ABSTRACT
While there has been considerable research focused on work-life (WL) issues, in their exhaustive review Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, and Brinley (2005) noted that it lacked a theoretical base and that very few studies focused on classic communication issues, such as how people went about seeking information or the impact of social networks. This chapter seeks to redress these shortcomings by integrating divergent literatures on WL, information seeking, and network analysis to highlight important issues of information regulation and uncertainty management for members of organizations. First, I will review general problems in WL, with a special focus on employee assistance programs (EAPs) that are designed to ameliorate them. Second, I will extend the framework of the comprehensive model of information seeking (CMIS) to this particular context. Third, I will focus particularly on information-seeking actions that relate to WL in communication networks. Finally, I will discuss the theoretic and pragmatic implications of this work for understanding how people regulate their information seeking related to these issues. Throughout, propositions will be offered that stem from the application of the CMIS framework to the context of EAPs and that are intended to serve as guides for future inquiry into work-life information-seeking decisions.
