Does homesickness undermine the potential of job resources? A perspective from the work–home resources model

• Author: Arnold B. Bakker,Chang‐qin Lu,Daantje Derks,Danyang Du
• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2212
• Published date: 01 January 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Does homesickness undermine the potential of job resources?

A perspective from the work–home resources model

Danyang Du

1

|Daantje Derks

1

|Arnold B. Bakker

1

|Chang‐qin Lu

2

1

Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University

Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2

School of Psychological and Cognitive

Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of

Behaviour and Mental Health, Peking

University, Beijing, China

Correspondence

Chang‐qin Lu, School of Psychological and

Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory

of Behaviour and Mental Health, Peking

University, No. 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian

District, Beijing, 100871, China.

Email: lucq@pku.edu.cn

Funding information

National Natural Science Foundation of China,

Grant/Award Number: 71671006 and

71271005; China Scholarship Council, Grant/

Award Number: 201406010300

Summary

Rapid economic development in recent decades has resulted in a considerable increase in the

number of people working far away from their home locations. Homesickness is a common reac-

tion to the separation from home. Our research uses the work–home resources model to explain

how the experience of homesickness can undermine the positive effect of job resources on job

performance (i.e., task performance and safety behavior). In addition, we hypothesize that emo-

tional stability and openness are key resources that can buffer the negative interference of home-

sickness with the job resources–performance relationship. We conducted two studies to test our

hypotheses. Study 1 was a two‐wave longitudinal study using a migrant manufacturing worker

sample. In this study, homesickness was measured at the between‐person level, and performance

was measured three months later. Study 2 was a daily diary study conducted in a military trainee

sample. In this study, homesickness was measured at the within‐person level to capture its

fluctuations over 20 days, and daily job performance was assessed using supervisor ratings. Both

studies showed evidence of the hypothesized moderating effect of homesickness and three‐way

interaction effects of job resources, homesickness, and key resources (i.e., emotional stability and

openness) on task performance and safety behavior.

KEYWORDS

homesickness,safety behavior, task performance, work–home resources model

1|INTRODUCTION

The changing economic conditions of the past few decades have cre-

ated an enormous growth in the number of people working far away

from their home locations, whether in their own countries or abroad.

According to the United Nations (2013), more than 232 million peo-

ple, or 3.2% of the world population, live outside their country of ori-

gin to pursue career developments (Greenhaus & Kossek, 2014).

Organizations use high‐performance work practices, such as training,

participation in decision making, and optimized working conditions

(Combs, Liu, Hall, & Ketchen, 2006), to improve the work experiences

and performance of those who work far away from home. Most

studies of migrants or expatriates have focused on factors in the

external environment, such as job characteristics, social support net-

works, spouse or family adjustment, and confrontation with new cul-

tures that may interfere with work processes (see Kraimer, Bolino, &

Mead, 2016, for review). However, little attention has been paid to

the internal processes that may hinder employees' job performance,

such as their psychological well‐being and personal needs (Kraimer

et al., 2016).

Homesickness is a frequently occurring phenomenon associated

with relocation, which is an indicator of the psychological well‐being

of people who make geographic moves (Van Tilburg, 2007). When

people leave their home environments, they commonly generate

ruminative thoughts about home, accompanied by negative emotions

and even somatic symptoms (Eurelings‐Bontekoe, Vingerhoets, &

Fontijn, 1994). According to the work–home resources model (ten

Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012), the use of personal resources (e.g.,

concentration, mood, and energy) for issues in one domain depletes

these resources, making them unavailable for people to function

optimally in the other domain. Ruminating about home and

experiencing negative feelings during work may consume employees'

attentional, emotional, and energetic resources, thereby preventing

these resources from being fully allocated to effortful tasks. This, in

turn, may attenuate the effective use of available contextual

resources and ultimately undermine job performance (Beal, Weiss,

Received: 14 March 2016 Revised: 24 May 2017 Accepted: 4 June 2017

DOI: 10.1002/job.2212

96 Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2018;39:96–112.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job

Barros, & MacDermid, 2005). In this research, we examine whether

homesickness may undermine the relationship between job

resources and performance. We adopt both between‐and within‐

person perspectives to examine the long‐term time‐lagged effect

and the short‐term daily effect, respectively, of the interference of

homesickness with the work domain. By conducting one study with

a longitudinal design among migrant workers and another with a

daily diary design among military trainees who work far away from

their homes, we strengthen the generalizability and the robustness

of our research.

The work–home resources model also proposes that key

resources are conditional factors that prevent and attenuate the neg-

ative impact of the home domain on the work domain (ten

Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012). Key resources are stable management

resources that facilitate the selection, alteration, and implementation

of other resources (Hobfoll, 2002; Thoits, 1994). They represent sta-

ble personality traits that enable individuals to cope effectively with

stressful situations (e.g., leaving home and adapting to new condi-

tions) and to optimally use their contextual resources (e.g., feedback

and help from others; Halbesleben, Neveu, Paustian‐Underdahl, &

Westman, 2014). Empirical evidence suggests that emotional stability

and openness play a vital role in expatriates' ability to tolerate stress

and deal effectively with their relocation to a new environment

(Lazarova, Westman, & Shaffer, 2010; Shaffer, Harrison, Gregersen,

Black, & Ferzandi, 2006). Therefore, in line with the work–home

resources model, we explore the buffering role of key resources

(i.e., trait emotional stability and trait openness) when individuals

have to deal with the interference of homesickness with their work

processes.

Our research aims to contribute to the literature in the following

ways. First, our research investigates the interference of homesickness

with the work domain. Instead of simply using work outcomes to rep-

resent the work domain and investigating the direct effect of home-

sickness on these work outcomes, we investigate how homesickness

may influence the job resources–job performance relationship. That

is, we use the moderating effect of homesickness on the job

resources–performance relationship to operationalize the interference

of the home domain with the work domain. Moreover, we use the

work–home resources model to provide insight into how homesick-

ness may undermine the relationship between job resources and per-

formance, which contributes to the literatures on homesickness and

the home–work interface more generally. Second, our research takes

both between‐person and dynamic within‐person perspectives to

examine the interference of homesickness with the job resources–per-

formance relationship. In addition, we collected multisource data and

used supervisor‐rated task performance and safety behavior as out-

come variables to provide a more complete picture of work outcomes

that may be affected by homesickness. Third, our research provides

empirical support for the functions of key resources in the recently

proposed work–home resources model (ten Brummelhuis & Bakker,

2012). By examining the three‐way interaction effects of emotional

stability and openness with job resources and homesickness on job

performance, our research reveals the role of key resources in how

people deal with the interference of homesickness with the

work process.

2|THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 |The impact of homesickness

Homesickness is a reaction to leaving one's home, characterized by

ruminative thoughts about home, including missing family and friends,

accompanied by negative emotions and even somatic symptoms such

as feeling lonely and uncomfortable in the new environment

(Eurelings‐Bontekoe et al., 1994). Studies have shown that employees

who work far away from home are more likely to develop loneliness

and strain induced by the separation from home. Leaving a familiar

environment and resettling somewhere else can be a stressful event,

and coping with stressful circumstances requires both resource alloca-

tion and investment (Hobfoll, 2002). For example, for individuals who

work away from home, it is difficult to maintain friendships with those

at home, which consumes considerable physiological and/or psycho-

logical resources (Shaffer, Kraimer, Chen, & Bolino, 2012). Homesick-

ness is an indicator of the psychological well‐being of people who

leave home and is known to be associated with a variety of both psy-

chological and physical complaints that can lead to a reduced capacity

of using resources effectively (Greenberg, Stiglin, Finkelstein, &

Berndt, 1993). The work–home resources model (ten Brummelhuis &

Bakker, 2012) suggests that once an individual's personal resources

are allocated to or have been used for one domain (home), they will

not be available for the individual to fully use contextual resources or

to deal with situations in the other domain (work). This model explains

the underlying process of how homesickness can interfere with the

work domain.

Instead of simply using work outcomes to represent the work

domain, we try to capture the process of work, which is represented

by the well‐established relationship between job resources and perfor-

mance (Bakker, Demerouti, & Sanz‐Vergel, 2014). We examine specific

contextual resources in the workplace (feedback and social support)

and specific indicators of performance (task performance and safety

behavior) to investigate how homesickness may interfere with the

resources–performance relationship. As Saks and Ashforth (1997)

noted, information is critical for newcomers—in particular, information

provided by superiors and peers can help newcomers better adapt to a

new environment. Moreover, feedback fosters learning, thereby

increasing job competence and improving performance. Social support

satisfies the need to belong, and receiving help from others during task

accomplishment can also improve one's performance (Schaufeli &

Bakker, 2004). In addition to task performance, safety is always a major

concern for organizations, as it is a source of substantial direct and

indirect costs (Neal & Griffin, 2006). Our samples consist of

manufacturing workers (Study 1) and military driving trainees (Study

2). In these contexts, safety behavior is salient and essential, even on

a daily basis. Compared with employees in various other occupations,

it is more important for these employees to obey safety procedures

because the consequences of safety problems can be severe. To cap-

ture the particularity of the settings, we examine both task perfor-

mance and safety behavior as indicators of performance.

Employees' performance depends on not only the amount of avail-

able contextual resources in the workplace but also whether the

employees are able to allocate those resources to the task at hand

DU ET AL.97