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This study explores the metaphor of managing diversity and its related discourses that dominate current business communication about the changing workforce. We examine the language employed in practitioner-oriented texts and [...]

This article uses work-life interrelationships as a lens through which to identify communication concepts that span the traditional “division divide” between organizational and family communication and to identify potential substantive contributions to worklife research that might be made from integrative perspectives. We review extant worklife research within the communication discipline to identify themes and methodological approaches represented to date; we also identify lines of research in both organizational and family communication that have not yet been tied to work-life research but that have strong potential connections. We explore three theoretical perspectives for bridging workplace and private-life frames of reference: structuration, systems, and relational dialectics. Within each perspective, we identify integrative directions for future research. We conclude with me tadis cursive reflections on obstacles to and pathways for spanning division divides.

Using a discourse perspective, we articulate four problematics, (a) boundaries, (b) identity, (c) rationality, and (d) voice that underlie work-family theory, research, and practice. We situate existing interdisciplinary research within each problematic, showing how such research examines outcomes and effects rather than the process of constructing such outcomes. We supplement these studies with emerging communication research to illustrate new ways of thinking about each problematic. We highlight the role of daily microlevel discourses as well as macrodiscourses of organizations and families in creating the current processes, structures, and relationships surrounding work and family. We link each problematic with an agenda for empowerment through (a) questioning boundaries, (b) integrating identity, (c) embracing practical knowledge and emotionality, (d) seeking diverse voices, and (e) developing a communal orientation.