Work-Life Negotiation as Engaged Practice: Considering a Practice-Based Approach to Empowerment

• In Event: So Far, So Good, Part 1: Organizational Communication Research Escalator

Abstract

Originally conceived by Levinas’ (1969; 2003) and recently taken up by critical management scholars (Loacker & Muhr, 2009; Muhr, 2008), “practice-based ethics” is the idea that ethics only exist through encounter with others and is “concerned with concrete situational answers to codes and normative, often inconsistent, expectations” (Loacker & Muhr, 2009, p. 267). The same, then, can be said for work-life negotiation. The elusive and often theorized state of ‘balance’ is better understood as empowerment, which can only ever be realized through ongoing engagement and negotiation of competing work and life. Thus, the ideal state for work-life is not something that can ever be achieved, but is ongoing and constantly (re)negotiated. Work-life negotiation is highly contextual and subject to inconsistent (and often unfair) normative beliefs. Just as discourses are constantly negotiated, always in flux, and require direct engagement in order to exist, so too is the nature of work-life negotiation.

Author

• Amy Way, Villanova University