Telecommuting's differential impact on work-family conflict: is there no place like home?
The literature on the impact of telecommuting on work-family conflict has been equivocal, asserting that telecommuting enhances work-life balance and reduces conflict, or countering that it increases conflict as more time and emotional energy are allocated to family. Surveying 454 professional-level employees who split their work time between an office and home, the authors examined how extensively working in this mode impacts work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, as well as the contextual impact of job autonomy, scheduling flexibility, and household size. As hypothesized, the findings suggest that telecommuting has a differential impact on work-family conflict, such that the more extensively individuals work in this mode, the lower their work-to-family conflict, but the higher their family-to-work conflict. Additionally, job autonomy and scheduling flexibility were found to positively moderate telecommuting's impact on work-to-family conflict, but household size was found to negatively moderate telecommuting's impact on family-to-work conflict, suggesting that contextual factors may be domain specific.
Golden
Timothy D
TD
Lally School of Management & Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA. GoldenT@rpi.edu
Veiga
John F
JF
Simsek
Zeki
Z
D000328:Adult; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004651:Employment; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014186:Transportation / Q000295:instrumentation*