Abstract
AbstractWork–life balance is shaped not only by how individuals manage their personal demands and resources, but also by stressors and work–life balance support mechanisms from external environment encompassing multilevel social systems. Our systematic literature review focuses particularly on the role of work–life balance support, drawing on 384 journal articles and book chapters published between 1960 and 2019 across five research disciplines, including management, applied psychology, industrial relations, family studies and sociology. We make four major contributions to the literature, including: (1) conceptualizing work–life balance support from a process‐oriented perspective pertinent to a virtuous cycle of resource investment and return, drawing on the conservation of resources theory and the personal resource allocation framework; (2) adopting a multilevel approach that construes the interactions in terms of resource changes between individuals’ work–life experiences and their surrounding social systems nested at multiple levels, applying the socio‐ecological systems theory; (3) proposing a multidimensional typology that differentiates the role of actual existence versus subjective perception of support mechanisms as inspired by social support literature; and (4) advocating a pluralist, multi‐stakeholder approach to comprehending and reconciling multiple stakeholders’ shared and competing interests around provision/utilization of support mechanisms based on insights from multidisciplinary literature. Our process‐oriented, multilevel and multidimensional framework conceptualizes the critical role of work–life balance support in iterative interactions between individuals and their multilevel social environment through resource changes and reality–perception transformation. This conceptual framework also underscores the importance of pluralist thinking, context specification and cost‐effectiveness analysis for future research.
Highlights
Work–life balance is defined as an individual’s perceived optimum allocation of personal resources that helps in coping with stressors and guarantees effective functioning of both work and non-work roles (Grawitch et al, 2010)
We argue that work–life balance support mechanisms benefit not just individuals and their families and organizations and society overall (Brough et al, 2008)
Drawing on resource theories and the socio-ecological systems theory, we propose a process-oriented, multilevel conceptual framework of work–life balance support, whereby an individual’s work–life experiences interact with the external environment via the process of (1) drawing work– life balance support from external social systems to adjust, expand and/or reallocate personal resources to (2) cope with stressors from social systems nested at multiple levels and, subsequently, (3) bring about positive outcomes to multilevel social systems
Summary
Work–life balance is defined as an individual’s perceived optimum allocation of personal resources that helps in coping with stressors and guarantees effective functioning of both work and non-work roles (Grawitch et al, 2010). Extant literature fails to unpack the process through which individuals make sense of, and effectively utilize, work–life balance support mechanisms to balance competing work and life demands, achieve positive work and life outcomes, and contribute to their families, organizations and wider society. We address three gaps by conceptualizing work–life balance support in a (1) process-oriented, (2) multilevel and (3) multidimensional framework, and advance a more holistic research agenda by exploring the iterative interactions between individuals and social environments at different levels and distinguishing between perception versus reality. We propose that structural dimensions depict the actual existence and quantity of work–life balance support, while functional dimensions offer a more perceptual and qualitative evaluation We explore this reality–perception transformation by considering spiral interactions between physical environments and people’s subjective perceptions
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