The intersections between individuals’ working and personal lives—and the potential for conflicts between them—are of interest to scholars in multiple disciplines (including communication studies, sociology, psychology, and organizational behavior)

as “increasing proportions of dual-earner cou­ples and single-parents in the workforce, changes in gender-role norms, and shifts in values toward greater life balance have made work-(family) life issues salient” (Greenhaus, Allen, & Spector, 2006, p.

In the 7 years since our first chapter, the WLC literature has proliferated and continues to rapidly expand—more than 250 related articles have been published when considering the interdisciplinary literature on WLC and the relevant scholarship in communication studies. While we consulted all these sources in writing this chapter, we include the sources most related to WLC and communication, because as Kirby, Golden, Medved, Jorgenson, and Buzzanell (2003) argue, interdisciplin­ary WL scholarship typically has more of a focus on predicting outcomes, while com­munication WL scholarship foregrounds pro­cesses through which WL interrelationships are negotiated using a discursive, meaning­centered perspective.

Our purpose in this chapter explicating WLC is therefore to (a) provide a sum­mary of the communication-based and com­munication-related interdisciplinary research on WLC across several “levels” of analy­sis, (b) identify potential transformations of WL problems, and (c) offer future research directions regarding WLC. In summarizing WLC-related literature, we first explicate the (micro) construct of WLC and then utilize the following levels of analysis as related to WL as our organizational pattern: macrostructures, organizational policies, relational practices, and individual enactments (see Figure 14.1).

In so doing, it is important to emphasize (as noted by the arrows) that we see these “levels” of analysis as interrelated; we assume that microlevel interactions and macrolevel structures are mutually constitutive (Giddens, 1984).

Macro/cross-cultural ideologies and structures

Explorations of WL interrelationships in the United States and other countries in relation to governmental policy and cultural and gendered norms

Φ↑

Organizational policies Explorations of organizational policies and cultural practices related to WL

Φ↑

Relational practices Explorations of how supervisors, coworkers, family, and friends influence WL conflict

Φ↑

Micro/individual enactments

Explorations of how individuals navigate WL issues and ways to manage such conflict

Figure 14.1 “Levels” of Analysis in Work-Life (WL) Research

of the United States, the cultural norm of individualism within which all three of us have grown up will probably affect how we approach our own WLCs; we will likely try to solve “our” problems in isolation when work and personal/family life come into conflict rather than trying to build coalitions with others to collectively solve our problems. Thus, this ordering could have started with the individual level and worked to the macro- level—these levels of experience inform each other (Kirby & Krone, 2002).