Spillover and crossover of work resources: A test of the positive flow of resources through work–family enrichment

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2363
• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Date: 01 July 2019

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Spillover and crossover of work resources: A test of the

positive flow of resources through work–family enrichment

Dawn S. Carlson

1

|Merideth J. Thompson

2

|Wayne S. Crawford

3

|

K. Michele Kacmar

4

1

Department of Management, Baylor

University, Waco, Texas

2

Department of Management, Utah State

University, Logan, Utah

3

Department of Management, University of

Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas

4

Department of Management, Texas State

University, San Marcos, Texas

Correspondence

Dawn S. Carlson, Department of Management,

Baylor University, Waco, Texas.

Email: Dawn_Carlson@baylor.edu

Summary

In their seminal model of work–family enrichment, Greenhaus and Powell (2006) the-

orized five categories of work resources to have an impact on work–family enrich-

ment. Using a matched set of 351 dual‐career spouses, we explored how these

unique work resources contribute to work–family enrichment and how they spill over

to shape job incumbents' family outcomes and cross over to spouse outcomes.

Results support indirect effects for the work resources of developmental experiences,

supervisor support, schedule control, and self‐efficacy, but not salary, on marital sat-

isfaction and family functioning through the job incumbent's work–family enrichment.

In addition, we found support for the crossover of these indirect effects to the spouse

through the spouse's positive crossover transmission, which facilitated the spouse's

marital satisfaction and commitment to the job incumbent's organization. Our results

suggest that multiple work resources have an impact on work–family enrichment and

that the flow of positive work resources through work–family enrichment spills over

to impact outcomes for the job incumbent and crosses over to the spouse.

KEYWORDS

crossover, spillover, work–family, work–family enrichment, work resources

1|INTRODUCTION

Do the resources individuals garner from the work domain have

important implications both at work and for other aspects of an

employee's life? Of course! For years, we have known that they

impact life at work and a plethora of research has examined the impact

of job characteristics on work outcomes (e.g. Glick, Jenkins, & Gupta,

1986). What is less understood is how these work resources impact

the family domain. The positive psychology movement is concerned

with the study of positive processes and outcomes of organizations

and the individuals in them; individuals with positive experiences

are inclined to use the resources available to them in the systems in

which they operate (Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003; Seligman &

Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). By incorporating the work–family interface

with this movement, the concept of work–family enrichment (WFE),

or “the extent to which experiences in one role (e.g., work) improve

the quality of life in another role (e.g., family)”(Greenhaus & Powell,

2006, p. 73), was developed.

The model of WFE proposed by Greenhaus and Powell (2006)

positions five types of work resources as the primary and direct pre-

dictors of WFE: (a) skills and perspectives, (b) psychological and phys-

ical, (c) social capital, (d) flexibility, and (e) material resources. The goal

of this study is to integrate the spillover and crossover perspectives to

empirically test the influence of different work resources on WFE for

multiple actors. Specifically, we examine the positive flow of each of

these types of work resources on the experience of WFE by testing

a model of positive spillover of work resources to the family domain

of the job incumbent (marital satisfaction and family functioning) and

crossover of work resources to the spouse (marital satisfaction and

commitment to the job incumbent's organization).

Although considerable research focuses upon enrichment, its out-

comes, and its antecedents (Carlson, Kacmar, Wayne, & Grzywacz,

Received: 5 June 2018 Revised: 15 January 2019 Accepted: 2 March 2019

DOI: 10.1002/job.2363

J Organ Behav. 2019;40:709–722. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 709