2012 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

extend one‘s social capital; in contrast, employees who lack family resources can have limited
benefits in that regard. Therefore, future research should expand the theoretical framework of
work-life studies in public relations, exploring the resources that family or nonwork sources
could provide to practitioners to enrich and improve work-life balance.
Second, public relations practitioners‘ household structures should be taken into
consideration in future work-life research. While most organizations introduce work-life policies
with a primary focus on employees with a family (Young, 1999), ten Brummelhuis and van der
Lippe (2010) argued policy makers should take more detailed employee household structures
into consideration when considering appropriate support for balancing work and life roles, as
―singles and employees without children may face other demands in their personal lives than
dual-earner couples with children, including volunteer work or an active involvement in leisure
pursuits‖ (p. 174). For example, research has shown that an organization‘s work-family culture
improved work performance among parents but reduced performance among singles (ten
Brummelhuis and van der Lippe,2010). Therefore, to compare the relationship between work-life
conflict coping preferences among singles, couples, and parents, future studies need to examine
whether work-life conflict coping preferences differ by such household structures as single
practitioners, practitioners with a partner, and practitioners with a partner and children.
Third, the current findings suggest that U.S. practitioners use a combination of proactive
cognitive and passive coping. To further answer ―why‖ and ―so what‖ types of research
questions, in-depth interviews and focus groups should be used in future scholarship to
triangulate the findings of this study and provide more insight into the role of coping in
practitioners‘ work-life conflict. Also interesting would be cross-cultural studies to compare
how practitioners in different countries and regions vary in their work-life conflict coping, given
the different levels of public relations development, different organizational cultures, and varied
practitioner attributes.
Fourth, other personal and organizational factors and their association with work-life
balance and conflict coping need to be examined further. For example, according to Briscoe,
Wardell, and Sawyer (2011), other possible influencers in the work-life balance equation include
number of work hours, accommodating flexible work hours, working from home associated
with work-life needs, work place sizes, and employment status, i.e., salaried employees versus
independent contractors.
Fifth, there are also measurement-related considerations for future research. Although
items from existing work-life conflict types were used, our survey data rendered different
clusters of items via exploratory factor analysis. For instance, instead of yielding a time-based
versus strain-based work-life conflict dichotomy, our study identified three types of conflict
related to work-life balance, with a focus more on the source of conflict stresses: behavior-driven,
work-driven, and nonwork driven, raising the question of what causes the stress felt by
practitioners. This theoretical categorization, as well as the items‘ measurement validity and
reliability, need to be further tested and enhanced.
As the first quantitative study on how public relations practitioners cope with work-life
conflicts, this paper offers empirical evidence and practical insights that can guide successful
coping with work-life related conflicts, and it provides some research-driven answers to
Gordon‘s (2012) call for ―the ways to rethink the concept of work-life balance and find passion
and purpose in both arenas‖ (p. 8).
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