Interruptions in Remote Work: a Resource-based Model of Work and Family Stress.

We use the conservation of resources (COR) theory to propose a work-family model of stress in remote work. We propose that interruptions from family are a unique hindrance stressor, detrimental for the employee's challenge and hindrance stress responses in remote work, which, in turn, have distinct effects on resource-oriented attitudes and states of both the employee and spouse. Namely, we expect that both partners' satisfaction with the work arrangement, employee engagement, and spouse family overload will be associated with the way the employee experiences stress in remote work (stress response). We also integrate the effort-recovery model to examine whether two types of breaks taken by employees while working remotely replenish resources lost through interruptions. Using a sample of 391 couples, we find support for all hypotheses that pertain to the employee. Findings involving the spouse support the primacy of the resource loss tenet in COR theory, in that these detrimental effects are significant in crossing over to the spouse via hindrance but are not significant via challenge stress. We discuss the implications of these findings, emphasizing that interruptions are harmful for both types of stress experienced by remote employees (i.e., lower "good" and higher "bad" stress responses), and interruptions appear to have far-reaching effects on both partners. However, choosing to use breaks for both nonwork goals and self-care can buffer these otherwise detrimental effects.

Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict: A mega-meta path analysis.

This study examines the mediating role of work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict between the Big Five personality traits and mental health thereby enhancing theoretical development based upon empirical evidence. Integrating Conservation of Resources theory with the self-medication hypothesis, we conducted a mega-meta analytic path analysis examining the relationships among employees' Big Five traits, work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, anxiety and depression, and substance use. We produced a ten-by-ten synthetic correlation matrix from existing meta-analytic bivariate relationships to test our sequential mediation model. Results from our path analysis model showed that agreeableness and conscientiousness predicted substance use via mediated paths through both work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict and sequentially through depression as well as through family-to-work conflict followed by anxiety. Extroversion and openness-to-experience had relatively weaker influences on substance use through work-to-family conflict, anxiety, and depression. Neuroticism was the strongest driver of the two forms of conflict, the two mental health conditions, and substance use. From this model it can be inferred that work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict may be generative mechanisms by which the impact of personality is transmitted to mental health outcomes and then to substance use when analyzed via a Conservation of Resources theory lens.

The cost of being ignored: Emotional exhaustion in the work and family domains.

Building on the work-home resources model and crossover theory, we investigated how workplace ostracism both spills over and crosses over to emotional exhaustion for both the ostracism target and his or her spouse. We examine whether this occurs through the linking mechanisms of personal resources, specifically the target's positive mood and psychological distress. We draw on the work-home resources model and crossover theory to explain how being ostracized at work is damaging to the target of that ostracism and has implications for the target's life outside of work as well as for his or her spouse. Using longitudinal data from 3 separate points in time with a sample of 350 matched targets and their spouses, we examined how workplace ostracism flowed through positive mood and psychological distress to impact the target's job and family emotional exhaustion. Decreases in positive mood explained why workplace ostracism affected job emotional exhaustion, whereas increased psychological distress explained its crossover effect on family emotional exhaustion. Further, a crossover effect existed on spouses' family emotional exhaustion, and was explained by the target's increased psychological distress and family undermining behavior. Implications for research and practice are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Double crossed: The spillover and crossover effects of work demands on work outcomes through the family.

This study expands our understanding of the negative impact of work demands on work outcomes by examining this impact in light of the family domain. We explore how the family domain plays a role in this process by considering mechanisms that capture both spillover and crossover effects. We investigate the spillover of work demands (i.e., role conflict and role overload) through work-to-family conflict on work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and affective commitment) and self-reported work behaviors (i.e., citizenship behavior and absenteeism). We also consider the double crossover of work demands through work-to-family conflict to stress transmission, and back to the incumbent's family-to-work conflict on both attitudinal and behavioral work outcomes to examine the impact of work demands. Using a time-lagged matched sample of 389 dual career couples, we found spillover effects for the work attitudes and crossover effects for the work behaviors, suggesting work demands uniquely shape outcomes depending on the path they take. We close by offering implications for research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Your job is messing with mine! The impact of mobile device use for work during family time on the spouse's work life.

The use of mobile technology for work purposes during family time has been found to affect employees' work and family lives. Using a matched sample of 344 job incumbents and their spouses, we examined the role of mobile device (MD) use for work during family time in the job incumbent-spouse relationship and how this MD use crosses over to affect the spouse's work life. Integrating the work-home resources model with family systems theory, we found that as job incumbents engage in MD use for work during family time, work-to-family conflict increases, as does the combined experience of relationship tension between job incumbents and spouses. This tension serves as a crossover mechanism, which then contributes to spouses' experience of family-to-work conflict and, subsequently, family spills over to work outcomes for the spouse in the form of reduced job satisfaction and performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).