a Part of Life” focuses on career and personal challenges as two couples (Maria and Brad; Sara and Alejandro) deal with anticipated and unexpected disruptions in their lives. These couples experience events and opportunities including returns-to-work after laborforce gaps, job changes, geographical relocations, infertility, unplanned business trips and workloads, and sleep deprivation during early child rearing years. As they devise strategies for managing these stressful situations both individually and collectively, they adapt to and transform their new normals by enacting communication resilience processes. Throughout the case, there are episodes in which they, and the children (Eden and Lucy), perform the five processes: crafting normalcy; using, maintaining, and creating new networks; backgrounding negative feelings while foregrounding productive action; utilizing alternative logics; and anchoring identities. They enact resilience for themselves and others, for the present and the future, and by reflecting upon their pasts.
This qualitative study explored how working mothers communicatively constructed resilience during COVID-19. We focused on working mothers because the pandemic upended arrangements they had made previously to juggle work and family lives. Drawing on the Communication Theory of Resilience (CTR), the study analyzed data collected from 24 U.S. working mothers who were interviewed via Zoom between July and September 2020. We found five themes characterizing the triggers working mothers faced in the pandemic: financial disruptions, on-the-job issues, space-related concerns, temporal concerns, and role-related issues. Consistent with CTR, mothers responded to these disruptions by crafting resilience with the six processes suggested by previous research. Further, we found a seventh process, “communicating emotional well-being,” that mothers crafted to recalibrate emotional upsets due to the pandemic. The findings also suggested that working mothers saw their own resilience as inextricably tied to the resilience of their children and partners.
The present study examined employees’ perceptions of inclusiveness and fairness of work-life policies for varying family types (i.e., single/childfree employees, partnered/childfree employees, and employees with children). Employees reported no significant differences in job design (autonomy, boundary control), supervisor or coworker support for work-life balance, or access to opportunities based on family type. Single/childfree employees perceived significantly less access to benefits, work expectations, and respect for nonwork roles. Finally, organizations’ support of work-life balance and perceptions of fairness in work-life policy decisions emerged as key themes in the open- ended responses, particularly from employees without children.
This study contributes to the literature on work and family socialization by examining the nature of daughter–parent (i.e., mothers vs. fathers) communication and daughters’ likelihood to transmit parents’ memorable messages regarding work and family. Results indicated that (a) daughters’ report of mothers’ and fathers’ respectful accommodation and self-disclosure positively predicts daughters’ relational satisfaction with the target parent and (b) daughters’ relational satisfaction with their parent positively relates to daughters’ likelihood to transmit their parent’s memorable messages about work or family. However, results held true for both fathers and mothers, with no support for the hypothesis that daughters would be more likely to transmit mothers’ messages more than fathers’ messages. The authors discuss practical implications, directions for future research, and limitations of the study.
This study investigates how boundary communication mediates the effects of smartphone use for work after hours on work-life conflict and organizational identification. It draws upon boundary theory, work-family border theory, and a structurational view of organizational identification. The research site was a large Scandinavian company operating in the telecommunications industry, with 367 employees responding to a survey at two time periods. In contrast to many studies, the use of information and communication technologies (here, smartphones) for after-hours work was not associated with work-life conflict, but was positively associated with organizational identification. However, communication about family demands with one’s supervisor mediated the relationship between smartphone use and work-life conflict, whereas communication about work demands with family did not. Similarly, the association between smartphone use and organizational identification was positively mediated by communication with one’s supervisor about family demands on work, but not through communication with family about work demands on family.
Analyzing 219 blog posts from 52 self-employed women lifestyle bloggers in North America, this study shows how these digital professionals navigate tensions and communicatively constitute work flexibility. In their narratives, women bloggers employed tension management approaches such as reframing, continual connections, and reflective practice in response to tensions in enacting temporal–spatial, identity, and financial flexibility. Specifically, women followed oxymoronic constructions – disciplined freedom, branded authenticity, and dependable independence – to embrace and transform competing poles of fluidity↔structure, authenticity↔marketability, and independence↔interconnection. Expanding work–life research to the self-employed digital labor context, this study responds to recent calls to uncover more-than tension management strategies in empirical settings and contributes to a tension-centered, contextual, and processual analysis of workplace flexibility construction.
Taking a ventriloqual approach to intersectionality analysis, this study investigates the communicative constitution of graduate student parenthood and their work-life negotiations. Analyzing 30 in-depth interviews, we found that figures – ideal graduate student worker norms, gender ideologies of work and family, and cultural values of family and child-rearing responsibilities – intersected with one another in shaping the experiences for graduate student parents. These intersectionalities belong to broader structures that constrain graduate students’ career and personal-life choices to fulfill/disrupt roles in navigating parenthood, yet the interplays of various aspects of intersectionality create space for transformation. The study contributes to an emergent grounded-in-action perspective of intersectionality to uncover systems of interlocking oppressions and lived tensions. The theoretical and practical implications of nonhuman agents acting to enable and constrain sustainable work-life communication are presented.
Despite interest in expanding work–family research to focus on work–life issues, few scholars have addressed non-family life enrichment roles and their potential additional forms of and issues for boundary management. Using in-depth qualitative interviews, this study investigates the management of under-researched work–life boundaries by focusing on how volunteers communicatively manage the volunteer role in light of work and home demands. The findings suggest new boundary management processes. Specifically, in addition to the established segmenting and integrating processes, the volunteers also articulated a process of collapsing boundaries. This latter new category is manifested in two forms, named simultaneous role enactment and role value fusion. Furthermore, findings highlight how rather than only enacting one stance, individuals described contextually dependent, shifting ways of managing multiple life roles. These findings have implications for how scholars study work–life management, how practitioners seek to recruit members, and how volunteers and organizational employees make membership decisions.
Journalism’s Lost Generation discusses how the changes in the industry not only indicate a newspaper crisis, but also a crisis of local communities, a loss of professional skills, and a void in institutional and community knowledge emanating from newsrooms. Reinardy’s thorough and opinionated take on the transition seen in newspaper newsrooms is coupled with an examination of the journalism industry today. This text also provides a broad view of the newspaper journalism being produced today, and those who are attempting to produce it.
Firefighters are routinely exposed to situations involving contact with deceased or injured children, burned and seriously injured bodies, and high-uncertainty calls. Thus, many firefighters suffer debilitating consequences including depression, dysfunctional drinking, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Using an identity tensions framework, we sought to understand the challenges firefighters encounter as they cope with exposure to traumatic events. We interviewed 27 members of a rural fire department and used a constant comparative method to analyze their responses. We found trauma was induced when occupational identity intersected futile situations and those involving children; tensions emerged between traditional and newer, emergent firefighting cultures; and firefighters experience tensions in negotiating how and when to express emotion. Based on these findings, we offer a number of practical implications centering on an occupational identity tensions framework to encourage reflexivity in firefighters and moving beyond older, enduring stereotypes of what it means to be a firefighter.
Family businesses, especially the enterprises of married couples or copreneurial businesses, are a unique, but largely ignored, context in which work and family domains are intrinsically intertwined. Indeed, scholars from other disciplines who study copreneurial and family businesses have called for investigations from multiple perspectives including communication. We review the literature linking work and family life within the arena of married couples’ (copreneurial) businesses in order to lay the foundation for a research agenda for marital, family, and organizational communication scholars and for researchers in other disciplines in which family businesses and work-life integration are central. Specifically, we examine work-family linkages of copreneurs through the frameworks of relational dialectics, boundary, work-family border, and structuration theories. We also highlight findings from marital communication research—marital schemata and equity, conflict patterns, and stress contagion effects—to guide future research. Entrepreneurial, technological, and international issues are also discussed. In so doing, we set a research agenda in the area of work-family life and copreneurial family businesses for scholars in many sub-fields in communication and other disciplines.
This chapter provides a concise but thorough view of organizational rhetoric. We review how work in organizational rhetoric spans research on propaganda analysis, organizational communication, public relations, and rhetorical social movements, highlighting connections and differences among these perspectives and outlining what organizational rhetoric has borrowed from and contributed to each. We then consider issues of concern to organizational rhetoric scholars: crisis communication, maintenance communication, power relationships, and ethics. In discussing these areas, we address individual theories of organizational rhetoric, including legitimacy, apologia, issue management, identification, and corporate social responsibility. Finally, by reflecting on existing work, we offer our predictions for the future of research in organizational rhetoric. Overall, we call attention to thinking about all organizations as “inherently rhetorical” so that communication scholars and practitioners can understand and explore the utility of applying a rhetorical perspective to their work in various communication contexts.
This article uses work-life interrelationships as a lens through which to identify communication concepts that span the traditional “division divide” between organizational and family communication and to identify potential substantive contributions to worklife research that might be made from integrative perspectives. We review extant worklife research within the communication discipline to identify themes and methodological approaches represented to date; we also identify lines of research in both organizational and family communication that have not yet been tied to work-life research but that have strong potential connections. We explore three theoretical perspectives for bridging workplace and private-life frames of reference: structuration, systems, and relational dialectics. Within each perspective, we identify integrative directions for future research. We conclude with me tadis cursive reflections on obstacles to and pathways for spanning division divides.
Gendered stories of career: Unfolding discourses of time, space, and identity At a conference sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research in January 2005, Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard University, sparked national attention when he addressed the issue of the underrepresentation of women in tenured faculty positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions (Summers, 2005). Summers proposed that women are not subject to overt sex discrimination in hiring and promotion practices. Differences in intelligence, gendered socialization, and, ultimately, personal preferences, Summers said, lead many women to opt out of pursuing high-paying, high-powered jobs. He concluded that “what's behind all of this … is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity.” He maintained that most women simply do not desire high-power, successful careers in science and engineering, and, to a lesser extent, are not ...
This chapter argues for a broadening of organizational communication scholarship through the consideration of meanings of work including meaningful work. First, we define meaningful work especially within the frame of a broader examination of meanings of work. Along the way, we consider the concept of meaningful work within a constellation of terms that includes job enrichment, work-life balance, career path, leisure, life satisfaction, and so forth. Second, we consider the historical-cultural contexts for our understanding of meaningful work. Here we treat both synchronic and diachronic perspectives on the meaning of work and bring into view matters of difference, such as race, nationality, gender, and class, particularly to the extent that the extant literature treats these dimensions. Third, we consider contemporary discourses in and around workplaces concerning meaningful work—especially in advanced industrial societies. In particular, we interpret recent trends in work and workplace restructuring and how stakeholders discuss them in various parts of
Prior to the mid-1970s, gender was virtually absent from theories of management and organization (OMT), particularly within the North American context. In recent years, four strands of research have brought gender into management theory - gender and organizations, women in management, work-family conflict, and diversity management - but largely in ways that reinforce the masculinist project. With the exception of the more critical gender and organizations approach, gender continues to be discussed in OMT in ways that privilege masculinity and problematize femininity. This is particularly true of the work-family conflict literature and, to a lesser extent, the women in management literature. In this article, we are interested in the root of the gendered discourse within OMT. Through a feminist hermeneutic excavation of the development of modern OMT in post-war USA, we conclude that the continued masculinist project owes much to Cold War discourses of family and work
Studies of the challenges faced by women in policing have paid little attention to the specific experiences of policewomen who are mothers. Guided by critical theorizing on the gendered nature of the police culture and domestic labor, 16 police officer mothers in Ontario, Canada, were interviewed. Our qualitative analyses explore their experiences of the “lion’s share” of domestic labor; the organizational, cultural, and operational features of policing; and the challenges of child care, and examine how these combine to foster particular stresses. In contrast to intensive mothering approaches that rely on the advice of external experts, our participants work to protect children by carefully constructing stories and asking questions that are based on their own on-the-job experiences with dangerous and/or abhorrent situations. As such, they engage in danger-protection parenting practices to prevent their children from becoming victims or offenders. Our research extends the theorizing on intensive/extensive mothering practices, builds on the scholarship on policing, and adds to the literature on women in nonstandard occupations. This sociological analysis of police mothers’ experiences and practices underscores the importance of understanding and working to change the social contexts, at work and at home, that compromise the well-being of police mothers and other emergency-response workers.
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In this ethnographic account, the concept of an empowering organization is developed through a description of the practices that distribute power and opportunity, provide open communication, integrative problem solving, and an environment of trust, and encourage high performance and self-responsibility. Returning to theory, the “rules of empowerment” are provided.
In this project, I address aspects of communication surrounding issues of work and family. Specifically, I examine how work-family ideologies, boundaries, conflicts, and benefit programs are constructed on an ongoing basis through discursive communication. In Chapter 1, I describe changes in the workforce and corporate America motivating the current emphasis on work-family issues. I then outline a theoretical and practical rationale for examining tensions between work and family. ^ In Chapter 2, I review relevant literature and pose the research questions. I first summarize existing research on work-family issues at the intraindividual, interpersonal organizational and macrosocietal levels. I then illustrate how a communication-centered perspective extends beyond this research to offer a process perspective as to how issues of work and family are discursively constructed. I advocate using a structurational perspective to examine this process, and pose research questions to explore several areas of inquiry within work and family, including boundaries, conflicts, ideologies, and policies. In Chapter 3, I ground this dissertation as an interpretive-critical discourse analysis. I describe the organizational context and participants, as well as procedures for data collection (focus groups, individual interviews, and document analysis) and data analysis. ^ In Chapter 4, I discuss the themes that emerged from the data around the three original areas of inquiry. The primary themes related to negotiating meanings of “work” and “family” included messages in the organizational culture about work, family and gendered expectations. Three themes emerged that informed negotiating meanings of work-family boundaries and conflicts, including communication about family at work, experiencing work-family conflict, and communicating about internal conflicts. Finally, two primary themes addressed the negotiating the meaning of work-family programs, including perceptions of program availability and perceptions of program usability. Finally, in Chapter 5 1 revisit the original research questions and discuss the implications of the results for both work-family research and structuration theory. I then pose directions for future communication research on work and family. Finally, I cite the strengths and limitations of this dissertation and offer concluding observations.
Contents: Dual-Career Marriage and the Worlds of Work and Family. Gender, Work, And Family: Continuity and Change. Two Careers in Development. The Work and Family System. Dual Careers and the Heart of Family Life. A System in Transition. Appendices: Research Method. Schedule for Interviews.
This article examines the significance of women's office conversations about household work for their dual workload in domestic and paid labour. Discussion of household activities in the paid workplace, rather than being a normative feature of office social organization, is contingent upon a number of factors. Demographic variations in age, household composition, work patterns and the differential social and economic value attached to this work are among the factors deflecting women's workplace discussion of household activities. Instead, a priorization of office-related talk is a feature of many conversations. This is not only the product of a common organizational base, but also is indicative of women's individual efforts to maximize their employment potential. Seeking to protect their jobs, to achieve organizational mobility, and to aggrandize their status within their current office situation, women may curtail the amount and degree of domestic talk in the paid workplace. Informal restrictions on "domestic disclosure" reinforce the exclusion of women's household responsibilities from the paid workplace, and maintain the individualization and feminization of this work. /// Dans ce travail on étudie des conversations entre employées de bureau, afin de voir la signification de leurs conversations sur le travail ménager. Celles-ci ne sont pas une caractéristique de l'organisation sociale du bureau. Les différences démographiques comme l'âge, la composition familiale, les activités de travail, et les valeurs sociales se trouvent parmi les variables qui font diminuer la discussion des affaires ménagères au bureau. On donne par contre priorité aux discussions des affaires du bureau--pas seulement à cause de positions organisationelles communes, mais aussi parce que les femmes tentent individuellement de maximiser leur potentiel d'emploi. Pour protéger leur emploi, améliorer leur image dans leur propre bureau, et leurs chances de promotion, elles parlent moins de leurs affaires ménagères. Ainsi, les restrictions sur le discours ménager au bureau peuvent y renforcer l'exclusion de leurs responsabilités ménagères, et maintenir l'individualisation et la féminisation de ce travail.
Preface Setting the Scene for Employer-Supported Child Care Introduction: Locating Child Care in Sociology The Growing Need for Child Care A History of Child Care Policies and Programs A Look at Employer-Supported Child Care What Is Employer-Supported Child Care? The Motivations and the Barriers to Employer-Supported Child Care The Significance of Employer-Supported Child Care Appendix: A Note on Unions Bibliography Index
Contents: N.L. Chester, H.Y. Grossman, Introduction: Learning About Women and Their Work Through Their Own Accounts. H.Y. Grossman, A.J. Stewart, Women's Experience of Power Over Others: Case Studies of Psychotherapists and Professors. V.E. O'Leary, J. Ickovics, Women Supporting Women: Secretaries and Their Bosses. H.Y. Grossman, The Pregnant Therapist: Professional and Personal Worlds Intertwine. N.L.Chester, Achievement Motivation and Employment Decisions: Portraits of Women With Young Children. J.B. James, Women's Employment Patterns and Midlife Well-Being. F.J. Crosby, Divorce and Work Life Among Women Managers. J. Richter, Crossing Boundaries Between Professional and Private Life. C.T. Gilkes, "Liberated to Work Like Dogs!": Labeling Black Women and Their Work. D. T. Schuster, Work, Relationships, and Balance in the Lives of Gifted Women. C. Tomlinson-Keasey, The Working Lives of Terman's Gifted Women. J.R. Schroedel, Blue-Collar Women: Paying the Price at Home on the Job. A.J. Stewart, Discovering the Meanings of Work.
Joan Williams' Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict And What To Do About It (Oxford, 1999) is a "theoretically sophisticated and thoroughly accessible treatise" that offers a new vision of work, family, and gender. (Publisher's Weekly, Nov. 1, 1999) It examines our system of providing for children's care by placing their caregivers at the margins of economic life. This system that stems from the way we define our work ideals, notably from our definition of the ideal worker as one who takes no time off for childbearing or childrearing and who works full-time and is available for overtime. The ideal-worker norm clashes with our sense that children should be cared for by parents. The result is a system that is bad for men, worse for women, and disastrous for children. Williams documents that mothers remain economically marginalized, and points out that when mothers first marginalize and then divorce, their children often accompany them into poverty. Williams argues that designing workplaces around the bodies of men (who need no time off for childbearing) and men's life patterns (for women still do 80% of the child care) often constitutes discrimination against women. She also engages the work/family literature to show that "flexible" workplaces are often better than existing practices for employers' bottom line. On the family side, she argues that the ideal worker's wage -- after as well as before divorce -- reflects the joint work of the ideal worker and the primary caregiver of his children, and should be jointly owned. In a comprehensive examination of the theoretical issues surrounding work/family issues, she uses the work of Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu to explain why gender has proved so unchanging and unbending, reframing the special treatment/equal treatment debate, the debate over "women's voice," and offering new perspective on how to avoid the persistent race and class conflicts that emerge in debates over work and family issues.
Three emotion work themes were displayed in the discourse of individuals who lost their jobs and of their family members. Foregrounding-backgrounding of emotions indicated not only how some individuals and family members exerted effort to express positive emotions, but also why they would do so (for deep authenticity). In the construction of normalcy, respondents made an effort to portray and enact their lives as similar to the way things were before the job loss. By (re)instituting traditional masculinities, the men who lost their jobs were able to be "real" men in an emasculating situation. Taken together, these findings offer possibilities for further theoretical development and for communication interventions that can be applied by human resource professionals, career and outplacement counselors, family members, friends, and the individuals themselves.