Juggling work and family responsibilities when involuntarily working more from home: A multiwave study of financial sales professionals

• Author: Laurent M. Lapierre,Elianne F. Steenbergen,Maria C. W. Peeters,Esther S. Kluwer
• Date: 01 August 2016
• Published date: 01 August 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2075

Juggling work and family responsibilities when

involuntarily working more from home: A

multiwave study of financial sales professionals

LAURENT M. LAPIERRE

1

*, ELIANNE F. VAN STEENBERGEN

2

,

MARIA C. W. PEETERS

2

AND ESTHER S. KLUWER

2

1

University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

2

Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Summary Using multiwave survey data collected among 251 financial sales professionals, we tested whether involun-

tarily working more from home (teleworking) was related to higher time-based and strain-based work-to-

family conflict (WFC). Employees’boundary management strategy (integration vs. segmentation) and

work–family balance self-efficacy were considered as moderators of these relationships. Data were collected

one month before, three months after, and 12 months after the implementation of a new cost-saving policy

that eliminated employees’access to office space in a centralized work location. The policy resulted in em-

ployees being forced to work more from home. A voluntary telework program had been in effect before

the new policy, implying that working more from home as a result of the new policy was involuntary in na-

ture. Results revealed that involuntarily working more from home was associated with higher strain-based

WFC but not higher time-based WFC. However, moderator analyses revealed that the positive association be-

tween involuntarily working more from home and both types of WFC was significantly stronger among em-

ployees with weaker self-efficacy in balancing work and family. Boundary management strategy had no

detectable moderating effect. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: telework; sales professionals; work–family conflict; self-efficacy; boundary management

The popular press and academic literature have argued that telework arrangements have the potential to help employees

avoid work–family conflict, which is a form of interrole conflict where participation in one role (e.g., family) is made

more difficult due to one’s participation in the other role (e.g., work) (Gr eenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Such conflict can

exist in two different directions, one where work demands interfere with one’s familyobligations (work-to-family con-

flict or WFC), and the other where family demands interfere with work obligations (family-to-work conflict or FWC;

Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992; Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Telework has shown relat ively more promise in reducing

WFC than FWC (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007; Golden, Veiga, & Simsek, 2006; Nickson & Siddons, 2004). The poten-

tial for teleworkto help alleviate WFC is basedon the assumption that teleworkis voluntary, thus providing employees

with greater flexibility in choosing the location of their work (Duxbury, Higgins, & Neufe ld, 1998; Kirchmeyer, 1995).

However,what happens when employeesmust involuntarily work morefrom home? Would they experience an increase

in WFC? This is the first study that addresses this question.

We had the rare opportunity to survey financial sales professionals once before and twice after their organization

had implemented a new policy forcing them to work more from home. This policy served to reduce overhead costs

by no longer offering employees office space in a centralized work location. Before the new policy, a voluntary

telework program had been in effect, where employees had the latitude to choose to work as much from home as

they each deemed useful. This latitude was at least partially attributable to the rather autonomous nature of their

work (i.e., great autonomy in deciding how to service their respective clients), as explained by managers with whom

*Correspondence to: Laurent M. Lapierre, University of Ottawa, 55 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada. E-mail:

lapierre@telfer.uottawa.ca

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 12 December 2014

Revised 06 November 2015, Accepted 16 November 2015

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 804–822 (2016)

Published online 7 December 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2075

Research Article

we spoke. Thus, working more from home following the introduction of the new policy was involuntary in nature, in

that employees had to work more from home than they had previously chosen to. This unique setting enabled us to

examine (1) whether involuntarily working more from home is associated with higher WFC and (2) whether specific

individual differences measured before the implementation of the new policy would predict whether some em-

ployees are less likely than others to experience greater conflict when being forced to work more from home. Our

interest in individual differences was consistent with the notion of person–environment fit (Kristof-Brown,

Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005; Morley, 2007), in that some individuals may have personal characteristics making

them more compatible with organizational impositions. To investigate this possibility, we examined whether spe-

cific individual difference variables salient to the management of one’s work–family interface would moderate

the degree to which being forced to telework more intensively would involve greater WFC.

The two individual differences we considered as moderators included boundary management strategy (integra-

tion vs. segmentation) and self-efficacy in balancing work and family roles. Boundary theory suggests that people

can create and maintain boundaries—also called “mental fences”—around roles as a means of simplifying and

ordering their environment (Michaelsen & Johnson, 1997; Nippert-Eng, 1996a, 1996b; Zerubavel, 1991). While

some people create and maintain thick, non-permeable boundaries separating work and family (segmentation strat-

egy), others integrate both roles by keeping role boundaries more permeable (integration strategy; Kossek, Noe, &

DeMarr, 1999). We investigated individuals’boundary management strategy given the potential challenge of suc-

cessfully creating and maintaining boundaries separating work and family when one is forced to work more from

home. While self-efficacy in managing competing work and family demands has not garnered as much attentio n as

boundary management strategies have, research done to date suggests that such self-efficacy holds promise in

helping individuals more successfully avoid work–family conflict (e.g., Hennessy & Lent, 2008). We wanted to

examine whether it holds as much promise in helping individuals successfully avoid WFC when being forced

to work more from home.

We focused our investigation on WFC (instead of examining both directions of conflict) as an outcome of invol-

untarily working more from home because our sample was composed of financial sales professionals. Professionals,

particularly those in the financial services, have been said to be highly involved in their work and generally willing

to put in whatever time is required to accomplish their work-related performance targets, often times at the expense

of their personal lives (Investopia, 2013; Kossek et al., 2012a; O*NET, 2013). Several individuals we spoke to in the

organization in which we carried out our study endorsed this description. We therefore had reason to expect that

when being forced to work more from home, the employees involved in our study would more easily let their work

demands encroach upon their family activities than the reverse. Also, compared with FWC, WFC generally seems

more important to avoid because it has been shown to have a relatively stronger negative association with perceived

as well as objective indicators of employee well-being and performance (Amstad, Meier, Fasel, Elfering, & Semmer,

2011; van Steenbergen & Ellemers, 2009).

A broad aim of this study was to contribute to knowledge of flexible work design by examining a scenario in

which a telework policy served to curtail, instead of enhance, employees’choice in the location of their work. This

therefore helps to distinguish telework from the notion of enhanced workplace flexibility by highlighting the fact

that one does not necessarily imply the other. Providing evidence that involuntarily working more from home is as-

sociated with more WFC would help substantiate the importance of recognizing that telework does not necessarily

provide the resources needed to better manage competing work and family demands. Moreover, from a theoretical

standpoint, our study tests arguments put forth by role boundary theorists (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000) pos-

iting that the integration of work and family roles would increase the potential for interrole conflict, while also con-

sidering that having little control over the increased physical integration of work and family roles would make

conflict between these roles more likely (Kossek & Lautsch, 2008; Lautsch, Kossek, & Eaton, 2009). We also ex-

tend role boundary theorizing by considering how specific individual differences may help people avoid the in-

creased interrole conflict that could result from an involuntary increase in physical role integration.

Practically speaking, examining the association between imposed telework and WFC can be of value to organi-

zations debating the pros and cons of similar cost-cutting measures. Moreover, identifying individual difference

INVOLUNTARY TELEWORK AND WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT 805

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 804–822 (2016)

DOI: 10.1002/job