CHAPTER FIVE: WORK-LIFE BALANCE (WLB)
5.7 Contemporary theories of WLB
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segmentation model (Milliken, Martins, & Morgan, 1998). This thought could be said to inform the WLBS formulated and adopted by organisations aiming to assist individual workers in achieving balance.
According to Guest (2002), all these models are unable to tackle the issue of balance and what makes up balance; therefore there is a need for them to include a breakdown of their causes and effects for them to be useful. The five models (spill over, segmentation, compensation, instrumental and conflict) above are known as traditional models (Guest, 2002). The usefulness of the traditional theories are limited due to the fact that they lack explanations, predictions and methods of solving the problems which people encounter in trying to achieve WLB (Clark, 2000). Clark further reported that models like spill over and compensation are narrow in their analysis; focusing on emotive connections (fulfilment and depression) and offering scarce or no recognition to place (space), transitory common and interactive linkages between work and family domain. She suggested that the models analysed persons as being responsive, having no capacity to be proactive in shaping their work and domestic domains. Clark reiterated that there has been no all-inclusive model which describes the procedure that should lead to the harmony of conflict and balance and suggested the need for a comprehensive theory that should address human behaviour, means through which a person creates meaning, and the complications of work and family circumstances (Clark, 2000).
To address the short comings of the traditional models, contemporary theories were conceptualised such as the border theory, resource drain theory and conservation of resources theory.
123 5.7.1 Border theory
The Border theory suggests that people perform roles within particular spheres of life (Desrochers & Sargent, 2004). It is almost impossible to separate work and family because life is dynamic and the spheres are framed by society, politics and contests (Lewis, Gambles, &
Rapoport, 2007). In addition, (L. Cohen, Duberley, & Musson, 2009) report on how individuals build, engage in, and maintain work and family as well as the outcome of the faltering boundaries and ways of reclaiming order. The permeability of the boundary between work and life and its influence on WLB has been of concern to scholars (Beutell, 2013; Kossek
& Lautsch, 2012; Lu & Kao, 2013; Qu & Zhao, 2012). Clark (2000) proposed the border theory to assist in investigating the behaviour of individuals with respect to work and the family domain.
According to Clark (2000), borders describe lines of division between spheres that indicate the spot at which the relevance of behaviour to a domain commences or stops. However, Nippert- Eng (1996) suggests that every boundary is socially erected and therefore changeable and artificial (Nippert-Eng, 2008; Zerubavel, 1993). Yet, Clark (2000) reports that life’s domains are partitioned by borders which may be psychological, physical or temporal (Clark, 2000).
Tangible borders are those walls at home or work that allocate where domain relevant behaviour occurs. Transient borders for instance, hours of work, define the time at which work must be performed; while mental borders are referred to as guidelines designed by individuals to prescribe what thoughts, mannerisms and emotive patterns are domain suitable (Clark, 2000). This implies therefore that individuals daily cross these borders in the course of their interactions between work and family.
The insight from border theory provokes thoughts along the line of the nature of the borders.
As Frone (2003)succinctly suggested, the question of the flexibility and/or permeability of the border cannot be overlooked. He defined border flexibility as the extent to which the role an individual plays is able to be carried out in places other than the usual space of its performance.
Permeability describes the extent to which factors from beyond a sphere of life may enter into that sphere (Frone, 2003). For instance, how can a person who works from home say for instance, a farmer or a proprietor of a Bed & Breakfast (B&B), demarcate the border between work and family? This means that it is difficult to demarcate the border between work and family in certain occupations.
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Clark (2000) conceptualised a framework to highlight the central concepts of her theory as shown below:
Figure 5.1: Work/family border theory: a pictorial framework and list of core concepts and their characters
Work Family
Domains Borders
- Extent of segmentation and integration - Border strength - Overlap of values means and ends - Permeability
- Overlap of cultures - Flexibility
- Blending
Border crossers Border keepers and other domains
- Peripheral vs central domain membership - other domain awareness
- Identification - commitment to border crosses
- Influence
Source: Adapted from Clark (2000, p. 754)
In explaining her framework (Fig. 5.10), Clark (2000) defined work and home as dual, dissimilar spheres which she called domains. She differentiated between work and home by
Permeations
Family Picture Border-
keepers/domain members
Work brought
home Insights from
work Permeations Border
crosser Border- keepers/dom ain members
Phone call from home Insights
from home family
Permeable Flexible Border Borderland (area of blending)
Client phones
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classifying their dissimilarities into two categories; dissimilarity in valued ends and dissimilarity in valued means (Rokeach, 1973). Clark and Farmer (1998) report that some people are of the opinion that work mainly gives satisfaction to the end that it gives them earnings and the feeling of achievement, whereas family life fulfilled the ends of achieving closeness in relationships as well as individual gladness. Clark (2000) suggests that the means of achieving objectives in an establishment could give rise to cultures that influence individual thought and behavioural patterns.
In the above context, Hochschild’s (1983) study on emotive labour reports on how organisations develop workers on ways of suppressing their real feelings and showcasing false emotions so as to create a customer-friendly ambience (Hochschild, 2003; Kruml & Geddes, 2000; O'Brien, 1994). To these institutions, friendliness and cheerfulness could be assessed as valued means of achieving objective. However, the culture in an individual employee’s family could be different, for instance by laying more emphasis on honesty in the manner in which emotions are expressed (Clark, 2000).
Cultures represent a group of means and rules with regards to the means that should take pre- eminence (Clark, 2000). She suggests that even though “cultures, means and ends” are not the same for both work and family domains people usually succeed in integrating these two realms to some extent. Nippert-Eng (1996) suggests two standard ways for understanding the work- family interface known as segmentation and integration models as ways of dealing with the differences between work and home domains (Nippert-Eng, 2008). The segmentation model views work and family as two different entities whereby the psychological, physiological and fleeting borders are clarified. The individual practicing segmentation will make meaning of the family and work domains as separate entities; thereby interpreting and behaving accordingly.
While an individual practicing integration on the other hand does not see such differentiations, whether they are fleeting, visible, deductive or behavioural (Nippert-Eng, 1996).
According to Cohen et al. (2009), insights into several dispositions of individuals in building and guiding their affairs and experiences at work and home in an orderly manner were suggested by Nippert-Eng (1996). Ashfort, Kreiner and Fugate (2000) analysed the context and content of boundary crossing in terms of role identity and the size of transition from one domain to the other. They observe that the simplicity involved in the dynamics of role identities also connect to the boundaries around the role, i.e. concerning the way the role is described and delineated with respect to time and place. Ashforth et al. (2000) further conceptualised role
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borders as hinging on flexibility, i.e. the elasticity of the boundary, and permeability i.e. the level of being involved with roles in one domain while engaged locationally (physically) in another (D'Abate, 2005; Desrochers, Hilton, & Larwood, 2005). This researcher considers the cognitive aspect of the border as being in the mind and individuals traverse the borders mindfully before physically crossing the borders. Therefore organisational strategies that address consequences of border crossing should inculcate those that may influence the individual’s mind positively towards controlling their realms of activity.
In support of the foregoing, Cohen, et al. (2009) contend that WLB issues are not sorted by arrangements around flexibility and permeability only, but should include matters surrounding autonomy, role identity uniqueness and the feelings that underlie real experiences at work and home, plus the borders around them. Additionally, they observe an uncontrollable realm of activities that are random and not predictable in an individual’s daily life at work and family and suggest that these are beyond a person’s capacity and control. This could be contributory to the present study’s appraisal of work and family stressors so as to establish their influence on individual employee’s SOC. SOC was proposed as a dispositional mechanism that assists individuals in managing stressors.
In the context of the above, Ashforth et al. (2000), in Cohen et al. (2009), suggest that further studies could be conducted into the problem around the way in which people reduce interruptions and find ways of coping with them when they happen. For instance, effect of absence of autonomy experienced by an employee could be reduced by ensuring that the individual obtains clarification about job performance and also finds ways of mitigating the effect of the same stressor when they arise. Cohen et al. (2009) agree that the emotions attached to the sense of not having control and losing grip (even if it is momentary) are a source of concern to individuals. This study focuses on work stressors by examining absence of autonomy, role ambiguity, role conflict and job stress. This should be able to address the concerns raised by L. Cohen et al. (2009).
The way individuals perceive their work situations as well as family situations could be indicative of their tendency to cross the boundaries between work and family (C. Nippert-Eng, 1996). They posit that the way individuals manage, comprehend and attach meaning to occurrences at work and home are subject to change depending on the time, space and importance that those things hold to the individual. Many other scholars have examined and reported the characteristic ways that people manage their work and family domains. These
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include D'Abate (2005), on employee engagement in family activities in the workplace, Greenhaus and Powell’s (2006) study on ‘work-family enrichment’ as well as Olson-Buchanan and Boswell (2006) examination of work/family conflict. Though most of these studies base their assumptions on the border theory, Cohen et al. (2009) report that there seems to be lack of sufficient attention by research focusing on individual’s experiences of chaos and constraints. They also report that there is little or no literature on the mechanism that could enable individuals reclaim orderliness or improve the way in which individuals cope with challenges. This researcher does not envisage that the border theory could contribute to the framework of this study because according to the literature, it does not consider the stressors individuals face, neither does it integrate personal and work-place resources to control border crossing. Therefore, the present study contributes to literature by examining the connection between WLB and SOC with the aim of establishing the influence of SOC on the achievement of WLB.
5.7.2 Resource Drain Theory
This theory suggests that resources required to play, work and perform family roles are finite, and therefore, when an individual makes use of these resources in one sphere, there is a considerable reduction in their availability for use in another (Brotheridge & Lee, 2005). This theory agrees with the definition of WLB by Lyness and Judiesch (2008) and Kirchmeyer (2000). This study suggests that an individual (with strong SOC, as discussed in Chapter four) may acknowledge the presence and effect of stressors as well as the need for balancing work and family by finding ways of managing those stressors toward achieving balance. But the resource drain theory confirms that making resources available for addressing stressors may reduce the resources that might be available for achieving WLB.
Hobfoll (1989) suggests that resource drain is changeable and replenishable by the use of social support made available to the individual from colleagues and family members. According to this theory, therefore an individual through the SOC may redirect the use of their personal and WLBS to achieve balance or address stressors, but not simultaneously. The present study is concerned with exploring the connection between WLB and SOC to establish whether WLBS in place in a municipality assists employees in addressing stressors and achieving WLB. This is in line with Antonovsky’s (1987) position that sense of coherence is developmental and Holmberg’s (2004) confirmation that SOC can be improved by the resources available to the individual at home and in the workplace. Therefore, the resource drain theory could contribute
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to the analysis of the findings of this study especially in the area of allocation of personal resources and use of WLBS.