The Present and Future of Work-Family Decision Making

The systematic empirical study of judgement and decision making began to emerge as a discipline in its own right only in the 1960s. This occurred together with a strong surge of interest in the larger, more general field of cognitive psychology, which also includes the study of memory, thinking, problem solving, mental imagery and language (Arkes & Hammond, 1986). Decision making has been defined as “the mental processes (cognitive process) resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternatives” (“Decision-making”, 2011, para. 2). The seminal work of Herbert Simon and James March (March, 1994; March & Simon, 1958; Simon, 1947, 1976) has propelled decision making into a broadly studied concept in the organizational behaviour and general management literature and has given rise to a separate academic discipline (behavioural decision science) and specialized journals (e.g., Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes). Nevertheless, studies linking decision making with the work—family interface were a relatively new phenomenon in 2005, the year in which the first International Conference of Work and Family (ICWF) was held. The absence of a decision-making perspective in the work—family literature is surprising in light of Kahn et al.’s (1964) well-established definition of inter-role conflict as a process by which individuals decide whether to comply with the demands of a particular role at a given point in time.