Fadel K. Matta

Advancing Methods in Work-Life Research: Illustrative Studies, Lessons, and Future Challenges

Work-life research has faced criticism for methodological weaknesses. The goal of this symposium is to advance understanding of work-life research by bringing together a group of scholars experienced in diverse methodological issues to briefly share the research questions, the approaches used in four illustrative papers, before addressing lessons learned, methodological challenges faced, and suggestions for improving work-life research methods. The range of methodological issues addressed include: 1) measurement equivalence of the same scales used to assess change over time in a two contrasting settings: a low income and high income workforce in different industries: 2) a literature review of methodological gaps in widely used work- family conflict constructs and typical studies; 3) challenges in examining dyadic work-family conflict congruence with couples as the unit of analysis; and 4) the triangulation of critical incident techniques and qualitative methods to help tease out the causal ordering of var...