The article No, You Can’t have it All written by Eric C. Sinoway (2012) presents an interesting model on harmonizing the age-old problem for professionals – work-life balance. The fast-changing work environment is ever demanding, and once coupled with individual ambition, acts as a catalyst to drive and motivate employees. However, often in the process, the subtle balance one requires to establish between work life and personal life is lost. The article presents insightful ideas regarding work-life balance, with examples demonstrating the role of individual decision-making and trade-off in maintaining the balance. The decision we take always has an opportunity cost. However, from the point of view of business research, the article fails to substantiate the main argument and lacks empirical credibility. The article presents various shortcomings from the point of view of business research, and Sinoway failed to establish a convincing argument. The main drawback of the article is in (or lack of) a specified research method.
The article presents an account of how work-life balance can be achieved and the criteria based on which people usually make a choice between the two. The article takes a narrative approach and describes various experiences of individual professionals and demonstrates how their decision regarding their professional and personal life was influenced by the decisions they took. For instance, the article presents the case of Howard Stevenson, a business professional, as well as a renounced academician who, at one point, had to make a choice between his high demanding corporate career and pressing personal commitments and responsibilities. In another instance, Sinoway presents an example of an executive who had to choose between his dream of making a restaurant and taking a substantial pay hike. Therefore, the crux of the article is that all decisions come with a trade-off, an opportunity cost. It is by weighing the opportunity costs that one makes a decision regarding one’s work-life balance. The article is presented in a narration style with little empirical support.
Sinoway presents a few examples like that of Howard Stevenson and a few other non-disclosed sources and exemplifies their personal experience in demonstrating the main arguments presented by the article. However, the article lacks, in essence, the research quality required for making a generalized model. The article takes a narrative approach to qualitative research wherein the author has gathered his primary data from sources that are actually the cases described in the article. From the point of view of the research process and methodology for business research, the article lacks general coherence and generalization. The article is like a report for a newspaper that may be based on a few interviews and presented in a narrative style but lacks any empirical backup. However, the article does not present any adherence to a research method followed for business research.
In reading the article, it can be deduced that it follows a qualitative research methodology. Qualitative research collects the data for research through various methods such as surveys, interviews, or observation. But the article does not specify the method adopted in collecting its data, which it uses in developing the small cases used to demonstrate the central argument. The article demonstrates that Sinoway is knowledgeable and is aware of the problem of the work-life balance; however, he fails to present it in a cohesive form. The article presents a model based on which, the author believes, individuals decide on the decisions regarding work-life balance. These are stated to be family, social, and community, physical, spiritual, materialistic, vocational, and career. However, the model that the author argues to be the main factor on which individuals make their career decision is simply deduced from personal experience with no evidentiary support. The seven points, which probably are the correct points based on which individuals take a personal and professional decision, are just stated to have been developed out of “collaboration” with another academician. But the article does not specify the method they had undertaken to deduce these specific results; neither does it mention the weight to be given to each of these dimensions in the decision-making process. This is presumably due to the lack of empirical support available for the model presented by Sinoway. Lack of empirical support is one of the crucial drawbacks of the article.
The article presents accounts of experiences of various individuals and states them as evidentiary support for the model he has developed. These examples and accounts are not thorough enough to be considered case studies, which is a prevalent method in business research. However, these examples are short and not in-depth. Further, these are almost like snippets of interviews. However, business research dictates that if interviews are conducted, then in the article, the research method and design should be stated in order to demonstrate the origin of the source of the primary data and the method of collecting it. The research method followed by the author is not clearly delineated; neither is the design specified anywhere in the course of the article.
Lack of evidentiary support for the model presented in the article makes it difficult to ascertain the extent and scope of generalization of the findings stated in the article. Due to the lack of empirical support, the model presented in the article assumes the state or simply the author’s beliefs and not empirically researched findings. Sinoway, though, definitely aware and knowledgeable about the problems faced by professionals in making difficult choices regarding their career and personal life, fails to provide a comprehensive model that may help individuals in making these choices, for the model he presents lacks empirical support. Further, the research process that one may deduce, followed by Sinoway in writing this article and making these conclusions are ad hoc with no definite research methodology, collecting data as and when basis. Such a research method is unorganized and fails to adhere to specific research goals. The accounts presented in the article as cases seem like experiences of friends and colleagues gathered through years of experience and maybe biased by various other factors that Sinoway does not discuss. Further, Sinoway does not present any literature on work-life balance. The literature on this topic is vivid, and there is a lot of empirical research that has been done to demonstrate the possible outcomes and costs of the balance. But Sinoway does not cite any such literature and simply bases his argument on two or three brief accounts of personal experiences, the authenticity of which are dubious.
Business research and modeling are based on strong empirical research, be it qualitative or quantitative. Sinoway presents a unique understanding of the work-life balancing problem that many professionals face in their way towards the top, but many fail to understand the real reason for their inability to make the right decision. However, an understanding of the factors that influence such a decision would help organizations to motivate employees and provide a strong work-life balance. However, an article without any empirical research to back its findings is ineffective in providing a generalized model. The article though insightful, lacks empirical support for model formulation.
Reference
Sinoway, E. C. (2012). No, You Can’t Have it All. Harvard Business Review, 2-5.