A Conversation with Robert Orrange

by Darcy Gifford

Sociology professor Robert Orrange didn’t initially set out to study large, complex organizations. Instead, he was part of one. Orrange, who studied engineering management at Clarkson University (N.Y.) as an undergraduate, started his career at a Fortune 500 wholesale industrial distribution company. It didn’t take long, he says, to realize that this career path wasn’t for him. He eventually earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin and draws on his early experiences in business as he studies the role of large organizations in the modern world. One of his early research interests was work-family balance, a notion that many people strive for but few understand. We wanted to learn more.

Eastern: We read a lot in popular media about work-family balance, but what exactly does this term mean?

Orrange: There are a whole range of scholars and practitioners weighing in on the topic— psychologists, sociologists, business scholars, organizational development scholars, human resource professionals, journalists. I think “work-life balance” is a nice term that gets discussion going. It’s a buzzword. It probably is an ideal that many people would like to achieve, although in many ways it’s a tortured concept because some believe that achieving balance isn’t possible. Eastern: But it’s safe to say that everyone interprets this in his or her own way?

Orrange: Yes. Certainly coming out of the more interpretative area of social science—balance is different for different people.

Eastern: I read an article in a business journal that essentially said the idea of work-family balance was a cop-out for people who don’t want to work hard. What’s your reaction to that point of view?

Orrange: That really is about family and gender transformations in society. It’s coming from the struggle to rethink this more traditional yet dominant cultural notion about family, about the breadwinner/ homemaker family, where the breadwinner went out into the workforce and earned a wage and the organization assumed that there was someone at home taking care of the family side of things. And therefore the organization, culturally, could count on the breadwinner pretty much to give whatever was needed to get the job done. Those traditional notions created expectations. Today, we have a range of family forms, from dual-earner couples to single head of household families. In today’s business world, there’s a strong split between work and home, especially when we start thinking of managerial jobs and higher-level professions, where there’s tension around how much commitment is enough. What is the nature of commitment? Is it marked by face time? By being present?

We’re living in a time now where good jobs are hard to come by, and that shifts in many ways the balance of power. There’s a power dynamic in society—bargaining power. We’re not all just free and equal individuals operating or negotiating on the same level with corporations, who are much more powerful than any person or individual.

Eastern: When I think of work-family balance, I think of the intrusion of electronic devices and the idea that you can be connected to your employer at all times. Are scholars looking at this as an area of research?

Orrange: That has definitely been a growing and prominent interest area. Is technology freeing us? Or is it a tether? It does allow you to do some things from home, but at the same time that tether is there and it can affect your mood and well-being. As a society we really haven’t had time to digest this and debate the ramifications. I do worry about the younger generations who grow up with these devices as toys and adopt these things as a total way of life. When they enter the workforce they might get a shock, that things are different when you’re really dealing with work and your formal responsibilities. How do we understand these two realms? How do we get our peace of mind? How do we create a satisfying life? Sometimes it does mean shutting off the connection to work commitments for a period of time to be in a different space—socially, psychologically, and physically.

Eastern: Some employees put in long hours— nights, weekends—and wear it like a badge of honor. How much of this is the culture of the time we live in versus the culture of the place where we work?

Orrange: Once again, when you start to move up the hierarchy within any organization, long hours can be a measure of commitment, and at times it can be a false measure. But it’s a measure that’s often used informally, and so the notion of “we’re working hard, we’re putting in all of these hours,”—they call it “face time” in the literature—it can have implications. As you move toward different levels of an organization, the challenges and the tensions and dynamics are different. Being there at the table to have your voice heard becomes important in the decision-making process as you move up the hierarchy. It affects things like the ability to telecommute, which some people value. What are we doing? What are our goals? What commitments are we making? What resources will be devoted to the way we drive this next project? That’s something that doesn’t come out as much as it should in the literature.