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Employee Families and Organizations as Mutually Enacted Environments

A Sensemaking Approach to Work—Life Interrelationships

University at Albany, State University of New York

Work—life research tends to privilege the organization—employee relationship, with the family's role largely relegated to providing emotional and material support to the employee and adapting to organizational requirements. Systems oriented research, however, points toward a larger role for the family, including mediating the employee's relationship with the organization as well as direct organizational interactions. This study uses Weick's model of organizational sensemaking to examine, through the analysis of employee and family interview accounts, how a global high-tech organization and its employees' families enact one another as environments. Three dynamics of mutual enactments— two cooperative and one competitive—were identified, along with implications for work—life integration research and practice, for more traditionally programmatic work—life accommodations, and for families' management of their relationships to employing organizations.

Key Words: sensemaking • work—life integration • work and family

Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 3, 385-415 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0893318908327160


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