Social Media,Work and Nonwork Interface: A Qualitative Inquiry

Flourishing social media, easy access to smartphones and tablets, and ready availability of the internet in the past decade have made it possible for people to be connected to social media almost anywhere at any time. In this qualitative study, we interviewed 41 individuals in multiple professions in the United Kingdom to examine the role of social media in how they navigate their personal and professional lives. We find social media to be a virtual domain that has boundaries with nonvirtual personal and professional domains. Focusing on spatial and temporal boundaries, our findings revealed four boundary transition modes employees used to switch between the social media domain and their work and nonwork domains: boundary switch avoidance; disciplined boundary switch; integrated boundary switch; and boundary switch addiction. We also describe 15 mechanisms through which engaging with social media platforms enriches or conflicts with individuals’ personal and professional lives. Our findings extend work-nonwork scholarship and boundary theory to include virtual as well as nonvirtual domains.     

高校辅导员的边界分割偏好与工作-非工作冲突:边界分割管理策略的调节作用

采用问卷调查法,对312名高校辅导员进行调查,探讨边界分割偏好、组织分割供给和个人边界分割策略与工作-非工作冲突的关系。结果表明:(1)辅导员的边界分割偏好与工作-非工作冲突正相关;(2)组织分割供给和个人边界分割策略均能减弱边界分割偏好与工作-非工作冲突之间的正相关。本研究提示高校应在不影响工作的前提下尽量向辅导员提供更多的组织分割供给,同时辅导员也可以通过灵活运用边界分割策略,进行自主的工作-非工作边界管理。     

Work–nonwork boundary management profiles: A person-centered approach

The goal of this paper is to advance the measurement and theory of work–nonwork boundary management styles. Boundary management styles are defined as the approaches individuals use to demarcate boundaries and attend to work and family and other nonwork roles, given identity centralities and perceived boundary control. We argue that research should be augmented with a person-centered approach, which examines how psychological measures are integrated into configurations. Integrating role and boundary theories, we identify three main characteristics of work-nonwork boundary management: (1) cross-role interruption behaviors (work to nonwork, and nonwork to work interruptions); (2) identity centrality of work and family roles, and (3) perceived control of boundaries. Using a variable-centered approach, we refined and validated these measures to create an assessment (Work–Life Indicator) that captured boundary management profiles. The profiles reflect how interruption behaviors, identity centralities, and boundary control interrelate to cluster into profiles, a set of psychological characteristics organized into a pattern of work–nonwork boundary functioning. We identify boundary management profiles and examine their relationships to key work-family outcomes. Regardless of the level and direction of interruption behaviors and centrality of work–family identities, we found that low control boundary management profiles (reactors, job warriors) tended to experience more negative work and family outcomes than did high control profiles (fusion lovers, dividers, family guardians, eclectics).     

Half a Century of Work–Nonwork Interface Research: A Review and Taxonomy of Terminologies

The extensive interest in the work-nonwork interface over the years has allowed scholars from multiple disciplines to contribute to this literature and to shed light on how professional and personal lives are related. In this paper, we have identified 48 terminologies that describe the interface or relationship between work and nonwork, and have organised them into mature, intermediate, and immature categories according to their stage of development and theoretical grounding. We also provide a taxonomy that places work-nonwork interface terminologies into a matrix of six cells based on two dimensions: (1) type of nonwork being narrow or broad; and (2) nature of the mutual impact of work and nonwork domains on one another, characterising the impact as negative, positive, or balanced. The type of nonwork dimension was informed by Frone’s (2003) classification of employees’ lives into multiple subdomains; the mutual impact dimension was informed by frameworks that organised the literature in part by negative, positive, and balanced work-nonwork interface constructs (e.g., Allen, 2012; Greenhaus & Allen, 2011). Theoretical contributions of the proposed taxonomy are discussed along with suggestions on important avenues for future research.     

Work,Nonwork, and Sleep (WNS): a Review and Conceptual Framework

The current paper expands on traditional views of the work-nonwork interface to incorporate the critical component of sleep. We integrate past theoretical and empirical work from the sleep and organizational science literatures to inform a novel framework that will facilitate research evaluating associations among work, nonwork, and sleep, the three major areas of life. We propose that attitudes, behaviors, and states emerging in work and nonwork domains cannot be fully understood without taking into account upstream and downstream sleep quantity and quality effects. Rather, periods of sleep bookend engagement in work and nonwork roles. Thus, we propose the work, nonwork, and sleep (WNS) conceptual framework and, in doing so, identify specific, underlying resource mechanisms (i.e., human energy and time) operating both intra-individually and inter-individually. We also discuss contextual factors that act as predictors and moderators of these relationships. We suggest that a unifying framework explaining connections and underlying processes among work, nonwork, and sleep is necessary for applied psychology and management disciplines to significantly contribute to future research, intervention development and dissemination, and ultimately policy change. We provide a number of avenues for future investigation, including relevant special populations and methodological approaches. Although a plethora of work-nonwork theoretical frameworks exist, none have incorporated the third major area of life: sleep. We call for the expansion and acknowledgement of sleep, an important source of variance in everyday attitudes, behaviors, and states, and ultimately in long-term organizational, family, and individual health and well-being.     

Boundary Management and Work-Nonwork Balance While Working from Home

Within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigate work-nonwork boundary management among workers who transitioned to remote work. Based on five waves of data and a sample of 155 remote workers, we find that the preference for segmentation was associated with greater work-nonwork balance. We also found that having a dedicated office space within the home and fewer household members was associated with greater work-nonwork balance. However, these variables did not moderate the relationship between segmentation preferences and work-nonwork balance as expected. We discuss implications for future research on boundary management processes and practices.     

Blurring boundaries: Correlates of integration and segmentation between work and nonwork

This study investigates the interrelations among role integration-segmentation, role identification, reactions to interruptions, and work-life conflict. Results from a field survey of university staff employees suggest that as highly identified roles are integrated into other domains, high role integration is related to less negative reactions to interruptions, and employees who integrate work into nonwork set fewer boundaries for using communication technologies during nonwork time and report higher work-life conflict. Findings from this research provide insight into how individuals integrate their work and life domains and the consequences of such integration to work-life conflict.     

All in the name of work? Nonwork orientations as predictors of salary,career satisfaction,and life satisfaction

Career development increasingly demands a successful integration of work and nonwork domains. Based on work-nonwork conflict and enrichment theories, this study explored the relationship between nonwork orientations (i.e., family, personal life, and community) and both objective (i.e., salary) and subjective (i.e., career satisfaction) career success and life satisfaction over a period of six months among a sample of 548 employees from Germany. The results generally support the enrichment perspective. Family orientation showed a positive relationship with career satisfaction. All three nonwork orientations, especially family orientation, were positively related to life satisfaction. We also explored gender and age effects but found no differences in nonwork orientations between young employees aged 25–34 years and older workers aged 50–59 years. Men showed lower levels of personal life orientation than women, but no differences in family or community orientation based on gender were found. We also did not observe gender x age interaction effects. We discuss the study's implications for a whole-life perspective on career development, career success, and well-being.     

Work-Life Boundaries and Well-Being: Does Work-to-Life Integration Impair Well-Being through Lack of Recovery?

Against the backdrop of increasingly blurred boundaries between work and nonwork, the purpose of this study was to investigate the implications of employees’ work-to-life boundary enactment for well-being. Using border/boundary theory (as reported by Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate (Academy of Management Review 25(3):472–491, 2000) and Clark (Human Relations 54(6):747–770, 2000)) and the effort-recovery model (as reported by Meijman & Mulder (Handbook of work and organizational psychology vol. 2 55–53, 1998)), we developed a research model that links work-to-life integration enactment to exhaustion and impaired work-life balance via lack of recovery activities (as reported by Sonnentag, Journal of Applied Psychology 88(3):518–528, 2003). The model was tested using structural equation modeling. Our sample consisted of N = 1916 employees who were recruited via an online panel service. Results showed that employees who scored high on work-to-life integration enactment reported less recovery activities and in turn were more exhausted and experienced less work-life balance. Our study contributes to the existing literature on boundary management by investigating the well-being implications of work-to-life boundary enactment and by suggesting and testing recovery as an underlying mechanism. In doing so, we link boundary enactment with existing theory of the work-life interface. Based on our review of existent research on boundary management and well-being, we disentangle previous contradictory findings. Understanding of the well-being implications of boundary enactment and underlying mechanisms can help human resource professionals and practitioners to devise and implement organizational policies and interventions that enable employees to develop boundary management strategies that are sustainable in that they do not impair employees’ well-being.     

I Cannot Afford to Have a Life: Employee Adaptation to Feelings of Job Insecurity

This study examines the links between employee perceptions of job insecurity, the work–nonwork interface, and stress‐related outcomes. Drawing on an adaptation perspective, we expect employees feeling greater job insecurity to engage in adaptive work behaviors including less use of work–nonwork support programs and greater willingness to let work permeate into one's personal life, which in turn will associate with greater work–nonwork conflict and emotional exhaustion. Data were collected from employees within a large energy company at 2 points in time. Results support the model, offering important insights into employee behavioral responses to job insecurity and key mechanisms through which insecurity may foster diminished employee well‐being.     

Some antecedents of work-nonwork conflict

This study examined the relationships of three aspects of work schedules—shiftwork, length of workday, and work during weekends and holidays—with the perceived interrole conflict between work and nonwork. Personal background variables and characteristics of the work role itself were hypothesized to be directly related to the level of conflict and, in addition, to moderate the work schedules-conflict relationships. Subjects were 286 hotel employees. As expected all three aspects of work schedules were related to the level of felt work-nonwork conflict. Personal background variables were not related in any way to the level of conflict. Job satisfaction and organizational role conflict were found to be directly related to the level of interrole conflict and, in addition, to moderate the work schedules-conflict relationships. Together, job-related variables and the interactions among them accounted for over 50% of the variance in work-nonwork conflict.     

The Separate, relative, and joint effects of employee job performance domains on supervisors’ willingness to mentor

The purpose of our study was to further elucidate how employees should behave at work to increase their chances of being mentored by their immediate supervisor. To that end, we experimentally tested how three domains of employee performance [task performance (TP), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) targeting the supervisor, and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) targeting coworkers] affect supervisors’ willingness to mentor. Each performance domain affected willingness to mentor. OCB had the weakest of the three main effects. Finally, the positive effect of TP was stronger when employees displayed less CWB.     

Too Close for Comfort? Investigating the Nature and Functioning of Work and Non-work Role Segmentation Preferences

Purpose

We examine the bi-directional nature of role segmentation preferences—preferences to protect the home domain from work intrusions, and to protect the work domain from home intrusions—and hypothesize that the dimensions independently prompt individuals to manage their boundaries in ways that complement their preferences.

Design and Methodological Approach

In a series of three studies, we investigate whether segmentation preferences vary on two dimensions, how they reflect enactive and proactive boundary management, and their association with domain-specific satisfaction and performance.

Findings

In Study 1 (field design, n = 314), we confirmed that segmentation preferences comprise two distinct dimensions, and individuals experience fewer intrusions into the domain they desired to protect. In Study 2 (experimental design, n = 1253), we found that participants who prefer to protect their home domain are less inclined to accept jobs in scenarios where their significant other is employed in the same organization, and participants who prefer to protect their work domain are less inclined to initiate a romantic relationship in scenarios that involve a coworker. In Study 3 (field design, n = 65), we found that individuals who prefer to protect their work or home domain report greater satisfaction with the preferred domain, and whereas the preference to protect the work domain is not associated with higher supervisor ratings of job performance, preference to protect the home domain is associated with higher significant-other ratings of non-work performance.

Implications

Understanding employees’ proclivities to blur boundaries can inform recruitment and selection of employees to anticipate organizational fit, diagnose sources of misfit, structure individualized policies to ameliorate employee strain, and decrease turnover costs.

Originality/Value

This synthesis provides a unique investigation of segmentation preference dimensions’ differential functioning and reinforces the validity of the role segmentation preferences concept.

     

组织分割供给与工作情绪衰竭的关系:工作心理脱离和工作→非工作冲突的中介作用*

采用问卷调查法,对271名企业管理人员进行调查,探讨了组织分割供给与工作情绪衰竭的关系,以及工作心理脱离和工作→非工作冲突在其中的中介作用。结构方程模型分析表明:(1)组织分割供给不仅可以通过工作→非工作冲突的中介作用负向影响工作情绪衰竭;(2)还可以通过依次影响工作心理脱离和工作→非工作冲突进而负向影响工作情绪衰竭。因此,组织分割供给对个体的非工作角色和工作角色均有积极作用。     

Work and home boundary violations during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of segmentation preferences and unfinished tasks

During the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented number of employees faced the challenges of telework. However, the current literature has a limited understanding of the implications of employees' obligated home-based telework and their satisfaction with the work and home domains. We use boundary theory to examine work and home boundary violations in relation to satisfaction with domain investment in two daily diary studies, examining both domain-specific and cross-domain effects. In addition, we examine the moderating role of segmentation preferences in both studies and investigate the mediating role of work- and home-related unfinished tasks in Study 2. Both studies provide empirical evidence of the domain-specific relationship between boundary violations and domain satisfaction and provide limited support for cross-domain effects. Neither study finds support for the notion that segmentation preferences moderate the relationship between boundary violations and domain satisfaction. Finally, the results of Study 2 highlight the importance of unfinished tasks in the relationship between boundary violations and domain satisfaction. Specifically, work and home boundary violations relate to an increase in unfinished tasks in both domains. Finally, the indirect effects suggest that home-related unfinished tasks may be detrimental to satisfaction in both domains, while work-related unfinished tasks may be detrimental for work-related, but not home-related, satisfaction.     

企业员工人口学变量、工作特征与主观幸福感的关系：工作压力的作用

本研究通过对北京、上海、南京、成都、长沙及广州266名企业员工有效样本的测查,考察了员工幸福感在人口学变量和工作特征变量上的差异,探讨了工作压力对幸福感的影响机制,发现不同年龄、学历、企业所有制、行业和工作岗位的员工的幸福感水平差异显著,人口学变量和工作特征对幸福感有交互作用。回归分析发现,工作压力、学历和工作类别变量分别直接影响幸福感,年龄和学历还通过工作压力间接影响幸福感。     

Work-to-family conflict, positive spillover, and boundary management: a person-environment fit approach

This study adopted a person-environment fit approach to examine whether greater congruence between employees’ preferences for segmenting their work domain from their family domain (i.e., keeping work matters at work) and what their employers’ work environment allowed would be associated with lower work-to-family conflict and higher work-to-family positive spillover. Different facets of work-to-family conflict (time-based and strain-based) and positive spillover (affective and instrumental) were examined. According to latent congruence modeling of survey data from 528 management employees, congruence was negatively related to both time-based and strain-based work-to-family conflict and positively related to work-to-family instrumental positive spillover as expected. However, contrary to expectations, congruence was negatively related to work-to-family affective positive spillover. Implications for how boundary management processes may affect both positive and negative experiences of the work-family interface are discussed.     

下属-主管匹配与员工的工作幸福感:领导-成员交换和政治技能的作用

基于社会交换理论,通过2个时点对209名员工进行配对问卷调查,探讨了下属-主管匹配对工作幸福感的影响机制,尤其是领导-成员交换的中介作用和政治技能的调节作用。结果发现:(1)下属-主管匹配对工作幸福感具有积极的影响;(2)领导-成员交换在下属-主管匹配和工作幸福感之间起完全中介作用;(3)政治技能调节下属-主管匹配和领导-成员交换间的关系,即当个体的政治技能水平越低,下属-主管匹配对领导-成员交换的正向影响越强。     

Workplace and family support and work–life balance: Implications for individual psychological availability and energy at work

This study presents three studies that explore the ways in which multiple support sources (workplace and family social support) help individuals to experience work–life balance (WLB) and thereby develop a sense psychological availability and positive energy at work. We examine this serial mediation model across three population groups in Israel using time-lagged data from part-time students (sample 1), as well cross-sectional data from workers in the industrial sector (sample 2) and physicians in public hospitals (sample 3). The results indicate a complex process in which workplace and family support augment employee positive energy through WLB and psychological availability. The findings shed light on the importance of support from work and nonwork sources for the pursuit of employees to achieve balance in the spheres of work and life and suggest that the WLB helps in the development of psychological availability and augmenting employee positive energy.     

Objective work–nonwork conflict: From incompatible demands to decreased work role performance

Research on work–nonwork conflict (WNC) is based on the assumption that incompatible demands from the work and the nonwork domain hamper role performance. This assumption implies that role demands from both domains interact in predicting role performance, but research has been largely limited to main effects. In this multi-source study, we analyze the incompatibility of demands by testing the interaction of work and nonwork demands on task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The sample consisted of 61 employees of a German hospital and we used three independent sources of data: self-ratings of work demands, partner-ratings of nonwork demands, and colleague-ratings of performance. Results from hierarchical regression analyses revealed an interaction effect of work and nonwork demands on OCB, but not on task performance. We conclude that people maintain their effort invested in task-related aspects of the job even when conflicts between work and nonwork demands exist, but that they reduce their investment in activities that are perceived as more marginal and extra-role.