Toward Understanding Remote Workers’ Management of Work–Family Boundaries: The Complexity of Workplace Embeddedness

• Published in: Group & organization management 2017-06, Vol.42 (3), p.346-387
• Main Authors: Eddleston, Kimberly A., Mulki, Jay
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Embeddedness; Family conflict; Family work relationship; Habits; Mixed methods research; Occupational roles; Qualitative research; Questionnaires; Telecommuting; Virtual networks; Work at home; Workers; Workplaces
• ISSN: 1059-6011; 1552-3993
• DOI: 10.1177/1059601115619548

This study employs a multi-method research design to examine how remote workers, or employees who work solely from home, manage the work–family interface. Our qualitative study revealed that working from home creates unique challenges for remote workers because the work role becomes embedded in the family domain such that their home comes to be associated with the work role, work physically and psychologically intrudes upon their family, and habits and norms form that induce remote workers to be preoccupied with work when home. Based on the qualitative findings, a model was proposed and tested via a questionnaire. Findings from this study of remote workers demonstrated that work–family integration increases family-to-work conflict and work-to-family conflict, and that an inability to disengage from work increases work-to-family conflict. Furthermore, strong work–family integration was found to be particularly harmful to male remote workers’ work-to-family conflict whereas a strong inability to disengage from work was found to be particularly harmful to female remote workers’ work-to-family conflict. Our findings therefore revealed that working solely from home encourages remote workers to overwork and to allow their work to infringe on their family role.