The value of 21st century work–family supports: Review and cross‐level path forward

• Published date: 01 February 2021
• Date: 01 February 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2442

THE JOB ANNUAL REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL

DEVELOPMENT ISSUE

The value of 21st century work–family supports: Review and

cross-level path forward

Courtney Masterson

1

| Keimei Sugiyama

2

| Jamie Ladge

2,3

1

School of Management, University of San

Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

2

D'Amore-McKim School of Business,

Northeastern University, Boston,

Massachusetts, USA

3

Exeter Business School, University of Exeter,

Exeter, UK

Correspondence

Courtney Masterson, Assistant Professor,

School of Management, University of San

Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco,

CA 94117, USA.

Email: cmasterson@usfca.edu

Summary

The adoption of work–family supports (WFSs), defined as discretionary and formal

organizational policies, services, and benefits aimed at reducing employees' work–

family conflict and/or supporting their family roles outside of the workplace, has

become a growing trend in contemporary organizational life. Yet, despite their wide-

spread popularity and vast scholarship investigating their effects, questions remain as

to the value (i.e., positive effects or benefits) they provide to organizations and their

stakeholders. In this review, we carefully examine and critique current research that

explores the value of WFSs conducted within different academic disciplines, across

global research contexts, and using a variety of methodological approaches. We pay

particular attention to understanding the different ways and conditions under which

employees and organizations can benefit from WFSs, and we highlight the potential

paths (i.e., why and when) through which value can be experienced. In conducting

this comprehensive review, we also discuss the critical theoretical and empirical limi-

tations associated with extant studies. Lastly, we offer a path forward and agenda to

explore new and novel directions for future research, including work and family rela-

tionships and cross-level investigations of WFSs that integrate individual, interper-

sonal, and organizational perspectives.

KEYWORDS

family-friendly policies, work–family initiatives, work–family supports, work–life balance

practices

1|INTRODUCTION

Work–family supports (WFSs), defined as discretionary and formal

organizational policies, services, and benefits aimed at reducing

employees' work–family conflict and/or supporting their family roles

outside of the workplace (see Butts, Casper, & Yang, 2013; Hammer,

Neal, Newsom, Brockwood, & Colton, 2005; Kelly et al., 2008), have

captured the attention of academics, practitioners, and policy makers

alike as they can influence critical outcomes for employees, organiza-

tions, and society overall. From a research perspective, noteworthy

reviews from Kelly et al. (2008) and Beauregard and Henry (2009)

have brought attention to the potential effects of WFSs on

employees' attitudes and behaviors in their work and family domains,

as well as key business metrics for organizations. These important

reviews offered much needed insights into the complex, multilevel

nature of these relationships. Yet, more than 10 years have passed

leaving an opening to take stock of what more we have learned and

what remains to be explored, particularly in light of contemporary

models of “work”reflecting changes in employment relationships and

work arrangements, and “life”reflecting nontraditional life choices and

family structures (Kelliher, Richardson, & Boiarintseva, 2019).

Building on these seminal reviews, we identify, synthesize, and

critically analyze current knowledge of the beneficial effects of WFSs

with a particular focus on the potential paths (i.e., why and when)

Received: 6 January 2019 Revised: 2 January 2020 Accepted: 21 March 2020

DOI: 10.1002/job.2442

118 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2021;42:118–138.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job

through which value can be experienced by employees and organiza-

tions. We review the value of WFSs, broadly defined to include a wide

range of positive outcomes, through an interdisciplinary lens that cap-

tures multiple levels of analysis and stakeholder groups (Kelly

et al., 2008; Kossek & Ollier-Malaterre, 2013). We also offer a critique

of the literature in an effort to identify potentially valuable theoretical

and empirical roads that have yet to be fully explored.

In conducting this review, we seek to make the following contri-

butions to the theoretical, empirical, and practical understanding of

WFSs. First, we use a positive organizational lens with an aim to iden-

tify and to synthesize studies that demonstrate the potentially benefi-

cial effects of WFSs. Our intention is not to enter or resolve a debate

regarding if WFSs create value; rather, we seek to advance our under-

standing of the many different ways and conditions under which

employees and organizations can benefit from WFSs. Second, our

review brings attention to studies that have tested hypothesized

direct effects of WFSs in new contexts, examined intervening and

explanatory mechanisms (i.e., moderators and mediators), and/or

inductively explored value-generating processes (e.g., rich qualitative

studies). This includes studies conducted in countries around the

world among a wide range of samples of working adults, occupations,

and industries. Third, we develop an integrative framework that show-

cases a scholarly path forward, with an agenda that emphasizes inter-

personal experiences and that incorporates key family and work

relationship variables into cross-level investigations of WFSs. This

suggested course of action identifies possible methodologies and

measures, as well as several different theoretical perspectives that

could be applied in future research.

In offering this comprehensive review, we reveal the critical

effects that organizations' WFSs can have on stakeholders' well-being.

The influence of WFSs may surpass government or other institutional

programs, especially in geographic and cultural contexts with minimal

to no support for working adults' family lives. Consequently, as many

individuals become increasingly dependent upon their employers for

formal supports, it is imperative that we have a robust understanding

of the conditions under which and for whom WFSs may create value.

2|REVIEW SCOPE AND METHOD

The focus of this review is on formal, structural WFSs instituted at

the organizational level. We bounded our review to studies that pro-

vide evidence of the value of WFSs by empirically investigating the

relationship between availability and/or use of at least one WFS

(e.g., dependent care) as the independent variable and at least one

employee (e.g., job satisfaction) or organizational (e.g., firm perfor-

mance) outcome. As we are interested in the effects of formal organi-

zational policies and practices, our review does not include supports

mandated by governments (see Allen et al., 2014, and Hegewisch &

Gornick, 2011, for reviews of national policies) nor does it include

informal social support or arrangements between supervisors and

employees as the independent variable (see Crain & Stevens, 2018,

for a review of family supportive supervisor behaviors).

2.1 |Search process and results

Our review includes empirical studies published from 2008 to the pre-

sent. This timeframe of over 10 years provided a robust interdisciplin-

ary body of literature to review. To identify relevant articles, we

searched in academic databases including PsycINFO, ABI Inform,

Business Source Complete, and Google Scholar. We searched for

studies broadly using key terms such as “work-family”;“work-life”;

and “family-friendly”in combination with key terms such as “policy”;

“arrangement”; and “practice.”The initial search resulted in more than

3000 studies. We then reviewed each study to determine if it met the

criteria of empirically investigating the effect of the availability and/or

use of at least one WFS on an employee- or organization-related out-

come. These studies spanned disciplines including organizational

behavior, human resource management, applied psychology, family

counseling, medicine, law, sociology, economics, and strategy. They

were based on samples from North America, Europe, Asia, Australia,

and Africa and included the experiences of workers from many fields

and occupations. These studies also involved a wide range of method-

ological designs (e.g., field surveys, interventions, and case studies).

As a next step, we coded each study to catalog the following

information: (1) WFS availability and/or use, (2) individual-level out-

comes, (3) organization-level outcomes, (4) moderators, (5) mediators.

We further categorized each study into one or more of the following

WFS types: (1) General or bundled which operationalized WFSs as a

collective group or bundle (e.g., family-friendly benefits; work–family

policies); (2) Dependent care assistance or supports that enable the

care of others such as children, aging parents, or sick family members

(e.g., parental or family leave; on-site childcare); (3) Flexible work

arrangements (FWAs) or supports that allow employees to vary the

amount, timing, or location of their work (e.g., flextime, flexplace, and

compressed workweek). We also grouped employee or individual-

level outcomes into five categories: (1) Work–family—experiences at

the work–family interface (e.g., work–family conflict [WFC], family–

work conflict [FWC], work–family enrichment, family–work enrich-

ment); (2) Job—attitudes and behaviors toward the job or organization

(e.g., job satisfaction, individual performance, and organizational com-

mitment); (3) Career—experiences, progressions, and/or attitudes

related to one's career (e.g., decision to remain in the workforce,

advancement, career satisfaction); (4) Health—physical, mental, and/or

emotional health (e.g., stress, burnout); (5) Family and life—attitudes

and behaviors in the nonwork domain (e.g., life or family satisfaction).

With regard to organization-level outcomes, we created three

categories: (1) Financial—variables reflecting firm performance

(e.g., profitability and productivity); (2) Talent management—employ-

ment-related metrics (e.g., employee recruitment, retention, organiza-

tional climate, proportion of women in senior management); and

(3) External stakeholder—nonemployee outcomes (e.g., customer or

vendor satisfaction).

As a final step, we focused our attention on 114 studies that

quantitatively found significance or qualitatively revealed substantive

indications of a beneficial relationship (either directly or indirectly)

between WFSs and individual and organizational outcomes

MASTERSON ET AL.119