Work-Family Conflict, Enrichment, and Balance under “Levels” and “Episodes” Approaches

In this review, the authors differentiate work—family (WF) research that conceptualizes and measures conflict as a consolidated level versus as a conflict event or episode. They critique the “levels” literature in the areas of conflict, enrichment, and balance. They next review the WF “episodes” lit...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of management 2011-01, Vol.37 (1), p.68-98
Main Authors: Maertz, Carl P., Boyar, Scott L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Concept formation
Conflict management
Discrepancies
Enactment
Family conflict
Family work relationship
Imbalance
Literature reviews
Stress
Work environment
Work life balance
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this review, the authors differentiate work—family (WF) research that conceptualizes and measures conflict as a consolidated level versus as a conflict event or episode. They critique the “levels” literature in the areas of conflict, enrichment, and balance. They next review the WF “episodes” literature for the first time. They then introduce a framework that clarifies definitional inconsistencies and integrates the key constructs in the WF literature in a new way. This framework proposes that an employee’s mental conceptualizations relevant to WF roles can be discrepant with actual role enactment or with another mental conceptualization. These discrepancies form one’s level of WF balance or imbalance. The authors recommend that researchers adopt WF balance as the central levels construct, which changes primarily through the occurrence of WF conflict episodes and WF enrichment episodes. They finally discuss research and practical implications of this framework.
ISSN:0149-2063
1557-1211
DOI:10.1177/0149206310382455