Non-work Life Research Articles

Is it up to you? The moderating role of beliefs about willpower in the relationship between availability norms and control over leisure time via ego depletion

Organizations increasingly expect employees to be available outside of work hours, and this availability norm has been shown to influence nonwork life negatively. In the current study, we examined the effects of availability norms on employees' control over leisure time. We tested a conceptual model in which this association was mediated by ego depletion and moderated by beliefs about willpower. Knowledge workers (N = 404; 60% women) from a range of industries in Mainland China completed questionnaires in a two-wave survey with an interval of one month. The results showed that availability norms were negatively related to control over leisure time, and ego depletion was an explanatory mechanism of this association. This mediated process was stronger for employees who believed that willpower was a limited resource. These results extend our understanding of the recovery paradox and have practical implications for organizations and employees who are part of an “always-on” organizational culture.

Daily spillover from home to work: the role of workplace mindfulness and daily customer mistreatment

PurposeThis daily diary study aims to examine the influences of daily poor sleep quality on employees’ emotional exhaustion at work via negative affect at home. Additionally, this study examines the moderating effects of day-level customer mistreatment and person-level workplace mindfulness in hotel frontline employees’ daily spillover from the nonwork domain to the work domain.Design/methodology/approachAn experience sampling method was applied, and the survey data were collected from 98 frontline service employees in the hotel industry in China. This study included a one-time initial survey and a ten-day daily diary study.FindingsThis study reveals that frontline service employees’ poor sleep quality of the previous night influences their emotional exhaustion after work through negative affect at home. On days when employees perceived a low level of customer mistreatment, the daily positive association between negative affect at home and emotional exhaustion after work would be attenuated. Moreover, employees with a higher level of workplace mindfulness are less likely to be influenced by the negative affect at home.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that hospitality organizations should extend their focus on caring about employees’ nonwork life quality, such as improving daily sleep quality and providing workplace mindfulness trainings.Originality/valueThis study adds to the current literature on work and nonwork spillover by considering the spillover process from employees’ nonwork domains to work domains by taking a dynamic and multilevel perspective.

A Bridge over Troubled Borders: Social Class and the Interplay between Work and Life

Drawing on border theory, this article presents a study of the role that social class plays in the interplay between work and non-work life. A survey was used to collect subjective ratings of social class for class origin, home and work domains. Interviews were then conducted with 20 individuals to explore participants’ experiences of social class across their work-life domains. The analysis identified five groups of individuals who experienced different work-life outcomes depending on their self-perceived social class and any experiences of social class travel. The study found that socially mobile interviewees had more complex work-life experiences and found work-life interplay more challenging than those whose social class was congruent across domains, challenging the assumption that social mobility is inherently beneficial. The article proposes that social class acts as a bridge, which either facilitates or impedes the ease with which individuals move between their work-life domains.

Work and non-work life of R&D professionals during Covid-19: a cultural perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to comprehend the approach and adaptation of research and development (R&D) professionals in managing work and non-work life during Covid-19. Besides, it investigates the influence of organizational culture on extra-role behavior both within and outside the organizational boundaries during uncertainty.Design/methodology/approachBeing an exploratory study, the data were generated through the in-depth personal interview from 23 respondents of the Indian Space Research Organization. Besides, the study also used data from secondary sources. The authors followed thematic analysis for eliciting themes from the text data.FindingsPrimarily, it found that the organizational culture may influence employees to perform extra-role behavior within and outside the organizational boundaries during the pandemic. Besides, it found that R&D professionals are adaptive toward the work from home culture.Research limitations/implicationsThe qualitative study is based on in-depth interviews of 23 R&D professionals during the Covid-19. Future studies may conduct a larger-scale quantitative study to generalize the findings. Implications for future research on hybrid work culture are discussed.Practical implicationsThis study hints that employers need to move from a short-term transactional approach to a long-term cultural approach to navigate extreme uncertainty. It also highlights reorientation of human resource professionals in managing workplace evolution.Originality/valueThe study extends the literature on organizational culture by attributing culture for the extra-role behaviors of R&D professionals beyond the organizational boundary and navigating uncertainty.

Workgroup Embeddedness and Professionalism among IT Professionals: Impacts on Work-Life Conflict and Organizational Citizenship

Over the course of their careers, IT professionals become embedded in their workplace. In the organizational behavior literature, research has found that job embeddedness provides direct, positive benefits for employers, including lower turnover intentions, lower levels of withdrawal behaviors, lower actual turnover, and more. In this paper, we present a more nuanced view, namely that embeddedness among IT professionals may influence the development of professionalized mindsets, which, in turn, has a mix of positive and negative consequences. To understand these relationships, we introduce a concept called workgroup embeddedness (WGE). WGE captures how IT professionals become embedded in their organizational workgroup or unit. We report a multiphase study that (1) developed a measure of WGE, (2) established the validity of WGE, and (3) evaluated the implications of WGE among 150 IT professionals using data collected at two points in time. We found that WGE drives an increase in professionalism, which, in turn, increases work-life conflict. Also, we found that both WGE and professionalism positively influence organizational citizenship behaviors. These findings indicate that WGE may play a role in socializing and driving more professionalized mindsets among IT professionals, such as professional identification, which leads to positive outcomes like citizenship behaviors but may come at the expense of negative consequences in professionals’ nonwork lives. Post hoc findings highlight that belief in public service and identification with the IT profession influence work-life conflict and organizational citizenship. We conclude with implications for research and practice.

Work-Life Conflicts of Female Employees: Employment Relations in Labour-Intensive Organizations

This article presents a study of the employment relations practicing among the interplay between work and non-work life of female employees working in labour-intensive organizations. The main objective of this study is to review how the work-life conflicts of employees are created and to examine the impact of work-life conflict on job dissatisfaction. The research confines to an empirical study using a sample of 310 sewing machine operators (usually females) of an export-oriented Apparel Industry organization. Six hypotheses describing causes for work-life conflicts (independent variables) impacting the dependent variable of job dissatisfaction were established through the literature survey. A Theoretical model was developed linking independent variables and the dependent variable. 25 statements were developed to elaborate on the six (06) independent variables by consultation with the Human Resource Manager and ex-employees. Exploratory factor analysis identified the validity of the thirty-four statements representing independent variables of the model. Pearson Chi-square test was applied to examine the association between the dependent variable and each of six (06) independent variables. This article makes four contributions to the present literature. First, it explores the work-life conflicts encountered by the working class of female employees based on the inter-role conflict theory. Second, it enhances knowledge about establishing hypotheses to develop an association between work-life conflicts and job dissatisfaction. Third, it demonstrates how the model fit is ensured using standard statistical practices. Forth, the statistically validated results of an empirical study add decision supportive information in future studies.

A Gender Role Perspective on the Impact of Work from Home on Work-Life Balance: Employees’ Experience During Covid -19 Pandemic in Sri Lanka

The covid-19 pandemic has impacted every aspect of human life. Many employees start work from home during this pandemic situation, which disturbs employees' everyday work and non-work schedules as it is an unusual practice for some employees. However, there are limited studies which examine the effect of work from home on work-life balance. Based upon work life border theory and crossover spillover theories, the current study attempted to examine the effect of work from home on work-life balance and to examine the moderating role of gender. Using a structured questionnaire, data were collected from 301 employees who started work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study is cross-section nature, as data collection was limited to one point in time. Based upon the extant literature, we developed two hypotheses which proposed the direct effect of work from home on work life balance and the moderating effect of gender on the proposed relationship. The data were analyzed using regression. The results showed that work from home significantly and negatively influence on work-life balance. However, moderating effect of gender was insignificant. Thus, work from home negatively influence on employee work life balance irrespective of their gender. The results of this study inform the literature employees face difficulties of managing their work and non-work life when the there is no clear boarders between work and non-work.

Changing Facet of Work Habits during Coronavirus Pandemic: An Exploration of E-Work and Its Implications on Work-Life Balance for Female Employees

Covid-19 radically shifted the way of work and its organization and that’s why, the purpose of the paper is to explore the impact of remote e-working on work-life balance for female teachers since they commenced to work in a remote way for educational purposes. The first coronavirus case was officially detected in March, 2020 in Turkey and the schools including the private ones were closed and EBA (Network of Education Informatics) TVs and its online platforms for teaching were established and all teachers started to teach in these platforms in a remote way. As a result of the pandemic, the distinction of work and non-work life was eliminated through technology use and these two became integrated. Measuring the effect of technology and e-working on work-life balance has become a ‘must’ for labor relations in these changing dynamics. The paper is an exploratory study of remote work and its influence on keeping work-life balance using qualitative thematic analysis of fourteen in depth interviews with female teachers from state institutions in Turkey. All these participants worked remotely by means of technology, which is the core of the study.

Significant Life Events and Career Sustainability: A Three-Wave Study

Over the last three decades, the professional landscape has changed, and career paths have become more plural, complex, and flexible, as well as less predictable. Consequently, career sustainability has become a major concern. Since the framework of sustainable careers captures the complexities of modern careers, we used it in the present study to understand how various types of significant life events (i.e., negative work events, negative nonwork events, positive work events, and positive nonwork events) hinder or foster career sustainability among 870 professionally active adults in Switzerland using a longitudinal design. We used repeated measures analysis of variance to study changes in health (i.e., self-rated health and stress at work), happiness (i.e., life satisfaction, quality of life, and job satisfaction), and productivity (i.e., employability and career prospects) by the type of significant life events over time, from 1 year before the event (T0) to 1 year after the event (T2). Results indicated that work events are important to consider when studying career sustainability as there is evidence for spillover effects from work to life. Specifically, experiencing positive work events seems to foster career sustainability, and these effects seem to be stronger than the negative effect of negative work or nonwork life events on health, happiness, and productivity.

Overcoming the Single-IS Paradigm in Individual-Level IS Research

Over the years, the number of digital technologies that individuals use in their work and nonwork lives has increased significantly. These different technologies are often subject to interactions and interdependencies among them, which creates new challenges and opportunities for individuals. For instance, multiple digital technologies might be incompatible or offer redundant information to individuals. In this research, we offer a framework that can help scholars to study phenomena that involve multiple digital technologies and can assist designers and developers in making design decisions that facilitate beneficial interactions between technologies and mitigate undesirable ones.

Recovery from Work: Advancing the Field Toward the Future

Unwinding and recovering from everyday work is important for sustaining employees’ well-being, motivation, and job performance. Accordingly, research on work recovery has grown tremendously in the past few decades. This article summarizes research on recovery during work breaks, leisure-time evenings, weekends, and vacations. Focusing on day-level and longitudinal field studies, the article describes predictors as well as outcomes of recovery in different recovery settings and addresses potential between-group and cross-cultural differences. It presents findings from intervention research demonstrating that recovery processes can be improved by deliberate training programs. The article then discusses how future recovery research can address emerging themes relevant to the future of work—changing boundaries between work and nonwork life, increased reliance on teams and technology, and changes in employment arrangements. We conclude with an overall summary, open research questions, directions for methodological improvements, and practical implications.

“It’s Not Real Life”: Liminality and Summer Camp Employment

Liminal spaces occur separately from everyday life and are important to human development. Due to increased technological connectivity, young people are rarely separated from their home lives. Understanding young adulthood is a transitional time and summer camps can be settings for development, the purpose of this study was to understand the nature of summer camp employment as a liminal space. Individuals from a national (USA) study of summer camp employment ( n = 77, Mage = 21.3) participated in in-depth interviews. Participants were 77.9% White ( n = 60), 9.1% Black or African American, 9.1% Multi-Racial, 2.6% Asian, and 1.3% Latinx. About 64.9% identified as female ( n = 50), 33.8% identified as male, and 1.3% identified as gender non-conforming. Interview transcripts were inductively analyzed using thematic coding. Participants described camp as a liminal space with four dimensions of separation: physical, psychological, social, and technological. They also described experiencing a liminal time of life. In combination, the separation and time-of-life dimensions created an experience of liminal intensity manifested through a closed social system, blurred boundaries between work and non-work life, and increased autonomy. A revised conceptualization of liminal space is suggested and considerations regarding liminal intensity for young people are discussed.

Definitions of work-life balance in childfree dual-career couples: an inductive typology

PurposeWork-life balance experiences of dual-career professional couples with children have received considerable attention, but there remains a paucity of research on the definitions of work-life balance among dual-career professional couples without children. This qualitative investigation sheds light on childfree couples' lives outside of work and their concomitant understanding of work-life balance.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on interviews with 21 dual-career professional couples in Canada and the US, exploring their non-work lives and how they conceive of work-life balance.FindingsThematic analyses demonstrate that this group, while free of child rearing responsibilities, still deals with myriad non-work obligations. These couples also defy uniform characterization. The inductive investigation uncovered four couple categories based on the individual members' career and care orientations. These included careerist, conventional, non-conventional and egalitarian couples. Definitions of work-life balance varied across couple type according to the value they placed on flexibility, autonomy and control, and their particular level of satisfaction with their work and non-work domains.Originality/valueThis study contributes to research at the intersection of work-life balance and various demographic groups by exploring the work-life balance of professional dual-career couples without children. Using an interpretive ontology, the study advances a typology of childfree dual-career professional couples. The findings challenge the rhetoric that these couples are primarily work-oriented but otherwise carefree. Thus, this study demonstrates ways that childfree couples are different as well as similar to those with children.

Penyusunan Rancangan Progam Pengembangan Behavioural Competencies untuk Menunjang Kualitas Kehidupan Kerja Pegawai di PT. X

This study aims to develop a program for developing behavioral competencies that are suitable to support the quality of work life of employees at PT. X, especially by increasing the dimensions of competency development. The definition and dimensions of work life quality that will be used in this study refer to the definition put forward by the European Foundation for Improvement of Living and Working Condition (EWON). The quality of work life has five dimensions, namely health and well-being, job security, job satisfaction, competency development, and work and non-work life balance. This study uses research and development design with an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach consisting of three stages. First, the pre-assessment stage is carried out to determine the condition of the quality of work life at PT. X in general, as well as the five-dimensional conditions. Secondly, the assessment phase was conducted to find out the competency development tools owned by PT. X, as well as obstacles, needs, or expectations that want to be overcome or fulfilled by PT. X is related to competency development. Third, at the intervention stage compiled competency development tools that are in accordance with the needs of PT. X, such as competency models, guidance on behavioral based interviews, competency excavation questionnaires and critical incident forms, competency assessment recap form, and examples of strategic orientation competency interventions.

Life management of the quantity surveyors working for contractors at sites: female vs male

PurposeThe construction industry (CI) is known for heavy workloads and long working hours. Consequently, quantity surveyors (QSs) find it difficult to integrate work with life. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify the causes and consequences of poor life management (LM) in both female and male QSs working for contractors at construction sites and strategies that would improve the LM of the QSs.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a mixed research approach by conducting semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey to identify the significant causes and consequences of poor LM in QSs and strategies that would improve the LM of the QSs. Manual content analysis and mean weighted rating (MWR) were used to analyze the collected data.FindingsHeavy workloads are the most significant cause of poor LM in QSs. The study found that male QSs are highly addicted to substance use and that female QSs lose sleep because of poor LM. Teamwork is the most significant strategy that would enhance the LM of both female and male QSs working at sites.Originality/valueThe traditional work–life balance refers to the harmony between work and non-work lives of an individual. LM is associated with five spheres of life: work, family life, health, social life and spiritual life. Given that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have focused on LM, this study becomes significant because it identifies the causes and consequences of poor LM of QSs working in the CI and the strategies that would enhance the LM of the QSs.

The Interactive Pattern Between Challenges and Hindrances at the Work-to-Nonwork Intersection

The intersection between the work and nonwork domains is increasingly blurred, which calls for scrutiny of how the latter can be enriched by demands faced at work. The literature suggests that work challenges can enhance, and hindrances tend to conflict with, the nonwork domain. However, the literature is silent on the interactive pattern between challenges and hindrances, and, more importantly, the role that attitudes toward learning play in work demands interfering with the nonwork domain. We theorize that the more learning-oriented individuals are, the easier they find it to leverage the nonwork-benefit potential of challenges and avoid the nonwork-threatening potential of hindrances in the presence of the respective other. We used hierarchical linear modeling on experience sampling data of 1,134 paired evening–morning observations of 144 professionals to test our theoretical assumptions. Our multilevel analyses confirm not only that challenges enrich, and hindrances conflict with, the nonwork domain, but also that both may spill over via the other’s mechanism as a function of the other. More specifically, on particularly challenging days, highly learning-oriented individuals are found to even enrich their nonwork life through the experience of hindrances. The resulting theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Work and nonwork engagements between life domains: Effects on subjective health and life satisfaction of employees across 53 nations varying in economic competitiveness

Using the framework of role balance theory, the authors take a cross-national view of an employee’s engagement in the work and nonwork domains of life. Employing the World Values Survey (WVS) with a sample of 21,270 married employees from 53 nations, we find cross-national variations in the relationship of employees’ degree of work and nonwork domain engagements with their subjective health and satisfaction with life. To explore the impact of the national focus on motivation for economic productivity and innovation, we used a country’s global competitiveness index (GCI), predicting that a nation’s GCI would moderate the relationship of an employee’s work and nonwork domain engagements with both subjective health and life satisfaction. Overall, the results suggest that work–nonwork balance leads to better subjective health and higher life satisfaction only for married employees living in nations high in GCI; for married employees living in countries low in GCI, higher subjective health and life satisfaction resulted for those more highly engaged in nonwork life domains. Theoretical and methodological contributions are discussed, along with implications for future research on national culture concerning work and its impact on employed persons.

Transitioning the Study of Role Transitions: From an Attribute-Based to an Experience-Based Approach

Movement between sequentially-held roles—role transition—has long attracted scholars’ attention for its ubiquity and importance in people’s work- and non-work lives. In our integrative review of 31...

REMOTE WORK IN PANDEMIC CONDITIONS – SELECTED ISSUES

The coronavirus epidemic has increased the importance of remote work and its popularity in companies. Remote work has so far been mainly a tool for acquiring and retaining employees who are particularly valuable for the company, an important element in creating attractive employment conditions. In the conditions of a pandemic, work performer remotely is no longer just a benefit, and has become a means of maintaining physical distance – an important component of everyday life. The changes taking place today in the field of communications methods, the dynamic development of information technologies, intensified during the pandemic, affect the shape of the work-life relationship. On the one hand, remote work may disrupt the border line between work and non-work life, but at the same time it creates an opportunity to deal with this challenge. The aim of the articles to presentation of selected results of empirical research devoted to remote work during a pandemic, taking into account the benefits and opportunities as well as limitations related to this way of working, especially concerning issues related to the reconciliation of professional and personal roles.

The impact of techno-stressors on work–life balance: The moderation of job self-efficacy and the mediation of emotional exhaustion

Techno-stressors stemming from the use of information technology (IT) have become a major source of stress in the modern workplace. While research shows that techno-stressors negatively affect employees' work attitudes and performance, little is known about their effects on employees' non-work lives. This research investigates the impact of techno-stressors on work-life balance and examines job self-efficacy as a buffer of this negative impact via the attenuating effect of emotional exhaustion. We conducted two survey studies. Study 1 collected data through a paper-and-pencil survey from 316 IT workers in a northern China IT company. Study 2 replicated and strengthened Study 1 by collecting longitudinal data through an online survey platform from 646 southern China female workers across diverse occupations. The results showed that techno-stressors negatively affected work-life balance, but job self-efficacy buffered employees from this negative effect by reducing their emotional exhaustion. Our findings extend understanding of techno-stressors’ effects on individuals’ non-work domains and shed light on how to cope with techno-stressors.