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The purpose of this study is to review the literature on work–life interface (WLI) studies conducted in India, including how cultural and institutional factors affect the work–life balance perception of Indian employees and how they differ from the west.

The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta analyses (PRISMA) framework was used to select studies included in this systematic review.

Employees in India prioritize their family first because of the collectivist culture as opposed to the west, where work forms the role of root identity. Further, it was found that institutional support in India is lower than in developed western countries, resulting in difficulty for Indian employees to balance their work and life domains. Additionally, methodological advancement and large-scale multilevel research are much needed in India, as research on work–life studies is still in its infancy.

This study is limited to qualitative synthesis of PRISMA framework. Adopting more advanced “meta-analysis” techniques to review quantitative studies could result in more comprehensive and informative results.

Since 2009, there has been an increase in empirical studies conducted on work–life studies in India, but no systematic review has been conducted to understand the various theories and variables used by researchers. In this study, we developed a conceptual model to increase the theoretical knowledge of WLI constructs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of superior support, in the presence of a range of work role stressors, on both conflict and enrichment aspects of work-life interface simultaneously. The paper frames the research narrative of superior support by contextualizing it within superior’s dichotomous and opposing roles of organizational performance driver and support provider.

Survey data was collected from Malaysian work adults. Drawing on a sample of 1,051 cases, structural equation modeling technique is used to examine the effect of superior support, with the presence of work role stressors, on individuals’ work-life experience. Three alternate models are compared: superior support as moderator of stressors-strain relationship; both superior support and work stressors as direct antecedents of work-life experience; and superior support as indirect antecedent (mediated by work role stressors) of work-life experience.

Findings evidence the favorable model of superior support as indirect antecedent (mediated by work role stressors) of work-life experience. In addition, superior support has significant impact on work role ambiguity and work-life enrichment, however, its effect on work role conflict, work role overload and work-life conflict is not significant. Findings of the study also demonstrate the distinct effect of work role stressors on work-life experience in terms of direction and strength of impact.

While superior support promotes greater work-life enrichment, its effect on work-life conflict is limited. Therefore, instead of superior support, employers have to identify alternate resources to assist employees to deal with conflict and interference of work-life interface. Distinctiveness of various work role stressors and interaction between these work role stressors offer practical implications to employer that all stressors at workplace should not be treated as identical and common to each other. Distinct effort should be taken to address different forms of work role stressors so that work-life conflict (resource depletion) can be minimized while work-life enrichment (resource gaining) can be enhanced.

The research investigates superior support in relation to work stressor and work-life experience by scrutinizing the role of supervisors from the vantage point of supervisors as performance drivers as well as support providers. This provides a balanced narrative as compared to previous research focussing solely on either the support perspective or the employee effort extraction perspective. In its execution, the research incorporates enrichment aspect of work-life experience, in addition to the conflict and negative effect. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources Theory, the study teases out important implication for employers and researchers to show that superior support and work role stressors come together to shape individuals’ work-life experience by depleting resources (work-life conflict) and gaining resources (work-life enrichment) simultaneously, as well as drawing out the dilemma of supervisors as performance drivers and support providers at the same time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents (i.e. work‒family culture and decision latitude) and outcome (innovative workplace behavior (IWB)) of work‒family enrichment (WFE). The study also examines the moderated mediation hypothesis between WFE and outcome, considering work‒life balance (WLB) as a mediator and gender role ideology (GRI) as the moderator.

Data for the study were collected through a questionnaire survey from 426 Indian dual working parents, working in various sectors, through purposive sampling technique.

The study found that work‒family culture and decision latitude are positively related to WFE, which, in turn, results in increased IWB, with WLB acting as its mediator. Further, the study also found a moderating effect of GRI between WFE and WLB relationship; more specifically, the relationship between WFE and balance is stronger for egalitarian employees (high GRI).

Using self-reported questionnaire data and a cross-sectional research design is the limitation of this study.

The study examines a relatively less focused phenomenon of work‒life interface, that is WFE in one of the underrepresented contexts like India; further, the study extends the range of antecedents and outcomes of WFE. Additionally, it contributes to understand the enrichment‒balance relationship, whereby it explains the role of GRI in developing a balanced perception.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the harmful effects of negative externality at both national and firm level by identifying practices that impact Malaysian Chinese ' s well-being in the form of work-life imbalance.

This paper adopts an emic approach using phenomenological enquiry to investigate what factors influence and shape work-life balance experience of Malaysian Chinese working adults. Emic approach, which takes into account elements that are indigenous to a particular culture, is useful to explore the uniqueness of the Malaysian context. Semi-structured interviews with six Malaysian Chinese working adults were conducted to understand their experience of work-life balance in the Malaysian Chinese context.

The findings highlight how contextual elements in the macro-environment (such as government legislation and policy, societal values, and practices) and the firm environment (owner and leadership values, superiors’ attitude) come together to shape the overall experience of work-life balance among Chinese Malaysians. The findings show that current work-life practices in Malaysia fall short in a number of ways, which ultimately leads to an unsustainable human resource position for Malaysian firms.

From a practical perspective the paper highlights the need to focus on employees’ work-life balance as a means to create sustainable and productive workplaces.

Given that the concept of work-life balance is grounded in western literature, it is important to explore the nature and relevance work-life balance in sustaining human resources in nonwestern, especially less developed business settings. Findings of this study contribute to the work-life literature by exploring the work-life balance experience in Malaysia through emic approach using a phenomenological lens. The findings identify a shortfall in sustainable people management arising through the interplay of unique negative externality multi-level contextual factors.

In the past decade, the rapid globalisation and modernisation has resulted in an increased focus of organisations on implementation of family friendly work–life balance (WLB) policies for enhancing employee retention. The purpose of this study is to review the importance of WLB policies and programmes and its impact on organisational outcomes.

Using Deery’s (2008) framework as the conceptual framework, the current study attempts to provide an integrated literature review of the empirical studies conducted in the area of WLB and employee retention in India for a decade from 2007 till 2017.

The analysis of the extant literature revealed that the research on WLB for Indian organisations really surged since 2013. Most of the empirical studies conducted in this area use a positivist paradigm. Numerous industry sectors including the information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing sectors have benefitted from WLB policies, but the banking and higher education sector have generously implemented employee-friendly WLB policies.

The study stresses upon the implementation of employee friendly WLB policies for achieving high organisational outcomes. Furthermore, the findings may be useful for human resource management and human resource development professionals to understand and appreciate the organisational components, settings that are necessary to facilitate better WLB in Indian organisations, thereby resulting in better organisational outcomes.

The study provides us with a comprehensive review of different WLB studies conducted in India till date and its possible impact on various organisational outcomes.

This paper aims to attempt to explore the nature of relationship between work–life balance and emotional exhaustion experienced by the employed individuals while working from home during the pandemic COVID-19 induced nationwide lockdown in the Indian setting.

Data were collected from 180 working professionals in North India who were working from home during the lockdown. PROCESS macro developed for SPSS was used to test the hypotheses.

Findings depicted that in comparison to men, women felt more emotional exhaustion due to personal life interference in work during work from home period. Surprisingly, the relationship between work interference with personal life, and emotional exhaustion did not differ by gender. It was found that the participative leadership could contribute to reduction of work interference with personal life, and through such an influence, emotional exhaustion experienced by an employee could be reduced to some extent.

Many previous studies have explored the nature of the relationship between work–life balance and emotional exhaustion, but rarely any study could cover any Pandemic affected working scenario. This study attempted to investigate such a relationship when employees were obligated to mandatorily work from home during the countrywide lockdown.

The authors aim to compare how formal flexibility, such as telework, differs from informal overtime work at home regarding the work-family interface.

By using data from the Finnish Quality of Work Life Surveys from 2003 and 2008, the positive and negative measures concerning the work-family interface are examined through logistic regression analysis.

Employees doing informal overtime at home are more likely to be affected by negative emotions concerning work disrupting family lives. Additionally, negotiations between couples over the allocation of time become areas of conflict. Only weak evidence is provided for both telework and informal work at home supporting family life.

In studying homeworking, it is important to separate between formal and informal flexibility at work. The data exceptionally enable that. The limitations of the data are cross-sectionality and only a few measures for assessing the positive work-family interface.

The contribution of the study is to show how informal overtime at home is related with stronger negative implications for work-family interface, when separated from telework. The article discusses how well-intentioned working schedule flexibility results in family life being infringed upon. Informal work may help attain a better work-family interface, but, with dual-earner employment being predominant in Finland, informal overtime work can increase pressures on families. The authors encourage the policy- and organisation-level recognition of informal overtime risks.

Telecare is a growing practice defined as diagnosis, treatment and monitoring among doctors, nurses and patients, which is mediated through ICT and without face-to-face interaction. The purpose of this study is to provide empirically based knowledge about the organization of the use of ICT and dilemmas of this increasingly common practice in healthcare.

The study draws on observations, interviews and desk research in relation to a large €4.5m pilot project at four hospitals in Copenhagen regarding care of 120 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). The empirical study was carried out over four months. Online video consultations were observed alongside workshops focusing on nurses’ photo elucidation of the telecare practice. The analytical ambition was to start the study in the middle of things and explore the emergent design of telecare.

Telecare not only embraces new standards and possibilities for professional responsibility and accountability for nurses but also alters the relationship between doctors and nurses. This leads to a dilemma we characterize as “paradoxical accountability”.

The study draws on Star’s notion of “infrastructure”. In this perspective, infrastructure comprises human and non-human conduct embedded in organizational conventions, relations and sites. The analysis demonstrates that nurses are not only exposed to a new responsibility as all-round case managers but they also have less access to clinical decision makers. The notion of “paradoxical accountability” is developed to account for this dilemma.

Prior research has extensively examined how bringing technology from work into the non-work life domain creates conflict, yet the reverse pathway has rarely been studied. The purpose of this study is to bridge this gap and examine how the non-work use of smartphones in the workplace affects work–life conflict.

Drawing from three literature streams: technostress, work–life conflict and role boundary theory, the authors theorise on how limiting employees' ability to integrate the personal life domain into work, by means of technology use policy, contributes to stress and work–life conflict. To test this model, the authors employ a natural experiment in a company that changed its policy from fully restricting to open smartphone access for non-work purposes in the workplace. The insights gained from the experiment were explored further through qualitative interviews.

Work–life conflict declines when a ban on using smartphones for non-work purposes in the workplace is revoked. This study's results show that the relationship between smartphone use in the workplace and work–life conflict is mediated by sensed stress. Additionally, a post-hoc analysis reveals that work performance was unchanged when the smartphone ban was revoked.

First, this study advances the authors' understanding of how smartphone use policies in the workplace spill over to affect non-work life. Second, this work contributes to the technostress literature by revealing how, in specific situations, engagement with ICT can reduce distress and strain.