Negotiating maternity leave expectations: perceived tensions between ethics of justice and care.

Academic and popular materials designate maternity leave as a period of transition and role negotiation in which women and other organizational members, particularly their bosses, might interact differently from times in which there are no employment breaks. Because maternity leave is a socially

constructed process within specific interactional contexts, women's discourse can reveal ways they shape their expectation about treatment during pregnancies/leaves. Their discourse displays how they perceive, make sense of, and negotiate their experiences with others. In this study, women who had maternity leaves indicated that their treatment often differed so greatly from expectations that they were unable to communicate and negotiate with their bosses. Viewed from ethics of justice and care, these boss-subordinate exchanges were not simply instances of miscommunication but possibly tensions produced by conceptualizing and enacting justice and care stances. Feminist ethics provides a way to reframe ethical stances and construct visions of caring workplace communities.

Keywords: ethics; maternity leave; negotiation; gender communication; superior-subordinate communication

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There are numerous recommendations designed to enable childbearing women to participate more fully in the U.S. workforce. These recommendations include paid and longer family leaves, corporate child care centers, and other changes in government and organizational policies and practices (Fox, 2002; Glass, 1996; Hyde, Essex, & Clark, 2001; Martin, 1990; Perlow, 1997; Queneau & Marmo, 2001). Despite calls for amendments to federal and state laws that make it illegal to discriminate against these workers (i.e., the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 1978; the Family and Medical Leave Act, 1993) and for more family-friendly corporate cultures, some female workers still have difficulty using these policies (Gerstel & McGonagle, 1999) and report lower job satisfaction during and after leaves (Brown, Ferrara, & Schley, 2002). At present, the factors that influence how long women work while pregnant and when they return to paid work after maternity leaves is not well understood (Leibowitz, Klerman, & Waite, 1992). However, childbearing women's satisfaction with and commitment to their workplaces correspond with maternity leave policies and implementations (Brown et al., 2002; Lyness, Thompson, Francesco, & Judiesch, 1999).

Assessing how policies are perceived and carried out depends, in part, on stakeholders' differential expectations. Because maternity leave is a socially constructed process within particular interactional contexts and organizational structures, organizational members might have very different interpretations of what is appropriate, reasonable, and negotiable. When these expectations conflict, there can be opportunities for dialogue aimed at developing shared understandings. However, there also can be failed communication attempts, that is, perceived inabilities to reconcile expectations and negotiate interests. Although Miller, Jablin, Casey, Lamphear-Van Horn, and Ethington (1996) theorized that maternity leave fundamentally is a role negotiation process, no empirical investigations have gathered and analyzed the discourse of women to find out how they describe their treatment, what they perceive as important, whether they view their leaves as negotiable, and what competing values they describe.

Our study fills this gap. We analyze a particular group of workers' maternity leave accounts. These 15 women reported discouragement about employment and career opportunities at the times of their leaves. More than three quarters either did not return to or did not remain with their employers after their leaves and almost half indicated job dissatisfaction after their leaves (whereas three quarters reported being satisfied or highly satisfied beforehand). With their experiences being at odds with the premise underlying, and with the desired results from, maternity leave laws and policies (i.e., to treat pregnant workers and women on maternity leave fairly; to create conditions that encourage women to remain in the workforce), they represent those for whom practices do not match the spirit of policy reforms and about whom workforce demographers and companies are most concerned (e.g., Chaker, 2003). Examination of their discourse, then, can indicate why they felt discouraged, how tensions among values may pull them in different directions, and what they and others can do to create more positive experiences for women, whether or not these women remain in the workforce.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Academic and popular materials designate maternity leave as a time of transition and role negotiation in which women and other organizational members, particularly their bosses, might talk and interact differently from times in which there were no employment breaks. The reasons for these depictions of maternity leave are that pregnancy and leave operate (a) as a disruption in usual organizing processes, (b) as a situation that poses dilemmas for bosses, and (c) as a site in which discourses of justice and care might collide as organizational members' expectations vary.

First, Marshall (1995; see also Fondas, 1995) said that disruptions become highly politicized sites as traditional ways of conducting work, populating companies, and offering opportunities exclude women's interests and needs. Business cases (Mock & Bruno, 1994), feminist analyses (Martin, 1990; Schwartz, 1992), and some reconceptualizations of maternity leave (Ashcraft, 1999; Miller et al., 1996) offer insight into why and how pregnancy and maternity leaves are considered disruptions in work and career. Normal operations do not include extended time away from paid work, realignments in priorities and relationships, and seemingly overnight reassessments of organizational commitment and family finances (Fondas, 1995; Marshall, 1995). Taking time for family events, talking about family, and not scheduling one's life around corporate needs have been regarded as indicators of lower commitment, less seriousness about paid work, and unpromotability even when one's expertise or presence is unnecessary for project completion (see Bailyn, 1993; Deetz, 1992, 1995; Jorgenson, 2000; Perlow, 1997, 1998). Disruptions are particularly problematic for bosses who try to manage work flow. As a result, bosses may send mixed messages during work-family conversations (Kirby, 2000).

The second issue, then, is that maternity leave can be viewed as a situation posing dilemmas for bosses. Bosses may consider workplace pregnancy and maternity leave to be predicaments because they work to sustain organizational effectiveness, whereas maternity leave may connote absence from the office, increased tasks for others, scheduling difficulties, or worry about project deadlines (e.g., Mock & Bruno, 1994; Schwartz, 1989, 1992). Women who want to keep their jobs, retain their footholds, and/or advance may try to lessen or accommodate bosses' concerns about work accomplishment (Martin, 1990). When women try to simultaneously meet their own and their bosses' interests, they engage in role negotiation processes (Miller et al., 1996). Miller et al. (1996) argue that women requesting leaves enter into formal and/or informal negotiations through which the women try to modify others' expectations to conform to their needs and desires (p. 288). These exchanges are expected to involve several sequential stages (i.e., announcement, preparation, leave and preparation for return, and reentry) and to incorporate variables such as leader-member exchange and bargaining strategies.

Miller et al.'s notion (1996) that maternity leave involves negotiation is implied in popular materials that direct U.S. women to take charge of their work and family lives at these times (e.g., Marzollo, 1989; McKay, 2004; Weisberg & Buckler, 1994). These and other writings indicate that there is room for dialogue about individual and organizational interests. However, researchers have assessed neither whether women view or experience workplace interactions at this time as negotiations nor how most women perceive and articulate differences in treatment expectations during their workplace pregnancies and maternity leaves.

Third, because workplace pregnancy and maternity leave operate as situations in which routine organizing processes are disrupted and organizational members' expectations about appropriate treatment may vary, they call into question how people believe they and others should behave as well as how policies should be implemented. As such, maternity leave also may function as a site in which ethics, particularly discourses of justice and care, come into conflict. In general, justice aligns with moral theory, rational considerations of moral dilemmas, and universal rights, whereas care is associated with nurturing of specific individuals and with concrete conditions in people's lives (Johannesen, 2001; Kohlberg, 1981; Tronto, 1993). Although these broad distinctions indicate that justice and care operate as dualisms in moral thinking and conduct, there are variations in conceptualizations and implementations of both ethics.

Justice considerations can be viewed as moral standards as well as guidelines that frame and direct deliberations about the intent, processes, and outcomes of specific micropractices (i.e., talk and interactions). Justice as moral principles typically is framed as equal application of standards. However, Rawls (2001) considered justice as fairness to be agreed on by persons under fair conditions about what constitutes reasonable principles of justice. Democratic society operates as a fair system of social cooperation in which free and equal citizens have rights and responsibilities. Differences are adjudicated through rational arguments (guidelines for public inquiry) that take into consideration individuals' relative advantages and disadvantages (e.g., income, class, education), basic liberties, and other matters (Rawls, 2001). Specifically, in Rawlsian justice as fairness, "it is society's obligation to ensure that unmerited contingencies affect our opportunities as little as possible" (Anderson, 2003, p. 43). Rawls proposed that "the veil of ignorance" can help actualize equitable distribution of primary goods (e.g., eliminate considerations of skin color or class in employment opportunities that would lead to financial solvency or lack thereof; see also Rhodes, 2002). Through the veil of ignorance, citizens' representatives place all parties on an equal footing so that public policy is designed for everyone's welfare. (1) Tensions between traditional and Rawlsian justice considerations are evident in the development of laws, such as the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 and the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, associated policies, specific organizational practices, and applications to individual cases.

In addition to justice as equal application of universal standards and as Rawlsian justice as fairness, justice considerations frame specific micropractices. Redding's (1996) classification scheme stipulates how members should not conduct themselves in intraorganizational circumstances. Unethical organizational messages are identifiable units of oral or written discourse perceived to be sent with conscious intent (Stohl & Redding, 1987). Redding's (1996; see also Mattson & Buzzanell, 1999) prototypology classifies discourse as destructive (abusive and insensitive messages that attack the other), deceptive (evasive or untrue messages), coercive (threatening or demanding messages based on power imbalances), intrusive (messages that breach the other's privacy rights), secretive (messages or organizational cultures that mandate a worker's or workers' silence), or manipulative-exploitative (messages that gain compliance through mistreatment). This classification system enables researchers to analyze sequences and patterns of exchanged messages, interactants' intent, and probable outcomes. Messages in specific organizational settings that would create negative conditions for women (and men) would be considered unethical.

In contrast to justice concerns, ethics of care focus on context and feminine values. Gilligan (1982) argued that ethical systems grounded in justice and universal criteria are insufficient because they do not incorporate the ways some women evaluate moral issues through values of care and connection and through considerations of context and responsibility. L. Stewart, Cooper, Stewart, and Friedley (2003) noted that Gilligan's theory is grounded in the assumption that the ways people talk and the language they use reveal how they see the world, construct their realities, and act on those meanings (p. 25). Both women and men display linguistic patterns associated with ethics of care, or feminine ethics, that position feminine traits such as caring, connection, and nurturing as criteria for decision making (see Jaggar, 1994; Johannesen, 2001; L. Stewart et al., 2003; Tong, 1993). Some unresolved issues with regard to the ethics of care include the central dimensions or characteristics, the role of the self, and how "the norms of a care ethic [might] actually function in perpetuating the cultural subordination of women as the 'natural' caregiver" (Johannesen, 2001, p. 213).

In sum, workplace pregnancy and maternity leave often are viewed as disruptions in normal organizing processes that pose dilemmas for bosses who must manage work flow, resources, and (presumably) impartial treatment of workers. Situated within these traditional (masculine) organizational concerns, some women also might perceive their maternity leaves to be dilemmas. For them, maternity leave may represent times when they are unable to communicate effectively and negotiate expectations about roles, work accomplishment, family needs, advancement, relationships with their bosses, and fair treatment. There has been little empirical research on multiple women's sense making about maternity leaves that could provide insight into why some women might feel discouraged about their employment and careers at these times or how they might try to manage and negotiate multiple and competing expectations, dilemmas, values, and responses. Thus, we asked the following research question:

Research Question 1: How do women who felt discouraged about employment and career opportunities at the time of their maternity leaves describe and evaluate their expectations and treatment as well as their abilities to negotiate concerns with their bosses?

METHOD

Participants

The second author developed a data set of 102 interviews about maternity leave with women of different occupations, relational situations, socioeconomic backgrounds, and perceptions of their experiences. From this database, both authors focused on women who reported that they felt discouraged about their employment and advancement chances in their companies at the time of their pregnancies and returns to paid work. Fifteen women or 15% of the entire data set checked off "discouraged" or "very discouraged" on a brief written survey that was completed at the time of their audiotaped interviews.

These 15 women came from a variety of occupations, ranging from blue-collar workers such as bartenders, to pink-collar workers such as secretaries, and white-collar workers such as consultants (for occupational classifications, see U.S. Department of Labor, 2001). (2) Most of the research participants (60%, n = 9 out of 15) had one maternity leave (with a range of one to three leaves). These women were between 21 and 44 years of age when they took their maternity leaves (average of 26 years for first or only leaves; and 28 years for last and only leaves). Their only or most recent maternity leaves ranged from right before through 29 years prior to the interviews (average length of time since pregnancy/maternity leave was 6 years). However, most pregnancies/leaves (53%) occurred less than 4 years prior to the interviews.

All but two participants were married (87%; n = 13 out of 15 participants). All had taken at least some college classes, but 47% had associate through graduate degrees (n = 7). With a couple of exceptions, participants were White (i.e., the two exceptions listed their race as African American). All indicated that they were middle class, but a third designated upper- or lower-middle class (2 participants or 13% reported upper-middle-class status, whereas 3 participants or 20% said that they were lower-middle class).

Procedures

Data gathering. The second author constructed a brief survey and an interview protocol to obtain background data about participants and to gather information about their pregnancies and maternity leave experiences in their own words. The three-page survey requested demographic data, such as educational levels, occupations, socioeconomic status, and racial or ethnic background, as well as information pertaining to maternity leaves (e.g., timing of the leave, job satisfaction, and perceived job security prior to and after the leave). The interview protocol consisted of four parts: (a) respondents' understandings of maternity leave policies, (b) their descriptions of their pregnancies or adoptions and maternity leave experiences, (c) their (and others') ways of talking about maternity leaves, and (d) their accounts of their returns to paid work.

After the second author created the survey and protocol, she enlisted students' help in locating and interviewing women who had experienced maternity leaves and returns to paid work (for additional details about procedures, see Buzzanell, 2003). There were no restrictions on research participants' characteristics (e.g., occupations, educational levels, etc.) or on when they had taken their leaves. In all, 102 interviews were obtained from women of different occupations, ages, socioeconomic statuses, and so on. After all the data were gathered, both authors identified the 15 interviews being used for this study, verified the already transcribed transcripts (that adapted Fairhurst's [1993] transcription system used for female leaders' discourse) against audiotapes, and began analyzing data. The 15 interviews used for this study ranged in length from 10 to 60 minutes (average was 25 minutes) and resulted in 203 pages of double-spaced text. All names and locations were changed to preserve confidentiality.

Data analytic techniques. As both authors were verifying transcriptions against audiotapes, they also began the process of memoing, comparing, and interrogating categories using generative questions and developing themes using grounded theory (see Charmaz, 2000; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Locke, 2001). Owen (1984) stated that themes, or recurring semantic issues, "allow sense-making at different rates and in various forms fitting the specific current concerns of the participants" (p. 276). As such, thematic analysis enables researchers to identify interpretations that emerge from participants' discourse at particular times in their lives. To operate as themes, these meaning patterns must exhibit recurrence (same "thread of meaning," Owen, 1984, p. 276), repetition (same words and phrases), and forcefulness (vocal variations) throughout the entire set of 15 interviews (i.e., within and across interview discourse and practices rather than in only specific segments or responses to particular questions). Both authors began by independently constructing themes, identifying data to support these themes, and locating research that provided depth to our understandings of the themes. We also looked for instances that disconfirmed our initial thinking about meaning patterns. In this way, our findings met criteria for good qualitative research; namely, findings grew out of our participants' discourse and reported practices; were saturated with data that were representative of, rather than different from, typical instances; and were informed by work of researchers across disciplines (Fitch, 1994; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Janesick, 1994; Tompkins, 1994). Over the course of several meetings, e-mail exchanges, and rereadings of transcripts, we collaborated on the refinement of three themes.

RESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONS

Our Research Question 1 asked, How do women who felt discouraged about employment and career opportunities at the time of their maternity leaves describe and evaluate their expectations and treatment as well as their abilities to negotiate concerns with their bosses? Participants had differing perceptions of their treatment by their bosses but in general, portrayed their workplace pregnancy and maternity leave experiences as subject to overt, covert, and institutional practices that constituted not only disparities between their expectations and treatment but also tensions between justice and care ethics (i.e., tensions between equal standards along with their applications and considerations of individual circumstances within particular contexts). These justice-care tensions meant that participants perceived themselves as differentially effective in negotiating on their own behalf. Indeed, many perceived their interactions with their bosses as restricting their work, their requests for accommodations or help, and their opportunities for advancement. The women perceived that they were caught between rules applications and treatment designed to create equal working conditions for all and their own particular circumstances. These tensions emerged within three themes or interconnected discursive processes: (a) overt (i.e., direct messages or practices that marginalize and disempower some women by using traditional stereotypes and double binds), (b) covert (i.e., indirect messages or practices that seem family friendly but are coercive or manipulative-exploitative, see Redding, 1996), and (c) institutional (i.e., messages or practices that silence some women through impersonal bureaucratic policies and procedures).

Overt Processes and Practices

Most instances of overt detrimental treatment were discourses and practices that situated supervision in a "power over" position based on bureaucratic legitimacy and traditional justice ethics that evoked equal treatment for all. Overt processes and practices centered on denial of requests for accommodations to pregnancies and revocations of previously promised promotions.

Based on our interviews, it was not uncommon to have supervisors refuse to comply with what seemed to be fairly innocuous and feasible requests. For instance, Tara, a White photo lab technician who also sold cribs at the retail store for which she worked, recalled,

   They [the management] more or less were making me do things that I
   shouldn't or thought that no pregnant person should be doing....
   You know, I had to carry a crib when I was 6 1/2 months pregnant by
   myself, because no management would come help me, you know, and I
   had paged and called for management plenty of times and even a
   customer complained to management that I had to carry it by myself.

From these and other incidents, Tara suffered from severe physical complications during her pregnancy. A separate request also was denied: "Another time I had fallen and I started spotting, and I asked if I could go home and they would not let me go home." The apathetic response that Tara recalled contrasted sharply with her expectations for her pregnancy treatment and leave:

   I thought that when you took a maternity leave that your company
   basically would understand--they would be, you know, really
   supportive. Um, that they would try to understand and help you the
   way that they could. I thought that was designed to help you and not
   the company, that it was like a benefit that the company provided.

As a result, maternity leave, an experience that she embraced with "excitement" turned out to be "extremely disappoint[ing]."

Other women reported similar experiences. Lucy, who "worked [as a lab technician] at a chemical company, working with some pretty bad things" and "was very sick" throughout her pregnancy, was told by the doctor to be off of her feet as much as possible. Her managers "refused to follow [the doctor's request]" and "weren't willing to be flexible." According to Lucy, her supervisors held such a firm position regarding maternity leave that she could exert no influence. She commented, "Well, I really didn't have a choice, 6 weeks and I was put on [maternity leave]. I just, it wouldn't have been my choice." As Lucy refused to surrender her self-interests and move toward the supervisors' expectations, the conflict eventually escalated to an impasse (i.e., negotiators fail to reach an agreement or resolve the conflict, see Lewicki, Barry, Minton, & Saunders, 2002). Lucy ended up leaving the company despite her strong desire to stay. She stated,

   If they would have been able to cut my hours back, or even put me
   back to part-time, I would have been thrilled to go back. If they
   would have been willing to put me in another job for a while, I
   would have been willing to go back. And if they would have been
   willing to consider me for this other job, or for another job later
   on, figuring my educational background, I probably would have went
   back. But because I saw no hope in advancing anywhere in the
   company, and as I said, working 12 hour shifts, and they were
   working me 6 on/1 off for a while there. I would have never seen my
   child, let alone never seen my husband. It just wouldn't have been
   worth going back.

Although the overt indifference to some pregnant women's needs left them suffering from physical ill-being and dangerous working environments, it prompted others to feel pressure. Tara commented, "I was under a lot of stress at my job and that ... I think that created a lot of the problems with my blood pressure."

Ironically, although some childbearing women presumably were treated the same as their coworkers in terms of performing job-related tasks (regardless of their physical conditions), they experienced differential treatment when advancement chances emerged even though they had the same or better qualifications as other candidates for promotion. Of our 15 participants, 7 indicated that pregnancy and maternity leave were used frequently by their bosses as reasons to blame them, demote them, or deny raises or promotions that were promised previously. Joan, a White nursing assistant at a hospital, noted,

   And then when I came back, um, I was up for ah, like a manager
   position, and they told me I wasn't going to be able to get it
   because they couldn't rely on me as much because with a newborn
   baby, I would probably miss a lot more work than the other girl ...
   so I didn't get the position.

Lucy, who had been called the "best lab-tech in the company" and was "the only one working at that time who had a degree," reported, "[I] later found out that there was a job opening coming up just after I would have gotten back, and they weren't even going to consider me for the position." One third of these 15 women ended up leaving their companies after their leaves.

What stands behind the revoking of promised raises and promotions may be a (convoluted) form of traditional justice ethics, meaning that supervisors could deny advancement because the women no longer had uninterrupted work histories (whereas others did and thus deserved rewards). Half of our participants said that they were perceived and treated as unreliable, not valuable, and incompetent after becoming pregnant and having a child. Jena, a White sales representative in the broadcast industry, commented,

   Um, well with, probably with management, the thing I've seen is, um,
   [pause] after someone has a baby [pause] the way they view you is
   that you don't want to move up within the company, that you want to
   stay where you're at, um, they don't really give you much of a
   chance to rise above that, even if you would choose to, you're
   pretty much kind of labeled as a working mother, that you don't have
   any aspirations.

In fact, almost half of the women explicitly noted that their pregnancies functioned as transitional points in terms of their career development and superior-subordinate relationships. As Brice, a White seamstress in an embroidery embossing company, said, "When you are pregnant, it is a transition from you being important [to unimportant. It] starts to change, you start to feel a little neglected some times." It is not surprising, then, that many supervisors were reported to overtly treat pregnant women differently from the ways they treated other people. For instance, when Janice, a White customer service representative, had a problem with a coworker who always went to the boss and complained about her, Janice said, "He [her supervisor] would always blame on whatever was going on on my maternity ... that I was emotional or something like that." After returning from her maternity leave, Janice found out that her position was permanently given to the very coworker who had complained about her.

Whereas it is well known that stars or promotable individuals in corporations have access to all kinds of benefits and resources (for overviews, see Arthur, Hall, & Lawrence, 1989; Buzzanell & Goldzwig, 1991), some childbearing women like Janice may have reduced access. Not only are they presumably and stereotypically considered emotional and unprofessional (Jamieson, 1995; Trethewey, 2000) but also little mistakes and minor concerns can become big issues as bosses and others in the workplace seek justifications for practices such as removing job positions that were previously promised to them. As Tara said,

   They were looking for little things that you did wrong, you know, to
   yell at you or maybe fire you for, you know, they can't fire you
   because you're pregnant, but things that you can't do that they were
   looking for anything.

If unchecked, perceptions of mistakes and concerns can evolve into situations in which bosses and their employees became increasingly estranged (known as the set-up-to-fail syndrome; see Manzoni & Barsoux, 1998).

In short, overt processes and practices centered on two main concerns, namely, accommodations to pregnancies and advancement opportunities. With regard to these two instances, many participants reported treatment that served to marginalize and disempower them through overt discursive processes and practices based on (a) power differentials, (b) explicit references to traditional feminine stereotypes (i.e., women who are pregnant are unreliable, emotional, and undeserving of promotion), and/or (c) conflicting principles of traditional justice and care.

Against these cultural and managerial messages about their differences from desirable workers, some women attempted to negotiate and/or argued for accommodations and for previously promised advancement opportunities. They requested accommodations so that they could do their work (and unsuccessfully used doctors' notes and customers' complaints to try to gain accommodations). From a Rawlsian perspective, their attempts could have become part of rights adjudications because their treatment denied their access to primary goods through circumstances of gender, motherhood, class, and (possibly) other factors. From their perspectives, their influence tactics simply did not produce desired results or open opportunities for further negotiation.

In cases of failed negotiation attempts on the parts of the women, bureaucratic legitimacy and traditional gender stereotypes may have allowed the supervisors to hold a firm resistance point with regard to the women's expectations and needs. Bosses refused to respond to the women's requests. As Tara said, "They'd either say, well, then, you're just going to have to quit, you know, this place comes first." Many of these women either did not seem to have a BATNA (the Best Alternatives to a Negotiated Agreement, see Lewicki et al., 2002), meaning that they had not considered different ways that their requests might be perceived and responded to, or their BATNA was to leave the company. For those women who could not afford to lose their current job (e.g., due to financial concerns, needs to maintain insurance), they would have had to modify their own expectations and conform to those of their supervisors or they would have had to live with the unfulfilled needs as well as the negative physical and emotional consequences.

However, another interpretation of participants' experiences with overt practices is that their bosses could have been following traditional justice principles of equal treatment for all and the ends justifying the means (e.g., efficiency, reliability, ease of dealing with men and women who were not pregnant or on leaves). The women may have operated from care ethics that would have been a basis for claiming that their personal well-being and needs require individualized treatment. With such different expectations and ethical stances, many of our participants indicated that they had little leeway in negotiations.

Moreover, justice conceptualized as equal treatment for all in the workplace (i.e., traditional justice) is problematic because it does not consider potential nonwork consequences or stakeholders other than workers and their bosses. From a Rawlsian perspective, the design and enactment of policy is unfair because equal treatment does not mitigate unequal social conditions that prompt unfair individual circumstances. Denial of and unreceptiveness to requests could have been and did prove (in some cases) harmful to the women's physical and/or mental well-being. In most cases, pregnant women were able to fulfill their routine job requirements. However, performing tasks that involve heavy labor can be too physically demanding and may result in birthing complications or other adverse outcomes. Under these circumstances, refusing to provide assistance can endanger both the women's physical well-being and the health of the fetus.

Covert Processes and Practices

Covert discursive processes and practices refer to the supervisor's use of indirect messages and associated practices that can be detrimental to women's well-being and work-family balance but appear to be rational or even family friendly. About one quarter of our respondents identified bosses' talk as incorporating negative attitudes and/or emotions toward their pregnancies, such as anger, disappointment, dismay, and unhappiness. Although bosses' messages often were indirect, they hurt these particular women's self-esteem, added to their mental stress, and sometimes worsened their physical state.

Covert processes played on women's emotions, particularly feelings aligned with feminine conceptualizations of responsibilities to work communities. Joan said,

   They [the management] were mad because they knew they had to find a
   replacement for me.... I was nervous because I knew they weren't
   finding any, somebody on time, and they make you feel guilty that
   they don't have anybody yet.

April, a White librarian in a metalworking association whose supervisor was "dismayed" and always "acted like she was not happy that people were getting pregnant and taking time off," shared a similar experience and commented, "She didn't like hiring someone temporarily to fill that position I guess."

On one hand, these indirect messages served to marginalize participants by highlighting the inconveniences they brought to their companies. Among the 15 women, very few reported that temporary replacements were hired to take care of their work during their maternity leaves. In most cases, it was the women's coworkers who did the extra work in addition to their own paid work. Such work arrangements imposed peer pressure on pregnant women. As a result, they were less likely to request additional time off despite their personal needs. When asked how her coworkers reacted when she returned to work, Lori, a White inventory analyst in a merchandising company, said, "They are glad that I am back, because it's one less piece of work that they have to pick up," which shows she was very conscious of her coworkers' probable construction of her as a burden.

Not only did some women express guilt for adding extra work to their supervisors and/or coworkers because of their maternity leaves but several also actually felt as though they had to work during their leaves. Jena reported, "Um, my boss just said if I could handle it, um 12 weeks at home and still do some work from home, that she didn't see any problem with me taking 12 weeks." So,

   I worked out of my home quite a bit, I came down for a lot of
   meetings, ... I was on the phone all the time, and coming down for
   calls, appointments with clients, downtown, ... even though it was a
   maternity leave I really was not really gone, I was always on the
   phone with someone from the company.

Maternity leave often is assumed to mean the time taken away from wage work to recover from childbirth or adoption (see Hyde, Essex, Clark, Klein, & Byrd, 1996; Hyde, Klein, Essex, & Clark, 1995). Therefore, supervisors' assumptions of and messages that these women needed to work during this period could be considered exploitative (see Redding, 1996). Furthermore, although supervisors appeared to be considerate and family friendly because they allowed some women to take longer leaves, they were, in a sense, using the women because they did not have to pay as much for the labor as they usually did (e.g., Jena was paid 50% during her maternity leave). Despite the guise of a seemingly friendly policy, the bosses might be seen as doing whatever it took to make sure that work was accomplished, a reasonable course of action from the organization's and some of the participants' points of view. Dee, a White assistant manager in a gasoline company, for example, identified herself with the company's expectations. When asked whether there was anything she would have wished her company, boss, or any other people with whom she worked to do for her, she answered without hesitation, "No, I didn't really want nothing from them. I mean, I think that is my responsibility." However, Jena, who was "emotionally stressed out" by uncertainties associated with work and career changes during her maternity leave, managed her emotions by modifying her expectations. She recalled, "As far as the way the management staff used me, I think it bothered me the first time. It doesn't really bother me now because I don't have aspirations right now to move up within the company."

In addition to evoking women's feelings of responsibility to their work communities, covert discourses and practices prompted some participants' perceptions that bosses' unsolicited help was excessive. This "help" functioned as covert practices to render the women as childlike, helpless, and dependent--feminine stereotypes that create double binds for women (Jamieson, 1995) and reinforce the gendered nature of organizing processes. As one example, Brice complained about the fact that her boss doubted her ability to do certain work while pregnant and would assign her something special to do:

   Um sometimes it was really annoying because I'm not dead and I'm
   not dying [laughter] and I'm not crippled. It kind of makes you feel
   like one day you can do everything and the next day you are like ...
   I still can walk on my own. I mean it is nice sometimes, you know,
   when you are not feeling well and they are comforting it feels good,
   but at the same time, they can be a little overbearing.

Katrina, an African American data entry operator, both appreciated and felt uncomfortable with the special treatment she received from her boss. Her ambivalence stemmed from her feelings that bosses were treating her differently from other women in her unit, a form of favoritism she did not expect from a rational organization: "I felt that it was, urn, inappropriate somewhat because I felt that they were playing kind of favoritism towards me."

Although it is possible that by making special work arrangements, supervisors intended to help pregnant women, such messages and practices are likely to undermine women's legitimacy as committed and competent professionals by drawing those coworkers' attention to women's identities as mothers, caregivers, or physically unable to work, which in turn results in and justifies the denials of raises and promotions (see Jorgenson, 2000). Some women in these contexts may find it difficult to voice concerns or locate means of negotiating treatment and outcomes in their best interests for a number of reasons: this kind of treatment is difficult to identify and prove, it flies in the face of fair treatment principles (based on performance and abilities rather than gender), and special treatment is not always unwelcome.

In sum, covert discursive processes and practices called on feminine stereotypes and double binds in ways that evoked women's feelings of responsibility to their work communities and situated them as incompetent and helpless (e.g., when participants perceived bosses as providing excessive unsolicited help). Covert processes and practices subtly enforced stereotypical masculine and feminine expectations, behaviors, and values. Although masculine organizational approaches would stipulate the rules, procedures, work flow, and evaluations that should be uniformly implemented and based on standardized criteria that focused primarily on bottom-line outcomes, feminine approaches are seen as focused on individuals and relationships in contexts.

Situated between these dichotomies or competing ethical discourses, our participants often did not attempt to negotiate longer leaves or other desired changes. They either seemed to buy into the masculine organizational assumptions and failed to recognize a bargaining situation or they seemed to assume that any requests for different treatment or roles would be denied and that against corporate imperatives, their arguments had no weight. They also could not seem to request special considerations because of their concerns for their work communities (i.e., their coworkers), a logical outcome given taken-for-granted cultural notions that women should be caring and outwardly focused rather than being concerned about their own needs and desires. Because some women expressed perceptions of being stuck, their discourse and practices are reminiscent of Buzzanell and Burrell's (1997) "conflict as impotence" metaphorical schema that reflects power imbalances, perceived inabilities to affect change, and eventual futility if participants cannot reframe the conflict (e.g., Jena's "I think it bothered me the first time. It doesn't really bother me now"). Because discourses and practices were covert, it may have been difficult for participants to name their experiences, understand fully the nature of their situations, and locate practical courses of action for themselves and others.

Institutional Processes and Practices

Institutional practices, or the use of standard operating procedures, enabled some bosses to (a) provide ambiguous or inadequate information about maternity leave policies and (b) monitor employee activities. In combination, these practices served to constrain some women to a reduced portfolio of actions.

According to our respondents, the first person in the workplace to whom they announced their pregnancies was invariably their immediate supervisor, whom they apparently thought would provide information on maternity leave policies and perhaps, set up the leave for them. However, half of the 15 supervisors did not discuss maternity leaves with their direct reports. Instead, they sent women to go through highly impersonal, standard bureaucratic processes either to obtain information or to set up leaves, which gave the women little room to voice concerns and negotiate their interests (see Clair, 1993). Joan reported, "They showed me the policy, went over it, made sure I understood that if I took more than 6 weeks it would be without pay." Portia, an African American production consultant commented, "They were pretty rigid about [maternity leave, operating] by the book." However justifiable from positions of procedural justice (equal treatment, see Bies & Moag, 1986), full recovery from childbirth can be nonroutine and take 6 months or more for some women (Hyde et al., 1996). Policies applicable to "universal others" may not be appropriate for the situations of "concrete others" (Benhabib, 1992; Haas & Deetz, 2000). Unless organizational members embrace and value multiple discourses other than bureaucratic imperatives and hierarchical thinking, foster dialogue among all stakeholders, and encourage individuals to understand how group membership enables and constrains their thinking, voice, and responsibilities to others (Rawls, 2001; L. Stewart, 1997), there may be little opportunity to curtail detrimental institutional processes and practices.

Moreover, although maternity leave policies are supposed to play a significant role in helping childbearing women to achieve well-being and work-life balance, many women reported that it was an extremely energy-consuming process for them to apply for benefits and to find any information on maternity leave policies through the bureaucratic processes. Dee and Janice both commented on the excessive amount of paperwork required. Tara reported,

   When you apply for maternity leave you get a maternity leave packet
   which has to be completed by your doctor and it has a 1-800 number
   and 99% of the time it's long distance, it's not a 1-800 number, and
   you cannot get through. You know, you have to sit on the phone and
   wait and wait and wait--they put you on hold, ... I had like a 200
   and something dollar phone bill that month, because I had to keep
   calling to find out things.

The denial of ready access to information can make it difficult for women to exercise control over their leave taking processes. Tara recalled,

   When I had to step down when I got pregnant because [of] the fumes
   and everything, I had to change my insurance back and I didn't know
   that, so they dropped me from short-term without telling me, so when
   I took my leave I had no insurance.

Because there can be extensive paperwork and specific rules (and information sources about these policies), some women believed that maternity leave was a rigid policy. These women did not recognize opportunities in which they could have negotiated. Janice commented,

   So, looking back I probably should not have gone back quite as soon
   as I did since I was still spotting. It probably would have been a
   valid reason to request additional time but at the time, I was
   unaware that that was a valid reason.

From an ethical perspective, this denial of ability to voice (and at times, even identify) women's needs and concerns can be coercive, because they cannot enter into authentic discussion, gain the floor, or be heard (Mattson & Buzzanell, 1999).

Bosses also seemed to monitor or impose surveillance on pregnant women, such as keeping track of the women's movement in the workplace (see Redding, 1996). As one example, Tara reported,

   And I thought that when I had to go to the bathroom, you know, I
   would be able to turn, you know, off my light and I could go to the
   bathroom, you know without really having to say anything just tell,
   you know, tell another person that worked with me if someone comes
   by I'm at the bathroom, without being yelled at. I got written up
   for it--for leaving without notifying anybody.

Although Tara did notify somebody (i.e., "another person that worked with me"), she apparently did not inform the right person, her boss, and was penalized. Given Tara's physical condition during pregnancy (i.e., toxemia, excessive swelling, high blood pressure, weight gain of 85 pounds in addition to having asthma and a prior miscarriage), demanding that she wait to go to the bathroom until a boss arrived at her desk might be considered unreasonable. Nevertheless, she was "written up" for her disregard of rules and procedures and perhaps, for conveying to her boss that she believed her pregnancy brought her special privileges that she expected without negotiation.

Through standardized policies, inadequate information provision, and employee surveillance, participants indicated that their actions were curtailed. Their feelings of not being able to argue for their needs are not surprising, because bureaucratic processes subordinate organizational members by reinforcing relationships of dependence (Clair, 1993; Ferguson, 1984). As Ashcraft (in press) noted, organizing is a gendered text that guides members' activities and situates causes for gendered practices at the institutional level:

   As "maps" become institutionalized (for example, in organizational
   forms like bureaucracy or feminist collectivism), mundane
   interaction moves toward sedimentation and discursive alternatives
   get obscured and negated as a matter of course. Hence, ... the
   institutional consciousness of the dialectic view checks the reverse
   temptation to idealize the muscle of micro-level discourse,
   reminding us that ... daily interaction is never free play.

DISCUSSION

Theoretical Contributions

Examining women's discourse about their pregnancies and maternity leaves revealed that the concerns about role negotiations theorized in earlier work by Miller et al. (1996) were not sufficient to account for women's reported discouragement about their employment and careers. Instead, we found that our participants' perceived inabilities to negotiate often may have been confounded, at times, by differential supervisor-subordinate expectations, different perceived rights and responsibilities, and divergent ethical stances indicating what various stakeholders should and could do at times of workplace pregnancies and maternity leaves. Participants' discourse and practices displayed variations in their understandings of what it meant to be a pregnant worker, to take maternity leave, and to negotiate conditions of fair treatment. Whether workplace pregnancy and maternity leave were particular instances in which these 15 women had difficulty negotiating is not known. However, pregnancy and leaves may be noteworthy instances in which many women's unwillingness to negotiate and lack of negotiating skills becomes apparent because of perceived differences and ambiguities between rights and responsibilities (Babcock & Laschever, 2003).

In general, our participants perceived themselves as unable to negotiate their roles, work conditions, or timing of their leaves with their bosses. Pregnancy and maternity leave seemed to operate as statuses that created new requests of superiors and coworkers, changed some conversational topics, and challenged women's work identities. When these women asked for accommodations for medical reasons, their requests were denied. When they were in line for promotions, their pregnancies and maternity leaves seemed to signal their unreliability and differences from ideal workers. (3) When they accepted overly helpful assistance, they found themselves positioned as feminine, that is, incompetent, subordinate, and dependent--therefore, not worthy of being taken seriously and definitely unacceptable for promotions. The logics underlying differences between their expectations and actual treatment may relate, in part, to ethics of justice and fairness.

Specifically, overt, covert, and institutional discourses and practices shaped and were shaped by participants' and bosses' expectations and ethics. Overt discourses and practices specified conformity and aligned with equality (sameness for all) rather than equity arguments or principles of justice (e.g., treatment for a group based on unique conditions, such as pregnancy). Calling on policy discourses and corporate imperatives, bosses could rightfully act in ways that privileged their (and the company's) interests over those of the women in this study. Covert discourses and practices acted as such indirect and normalized gendered messages that they are difficult to identify, question, and counter. For example, by constructing situations so that childbearing women feel guilty because coworkers have to take on their work in addition to these coworkers' own workloads, many women ended up handling projects and other work while on maternity leaves. Although some did not mind doing the work, others felt as though they had no choice, and still others perceived compromises in that they gave a little (doing work while on leave) to accomplish their goals (gaining extra time for their leave; e.g., Jena). Institutional processes and practices were exercises of bureaucratic procedures and therefore, normalized and invisible through everyday practices. By turning members' attention to impersonal bureaucratic procedures, supervisors signaled little room for some women to voice their needs and concerns. Bosses also could avoid being blamed for refusals to accommodate requests and for not providing information by relying on standardization of treatment and procedures.

Overall, the patterning of overt, covert, and institutional discourses and practices that emerged from the 15 women's accounts suggests they may have been products of (and produced) taken-for-granted gendered organizing processes that sometimes conflict with feminine interests and position workplace pregnancies and maternity leaves as abnormal events rather than ordinary, natural occurrences that might involve temporary accommodations (see Ashcraft, 1999; Martin, 1990; Peterson & Albrecht, 1999). In this regard, workplace pregnancy and maternity leave pose challenges to masculine organizing that focuses on equality, impersonality, rationality, efficiency, maximization of productivity, and ideal workers (see Fondas, 1995; Mumby & Putnam, 1992). They also pose challenges to theoretical separations of justice and care ethics. They encourage use of feminist ethical systems based on examination of justice-care tensions, multiple stakeholders' interests, values of caring and advocacy, and visions of equitable workplace communities (see Buzzanell, 2004; Johannesen, 2001; Steiner, 1997; L. Stewart, 1997). The iterative and highly contextualized nature of feminist ethical approaches may enable researchers, policy makers, and organizational members to bridge the gap between the intent of work-life laws and policies, such as maternity leave, and the everyday implementations of procedures for specific groups and individuals (see Buzzanell, 2004). (4)

Limitations

The main limitations center on the participants of this study. These 15 women were selected from a larger database because they reported discouragement in their employment and career opportunities at the times of their maternity leaves. They not only represented a relatively small percentage (15%) of the entire data set but also were primarily White and living in the midwestern region of the United States. Women employed in other areas, from different backgrounds, with supervisory experience, from a larger number of organizations, and from countries with more (or less) progressive policies may have quite dissimilar maternity leave experiences, expectations, and abilities to negotiate roles, pregnancy accommodations, and maternity leaves.

Moreover, the women's accounts were retrospective. Although they reflected women's sense making over time, the interviews lacked the moment-by-moment struggles and emotional responses that other methods, such as participant observation during workplace pregnancies and maternity leaves, could have produced. Because the timing of the interviews ranged from immediately after participants' pregnancies/leaves through 29 years since their leaves, some interviews may have been less vivid because of the time lapse from event to interview. However, participants provided very specific details, including conversations they recalled having with family members and friends, as well as particulars about their postpartum recovery and maternity leave conditions (for continued accuracy of birthing stories over time, see Sterk, Hay, Kehoe, Ratcliffe, & VandeVusse, 2002).

Finally, participants did not include these women's bosses, coworkers, or family members who might have provided different accounts of these women's experiences. Instead, this study used the women's perceptions of other's reactions to their news of pregnancy, evaluations of their ability, and responses to accommodations.

Implications

Despite these limitations, our study suggests theoretical and practical implications. We found that our participants expressed somewhat different expectations for treatment among themselves and in contrast to their bosses. However, overt, covert, and institutional discourses and practices served to disempower individual women and perhaps their bosses, who may have felt bound by traditional justice guidelines and who could not articulate normative standards for designing fair applications (see Rawls, 2001). These discourses and practices produced tensions that probably curtailed the development of a supportive workplace community for maternity and work-family issues. Additional work on workplace pregnancy and maternity leave experiences might shed light on how tensions between justice and care ethics could hinder implementation of truly innovative and productive work-family policies.

Pragmatically, this study suggests individual and collective interventions. Following from justice considerations, female workers should be informed through human resources departments, women's support groups, and health care providers such as midwives about reasonable work conditions for pregnant women at different points in their pregnancies and how to accomplish work differently to accommodate their particular bodily conditions. Moreover, U.S. women should be aware of Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 guidelines and avenues to document infractions and register complaints to the Department of Labor if they believe that leave policies are not enacted properly. Women who have undergone workplace pregnancies, maternity leaves, and returns to paid work should hold fairly regular sessions to (re)educate each other about changing organizational and federal policies and to collectively demand necessary changes (perhaps using Rawls's [2001] veil of ignorance). Monthly meetings such as the Women's Network sessions at some Raytheon facilities would be ideal locations for routine updates. These are simply monthly lunch meetings on topics that some women (and men) consider helpful. These kinds of meetings also offer opportunities to build a supportive and aware community of workers whose involvement with others and with organizational policy issues might prompt action on behalf of others (through feminist ethical approaches and/or dialogue through Rawls's principles of justice).

In addition, human resources personnel should offer training sessions for individuals who supervise pregnant women about reasonable accommodations. Although many of the women in this study eventually quit to voice their displeasure at their treatment, some stayed in detrimental working conditions during their pregnancy and some continued to work for their organizations during their maternity leaves. What human resources should convey to supervisors is that failure to enact reasonable accommodations based on individual women's needs not only could cause health problems for the woman and the fetus but also prompt litigation against the company (appealing to both ethics of care and justice).

When researchers and practitioners overlay combined justice-care discourses and practices with feminist ethics, they can enlarge the repertoire of strategies and arguments to which women can appeal when negotiating on behalf of their interests in workplace pregnancy and maternity leaves. They also can enlarge the range of bosses' and other organizational members' responses. Moreover, feminist ethics involve continued vigilance and sense making about the constitution of fair and humane workplaces. Feminist visions of organizing possibilities involve ongoing deconstructions of governmental and organizational policies (such as those conducted by Martin, 1990; Peterson & Albrecht, 1999), investigations of women's sense making about their maternity leave experiences (such as this study), and publication of collective narratives and remedies for situations that are perceived as discouraging and encouraging for some women.

CONCLUSION

Although most organizational studies examine lengths, conditions, and (mostly career) consequences of maternity leaves (e.g., Lyness et al., 1999; Mock & Bruno, 1994; Schwartz, 1992), this study examines the discourse and practices of 15 women who experienced workplace pregnancies, maternity leaves, and returns to paid work. Our participants indicated that their treatment differed so greatly from their expectations that they often were unable to communicate and negotiate their interests with their bosses (e.g., tasks, work breaks, competency evaluations, and career outcomes). Viewed from ethics of justice and care, these boss-subordinate exchanges were not simply instances of miscommunication but tensions produced by conceptualizing and enacting justice and care ethical stances as bifurcated systems. Justice-care tensions meant that participants perceived themselves as differentially effective in negotiating on their own behalf.

Moreover, this analysis displays the ways in which tensions among competing value premises--as aligned with traditional justice, Rawlsian justice, and ethics of care--exist in maternity leave discourse and practices. These tensions are inherent to organizational life and must continually be negotiated (see Seeger, 1997). Rawls's (2001) notion of original position, for instance, depicts possibilities for people to clarify decisional and value-laden premises before or without the kinds of differences, status, power, or even gender that might create inherently unjust circumstances. In this analysis, feminist ethics have particular utility in discussing pregnancy because they not only address gendered phenomena but also articulate sources of tension between male-centered organizing processes, traditional notions of justice, and needs for situated female-centered discussions and solutions (see Gilligan, 1982). Feminist ethical approaches, such as those proposed by Buzzanell (2004), Steiner (1997), Stewart (1997), Tong (1993), and others, reframe justice and care in ways that suggest openings for sustained and productive dialogue about multiple stakeholders' needs and interests.

NOTES

(1.) Ralston (2000) described an exercise using the veil of ignorance principle in which class members do not know their roles, status, or positions in employment interviewing processes. As a result of not knowing who is a member of what group, class members design ethical standards for all parties' behavior and by extension, for varied outcomes.

(2.) Our 15 research participants listed their occupations as photo technician in a retail company, broadcast sales associate, sales and customer service representative, factory worker and cook, nursing assistant in a hospital, waitress/bartender in an Italian restaurant, secretary in a governmental position, inventory analyst, speech and language pathologist at a hospital, consultant in a consulting firm, assistant manager in a gasoline company, lab technician in a chemical company, seamstress in an embroidery embossing company, librarian assistant, and data entry operator.

(3.) The successful, good worker is someone who is always prepared to work, who stays on-site all hours to complete projects (despite illnesses or family events), who consistently looks and acts youthful and professional, and who does not make requests or require accommodations (see Deetz, 1992, 1995; Nadesan & Trethewey, 2000; Perlow, 1998; Trethewey, 2000, 2001).

(4.) Feminist ethical systems support multiple voices and interests in ongoing assessment processes. Caring becomes the core of feminist ethics as members become vigilant about and struggle with their own and others' commitment to and enactment of a feminist vision of caring, power sharing, and advocacy on behalf of those who are vulnerable (Haney, 1994; Jaggar, 1991 ; Tong, 1993). This struggle involves ways to operationalize and implement broad ethical guidelines and to foster dialogue, embrace multiple discourses, empower all people, and abandon the notion of "women's issues" (Stewart, 1997, pp. 120-121). As such, they incorporate voices of both universal and concrete others or generalizable concerns with adaptations to individuals in context (Benhabib, 1992; Haas & Deetz, 2000; Vogel, 1990).

Feminist ethics may be necessary for understanding and assessing maternity leave policies, practices, and discourses in the same way that Buzzanell (2004) analyzed sexual harassment laws and policies. Buzzanell argued that analytic schemes critiquing organizational behaviors in context and posing series of interrelated questions and considerations over time and space can enable members to construct sensemaking narratives, or "retrospective and ongoing [narrative] construction[s] of pivotal and mundane events arranged in various ways at different times to make sense to the storyteller(s)" (p. 39). These stories can be (re)told and modified in multiple ways to encourage highly contextualized accounts of justice and care dialectics embedded within visions of equitable workplace communities.

Another way in which dialogue can be enhanced is by using Rawls's (2001) principles of justice. Principles of justice specify rights and duties assigned by political and social institutions. As such, principles of justice regulate benefits and burdens. Individuals possess "two moral powers (a capacity for a sense of justice and a concept of the good)" that come into play much like an orchestra with "different melodies (reasonable comprehensive doctrines) ... [and] a harmonic structure (reasonable overlapping consensus)" (Love, 2003, pp. 122, 129). It is because there are multiple and conflicting doctrines that a political system of justice cannot specify how questions should be settled.

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Meina Liu (M.A., Tsinghua University, 2000) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at Purdue University. Patrice M. Buzzanell (Ph.D., Purdue University, 1987) is a professor in the Department of Communication at Purdue University. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Top Paper Panel for the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association at the conference held in Miami, Florida, in November 2003. Both authors would like to thank the editor, associate editor, and anonymous reviewers for their great suggestions for revisions. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Patrice M. Buzzanell, Department of Communication, Purdue University, 100 North University Street, Steven C. Beefing Hall of Liberal Arts and Education, West Lafayette, IN 47907; e-mail: pbuzzanell@sla.purdue.edu.