Search results

COVID-19 disrupted the usual way of working for many people across the globe, making full-time work from home and hybrid models two popular work arrangements. Despite the proliferation and high acceptance of the hybrid model, very little research has focused on the same. This study aims to compare the impact of transitions caused by remote work on work disengagement under two settings: remote work and hybrid model.

The data is collected from three corporate hubs in India: Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Bangalore. This study’s respondents represent two working models: full-time work from home and a hybrid model. Responses were collected using Google forms-based questionnaire, which resulted in the following usable responses: 356 (hybrid) and 398 (work from home).

The findings reveal that the structural model for the hybrid sector explained 11% of the variance in work disengagement, while the same for work from home model accounted for 20% of the variance in work disengagement. The authors also tested for the moderation of individual resilience between work-home and home-to-work conflicts and home-to-work transitions and work-to-home conflict under full-time work-from and hybrid models. Based on 356 respondents from hybrid category and 398 from work from home, the study found that employees experience less work-to-home and home-to-work conflicts in the hybrid model and employees experience more work-to-home and home-to-work conflicts in the full-time work from home model.

The study is also the first to examine the moderating role of individual resilience as a tool to bounce back and handle conflicts. As the full-time work from home model leads to more work-to-home and home-to-work conflicts, individuals have more scope to exhibit resilience, and thus, the moderating relationship is stronger in the full-time work from home model. The paper offers theoretical and managerial implications.

Adopting a person-environment (P-E) fit approach, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role of emotional labour, segmentation/integration and social support in the development of work-home conflict.

Mental health professionals (n=118) completed the work-home conflict and home-work conflict scales (Netemeyer et al., 1996), the segmentation preferences and supplies scales (Kreiner, 2006) and the Mann Emotion Requirements Inventory (Mann, 1999). A social support checklist was also developed to assess the perceived value of work and non-work sources of support.

Contrary to expectation, emotional labour was associated with lower levels of work-home conflict. There was no evidence found for the relevance of a P-E fit approach, rather the results indicated that the perception that the organisation supports the separation of work and home is sufficient in ameliorating work-home conflict. In addition, work-based support was found to reduce work-home conflict.

The importance of support within the work environment as a way of reducing work-home conflict has been highlighted. That is, providing a safe environment to discuss anxieties and concerns is a fundamental factor when developing organisational support structure. The importance of providing professionals with choice regarding their preference to segment or integrate work and home has also been highlighted. Based on the contradictory findings with regards to emotional labour and work-home conflict, future research should aim to further examine this relationship within a forensic psychiatric setting.

This is the first research paper to explore the role of emotional labour, segmentation/integration and social support in the development of work-home conflict.

Why did some individuals have relatively little trouble balancing work and home demands during the COVID-19 lockdown, while others felt overwhelmed? Although ample studies have recently been generated regarding COVID-19 employment challenges, this question has not yet received sufficient scholarly attention. This research integrates work–home conflict theories with the paradox-mindset framework, in order to suggest a new theoretical approach for understanding individual differences in addressing work–home conflict.

During the first two weeks of the COVID-19 epidemic in Israel, the author gathered 117 completed questionnaires from their colleagues in the Israeli higher-education system, who were working remotely and teaching online during the lockdown imposed to control the epidemic. Based on a path-model analysis, the author examined whether their experiences of strain and tension in the work domain might be indirectly and positively associated with workplace outcomes via positive associations between these experiences and paradox mindset, as well as negative associations between paradox mindset and work-to-home conflict (WTH) and home-to-work (HTW) conflict.

The study findings highlight the beneficial effect of paradox mindset on the experience of work–home conflict and its outcomes. Although working remotely has great potential to increase the strain and tension experienced by employees, applying a paradox mindset reduces the experience of work–home conflict and is positively associated with certain work outcomes.

This research integrates work–home conflict theories with the paradox-mindset framework. The beneficial effects of a paradox mindset on the experience of work–home conflict and its outcomes are highlighted.

This study, based on our analysis of survey data from 1,242 partners and employees of a U.S. national public accounting firm, examines the impact on psychological well-being from the moderating effects of flexibility and role clarity on work-home conflict experienced by public accountants. Most prior research in public accounting deals with the antecedents and consequences of role stress and primarily focuses on job outcomes of turnover intentions and job satisfaction as dependent variables. Public accounting firms have responded to stressors with worker-friendly policies, largely by introducing flexibility and clarity in their organizational culture. Using a multi-disciplinary research model, we analyze the causal relationships of flexibility and clarity as moderators of the bi-directional nature of work-home conflict (work interference with home and home interference with work) on psychological well-being. Our study finds that perceptions of flexibility and role clarity drawn from a career position in public accounting can mitigate role conflict between work and home environments and contribute to enhanced psychological well-being. We also find that certain relationships described in the model are moderated by family status and age, but not by gender. Results of our study have implications to both individual public accountants and to their firms.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly accelerated a shift to remote working for previously office-based employees in South Africa, impacting employee outcomes such as well-being. The remote work trend is expected to continue even post the pandemic, necessitating for organizational understanding of the factors impacting employee well-being. Using the Job Demands–Resources model as the theoretical framework, this study aims to understand the role of job demands and resources as predictors of employee well-being in the pandemic context.

A self-administered online survey questionnaire was used to gather quantitative data about remote workers’ (n = 204) perceptions of specifically identified demands, resources and employee well-being. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation and moderated hierarchical regression were used to analyse the data.

This study found that job demands in the form of work–home conflict were associated with reduced employee well-being. Resources, namely, job autonomy, effective communication and social support were associated with increased employee well-being. Job autonomy was positively correlated to remote work frequency, and gender had a significant positive association to work–home conflict. Social support was found to moderate the relationship between work–home conflict and employee well-being. Findings suggest that organizations looking to enhance the well-being of their remote workforce should implement policies and practices that reduce the demands and increase the resources of their employees. The significant association of gender to work–home conflict suggests that greater interventions are required particularly for women. This study advances knowledge on the role of demands and resources as predictors of employee well-being of remote workforces during COVID-19 and beyond.

This paper provides insight on employee well-being during COVID-19 remote work. Further, the findings suggest that organizations looking to enhance the well-being of their remote workforce should implement policies and practices that reduce the demands and increase the resources of their employees. The significant association of gender to work–home conflict suggests that greater interventions are required particularly for women. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study carried out to explore the employee well-being during COVID-19 pandemic and will be beneficial to stakeholders for understanding the factors impacting employee well-being.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, huge numbers of employees shifted to remote working, with various consequences for their family and working lives. This study aims to focus on the factors that affect their creativity while working from home. As individual creativity is shaped by context, the authors investigate the moderating role of the domestic environment on employees’ creative contributions while working remotely.

The authors base the arguments on the complexity perspective on innovative work behaviour (IWB) and consider innovation a recursive process in which innovative behaviour can inform, and not simply follow, subsequent creative acts. The sudden spur of the pandemic interrupted the natural recursiveness of the creativity–innovation process and allowed them to empirically investigate the direct and indirect effects that levels of pre-pandemic IWB had on individuals’ creative behaviour. The authors hypothesise that this relationship is moderated by two resource-conserving contextual factors: work–home conflict and a feeling of social isolation. The participants were 803 employees from several Italian corporations. The data were collected during the first lockdown period (April–May 2020).

The findings support the existence of a three-way interaction, suggesting that IWB affects further creative behaviours when both work–home conflict and social isolation are low.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates what happened to employees’ creativity during the COVID-19 massive remote working situation. The results should be interpreted beyond the unique context because remote working will continue.

This paper aims to investigate work–life balance and job satisfaction in the emerging virtual work environments among women in patriarchal Nigerian society.

Data were collected with structured and semi-structured questionnaire from 316 participants who signed up for online affiliate marketing programs in Nigeria. The data were analysed with descriptive statistics, while the hypotheses were tested with partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The outcomes indicate insignificant conflict in the interface between remotely working from home and the discharge of family care responsibilities among married Nigerian women. Also, the women derive significant job satisfaction from virtual work settings. Outcomes from the semi-structured interviews indicate that Nigerian women receive more support in indoor household chores than outdoor household chores while performing virtual work duties from home locations with housemaids being the highest source of such support.

This study extends work–life balance literature from the traditional work environments to the emerging virtual work settings in Africa by providing empirical evidence that the emerging virtual work settings do not result in work–family conflict but rather yield significant job satisfaction among Nigerian women.

Given the prevalence of work interrupted by home-related matters, this paper aims to increase knowledge of the antecedents of work boundary permeability by investigating both individual and situational factors; and to better understand the consequences of work boundary permeability by examining both negative and positive effects using a finer-grained measure.

Data were obtained using two surveys from 308 full-time employees from an information technology firm in the Midwestern USA. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses.

Individual differences in segmentation preferences (whether one prefers to keep work and home separated or integrated) and situational factors such as workload and home demands were found to predict work boundary permeability. Further, the results showed that maintaining a highly permeable work boundary may be detrimental rather than beneficial. High work boundary permeability led to greater time- and strain-based home-to-work conflict, but not to affective and instrumental positive spillover.

Unlike much previous work–home research focusing on how work intrudes on time outside of work, this study focuses exclusively on how the work domain is affected by intrusions from the home domain. The findings deepen the knowledge about today’s workplace that is subject to continual interruptions and spillover from home-related matters.

This study assessed the psychosocial factors of home conflict as predicators to the academic performance of young adults, using undergraduates in Babcock University, Ilishan, Remo, Ogun State. Descriptive survey research design was adopted, with a sample size of 387 respondents from different schools and faculties were randomly selected for the study. Findings indicated that home conflict affects the academic performance of young adults based on the psychosocial factors. The set null hypotheses were tested at 0.001 level of significance. The report reveals that the anxiety mean and SD is 14.8552 and 5.03982, respectively. For aggression and academic performance, it reveals that F = 54.788, df_42,321; p > 0.005. Hence, there is no significant difference. There is a significant difference between peer rejection and academic performance. It reveals that F = 94.418, df_42,321 p > 0.001. Hence, there is no significant difference. The study recommended that parents should be enlightened about having a stable home and how conflict in the home can affect the academic performance of a child. It also recommends the support of the government and educational sectors to help create awareness of the importance of a good family relationship.

By utilizing boundary theory and distraction–conflict theory, this study attempted to examine the influential process of supportive teleworking practices granting work scheduling autonomy on work-to-family conflict (WFC) via the mediating mechanism of work interruption initiated from home.

The study conducted two-wave online questionnaire survey to obtain a final sample of 277 remote knowledge workers in Taiwan during the peak period of COVID-19 pandemic. Hypotheses were tested with partial least squares-structural equation modelling using SmartPLS 3.0 software.

The results revealed that supportive teleworking practices did not directly decrease the level of WFC while home-sourced work interruptions fully mediated the negative relationship between supportive teleworking practices and WFC.

This provides a more nuanced explanation for how and why supportive teleworking practices are beneficial for employees to cope with the challenge of work–home interferences under the new ways of working. The findings simultaneously address evidence-based practices to better deal with mandatory teleworking during potential societal crisis beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.