Work – Family Balance: An Examination of Kuwaiti Teachers' Circumstances in The State of Kuwait

This thesis is focused on examining the extent to which contextual factors may influence the resource recovery process as a work-family conflict resolution strategy for female Kuwaiti teachers within the Kuwaiti context. Defining the main strategy that Kuwaiti female teachers use to reduce stress and to restore their resources, and illustrating the difficulties surrounding this strategy are the most important aims of this thesis. The institutional logics theory was used in the study as part of the social constructionist epistemology. As a theory, it has become a popular framework for examining the processes of maintaining social behaviour (Scott, 2008), because societies’ core institutions are the fundamental and major institutions, which can influence and shape individual and organizational processes (Friedland and Alford, 1991).
In order to establish a theoretical framework which can answer the research questions, the role of meaning and logics concepts was considered. The framework was used as a research tool that examines the cultural elements within the resource recovery process in the Kuwaiti context. Because of the tenets of the social constructionist epistemology, qualitative methods (in the form of 33 semi-structured interviews) were used in order to determine the participants’ perspectives about the research topic, and to gain more understanding of how and why they reached the given perspectives (King, 2004).
The analysis process revealed that the participants have specific cultural understanding about what is defined as resources and demands. Another conclusion is that some recovery activities may seem as universal but in this research and according to the study’s participants they still have cultural (religious) meanings that may be considered as motivation to such activities. Moreover, they tend to change the usual demand to be a recovery activity. Therefore, a vital implication of the study is that examining the recovery process requires more attention to the cultural factors and a deep examination of the study’s context.