Community role salience: the development and testing of a new measure

ABSTRACT

There is growing recognition that community plays a role in an individual's work-life experience. While measures of work and family role salience have been developed and applied in the work-life literature, no measure of community role salience had been developed. This has served to limit our understanding of community role salience and how it influences work-life experience. The research aimed to address this gap by developing a new measure for community role salience and community role importance, with a view to understanding the role community plays in shaping an individual's work-life experience. Surveys were administered to 59 participants from the construction sector. The new measure of role salience shows considerable promise as a reliable instrument. The structure and nature of work undertaken in the construction industry is different from that in many other industries, therefore the results may not be generalisable to other industries. However, it is considered that the instruments themselves can be applied in different contexts to explore the role community plays in shaping an individual's work-life experience.

ABSTRACTO

Existe un creciente reconocimiento de que la comunidad juega un papel en la experiencia de la vida laboral y personal [work-life] del individuo. Aunque se han desarrollado y aplicado escalas en la literatura de la vida laboral y personal, ninguna escala acerca del rol de la prominencia de la comunidad se había desarrollado. Esto ha limitado nuestra comprensión del rol de la prominencia de la comunidad y como ésta influye en la experiencia de la vida laboral y personal. La investigación tuvo como objetivo resolver este problema mediante el desarrollo de una nueva escala para la prominencia e importancia de la comunidad, con miras a la comprensión del papel que juega la comunidad en la formación de la experiencia de la vida laboral y personal del individuo. Las encuestas fueron administradas a 59 participantes del sector de la construcción. La nueva escala del papel de relevancia de la comunidad muestra una promesa considerable cómo un instrumento fiable. La estructura y naturaleza del sector de la construcción son diferentes de las demás industrias, por lo que los resultados no se pueden generalisar a otras industrias. Sin embargo, se considera que estos instrumentos se pueden aplicar en diferente contextos para explorar el papel que juega la comunidad en la formación de la experiencia de la vida laboral y personal del individuo.

KEYWORDS:

• Role salience
• role importance
• community
• work
• family
• work-life fit

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• Rol de la relevancia
• rol de la importancia
• comunidad
• trabajo
• familia
• vida laboral y personal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Michelle Turner commenced Work Life Balance (WLB) research in 2007. Since this time, Dr. Turner has completed a Master's thesis and Doctoral thesis which explored WLB. Together with this, Dr. Turner was a key researcher in externally funded WLB research with Prof. Lingard, and has published in international journals and presented at international conferences. Her work focuses on exploring the demands experienced by workers in their work, family and community domains, and ways in which these demands can be supported so that role responsibilities can be met. Her work also considers workers as individuals, who have differing work, family and community priorities and interests. Prior to working in academia, Dr. Turner worked as a senior manager in government and not-for-profit organisations, and therefore is well connected to industry and has a keen interest in research which can be practically applied.

Helen Lingard has over twelve years of research experience in the field of WLB. During this time Prof. Lingard has implemented and evaluated WLB initiatives in industry settings. Her work in the field of WLB has been funded by two Australian Research Council Linkage Project Grants and also supported by the Victorian Department of Business and Innovation and numerous private sector organisations. Prof. Lingard is the author of a book titled ‘Work-life balance in the construction industry’ published by Taylor & Francis (London). Her work has focused on developing a positive relationship between work and family life, understanding the WLB needs of a diverse workforce and providing appropriate resources and supports to promote work-family fit. She has published over 100 peer–reviewed journal articles on the subject of workers’ health, safety and WLB.