Expanding the work–life balance discourse to LGBT employees: Proposed research framework and organizational responses

• Author: Christiana Ierodiakonou,Eleni Stavrou
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21910

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Expanding the work–life balance discourse to LGBT

employees: Proposed research framework and organizational

responses

Eleni Stavrou | Christiana Ierodiakonou

University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

Correspondence

Christiana Ierodiakonou, 1 Panepistimiou

Avenue, 2109 Aglantzia, Nicosia, Cyprus.

Email: eleni1@ucy.ac.cy or

c.ierodiakonou@ucy.ac.cy

Relying on a gender neutrality rhetoric, the work–life balance (WLB) discourse has challenged

gendered roles, but has failed to expand “gender neutrality”to aspects of gender identity and

sexual orientation. In turn, WLB research has systematically excluded lesbian, gay, bisexual, and

transgender (LGBT) employees. We build on stakeholder theory and the resource-based view

of the firm to propose extending the WLB discourse and associated policies and practices to

LGBT employees as key internal stakeholders who can possibly contribute to organizational

performance, either directly or indirectly. We further combine these perspectives with institu-

tional theory in an integrative research framework that relies on the critical realist structured

ontology and denotes the institutional embeddedness of organizations. Adopting this institu-

tional perspective, we propose that explanations regarding the adoption of LGBT WLB policies

in organizations go beyond the organizational level to include higher level institutional charac-

teristics. Similarly, we posit that the relationship between LGBT WLB policies and organiza-

tional performance outcomes is influenced by such characteristics. Drawing from this

framework, we put forth a typology of organizational responses that postulates the possible

outcomes for organizations given their re(actions) to institutional pressures and their attitude

toward LGBT employees as stakeholders.

KEYWORDS

institutional theory, LGBT, resource-based view, stakeholder orientation, WLB

1|INTRODUCTION

The issue of work–life balance (WLB) has received increased atten-

tion from scholars, managers, and policymakers because of its associ-

ation with major demographic trends, such as fertility declines, the

aging population, and changing family structures, as well as with

social policies to protect and encourage the whole spectrum of

employee diversity (Bonoli, 2005; Taylor-Gooby, Larsen, & Kananen,

2004). These socioeconomic trends have changed the nature of work

(Lewis, Gambles, & Rapoport, 2007) and created challenges for the

full utilization of human capital (Crompton & Lyonette, 2006; Knijn &

Smit, 2009; Taylor-Gooby et al., 2004).

As a result, the dialectic of WLB discourse and associated prac-

tices has evolved from “work–family”to “work–life”balance and its

focus from family-friendly (e.g., Bardoel, 2003; Bloom, Kretschmer, &

Van Reenen, 2010; Osterman, 1995) to employee-friendly practices

(e.g., Beauregard & Henry, 2009; Keeney, Boyd, Sinha, Westring, &

Ryan, 2013) and even to practices specifically for single, childless

employees (e.g., Casper, Weltman, & Kwesiga, 2007; Wilkinson, Tom-

linson, & Gardiner, 2017). In these discourses, the inherent assump-

tion is that WLB is “gender neutral”(Lewis et al., 2007). Nonetheless,

gender neutrality mostly relates to challenging gendered roles; little

has been done to incorporate aspects of sexual orientation and gen-

der identity or expression (Everly & Schwarz, 2015; King & Cortina,

2010). In turn, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)

employees have been systematically excluded from WLB research.

Similarly, LGBT employees have been largely excluded from the

diversity literature (Bell, Özbilgin, Beauregard, & Sürgevil, 2011).

Despite its growth over the past two decades, diversity research has

mainly focused on “visible minorities,”leaving LGBT individuals with

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21910

Hum Resour Manage. 2018;57:1355–1370. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1355

the status of an “invisible minority”(Priola, Lasio, De Simone, & Serri,

2014, p. 488).

In turn, the exploration of the possibly unique WLB needs of

LGBT employees is still in its infancy and lacks an overarching

theoretical framework to explicate possible multilevel relation-

ships among LGBT-friendly policies and practices, employee and

organizational outcomes, and institutional dimensions. The hand-

ful of studies that focused on LGBT individuals from a working

life perspective provide some indications of relationships worthy

of further consideration. For example, two studies have revealed

that LGBT-friendly practices are positively related to both LGBT

employee well-being and organizational performance (Huffman,

Watrous-Rodriguez, & King, 2008; Wang & Schwarz, 2010).

These practices include coworker or supervisory support, as well

as organizational support. Another study by Everly and Schwarz

(2015) reports state-level support (e.g., legalization of same-sex

marriage) and mimetic market pressures as antecedents to organi-

zational LGBT-friendly HR practices. The same study highlights

the need for more comprehensive frameworks to better under-

stand factors affecting organizational decisions to adopt such

practices.

In this article, we utilize a critical realism lens to propose such a

framework that uniquely integrates three theoretical perspectives

conceptualizing links and interactions across different levels of analy-

sis. Based on this lens, any predictions made are “heavily qualified”

and therefore conditional (Hesketh & Fleetwood, 2006, p. 692). Our

framework is presented in Figure 1.

At the employee level, we adopt Berman, Wicks, Kotha, and

Jones's (1999) stakeholder orientation to propose that LGBT individ-

uals are important stakeholders to the organizations that employ

them and may contribute, directly or indirectly, to organizational per-

formance. At the organizational level, we complement the stake-

holder approach with the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm,

which approaches human resources as potential sources of competi-

tive advantage (Barney, 1991). Integrating these two perspectives,

we suggest that organizations seeking to benefit from their human

capital will view LGBT employees as important stakeholders and in

turn will adopt LGBT WLB policies and practices in order to improve

employee and organizational performance.

Oliver (1997) called this instrumental approach to managerial

decisions economic rationality. However, she proposed that manage-

rial decisions are also influenced by normative rationality, which

involves pressures to conform to practices that are institutionalized

in society (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). In this respect, she suggested

combining the RBV with institutional theory in order to better cap-

ture the complexity of organizational decisions (Oliver, 1997). Thus,

we incorporate institutional theory in our framework to include the

supra-organizational level and propose that decisions to adopt LGBT

WLB policies, as well as the performance outcomes of those policies,

are institutionally embedded. In this respect, we posit that institu-

tional factors operating at different levels will directly influence the

adoption of LGBT WLB policies and practices in organizations and

indirectly affect the relationship between those policies and

employee as well as organizational performance.

Firms will consider it their

responsibility (the natural thing

to do) to offer WLB policies

friendly to LGBT employees

Firms will be pressured to

copy WLB policies friendly

to LGBT employees offered

by competitors and MNCs

Firms will be obliged to

offer WLB policies friendly

to LGBT employees

Higher Use of LGBT-Friendly Policies

Distal Performance

Outcomes

Intermediary

Performance Outcomes

P5

P2

P1a

P1b

P3 P4

National

Level

Organizational

Level

Coercive Pressures:

Mandated by law

Mimetic Pressures:

Following the example

Normative Pressures:

Institutionalized in norms

Institutional Pressures

FIGURE 1 Integrative research framework of WLB policies for LGBT employees

1356 STAVROU AND IERODIAKONOU