When work and family collide: ‘Resource Caravans’ of personal and contextual resources in remote work

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• Author: Dawn S. Carlson,Sara J. Perry,Micki Kacmar,Min (Maggie) Wan,Merideth J. Thompson
• Date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12274

Received: 2 December 2021

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Accepted: 19 May 2023

DOI: 10.1111/ntwe.12274

RESEARCH ARTICLE

When work and family collide: ‘Resource

Caravans’of personal and contextual

resources in remote work

Dawn S. Carlson

1

|Sara J. Perry

1

|Micki Kacmar

2

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Min (Maggie) Wan

3

|Merideth J. Thompson

4

1

Hankamer School of Business,

Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA

2

Mitchell College of Business,

University of South Alabama, Mobile,

Alabama, USA

3

McCoy College of Business, Texas State

University, San Marcos, Texas, USA

4

Jon M. Huntsman School of Business,

Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA

Correspondence

Dawn S. Carlson, Hankamer School of

Business, Baylor University, One Bear

Place #98006, Waco, TX 76798, USA.

Email: dawn_carlson@baylor.edu

Abstract

Research on remote work remains without consensus

as to its benefits, with continued questions about

which factors may enable it to be more beneficial to

employees working remotely. Applying Conservation

of Resources theory, we explore the impact of ‘resource

caravans’on ‘work–family balance’and subsequent

‘well‐being’in a sample of 446 remote workers. Our

findings contribute to ongoing sociological debates by

showing exactly how flexibility and control play a role

in the remote workplace. Specifically, our model

revealed that ‘sense of control’over home was most

beneficial for ‘work–family balance’among experi-

enced remote workers who had high levels of ‘schedule

flexibility’, whereas ‘work–family balance’benefited

from lower levels of ‘schedule flexibility’among new

remote workers. Resources from the home domain

were most critical for ‘work–family balance’, which

mediated the effects of the ‘resource caravan’from the

home domain on overall employee ‘well‐being’.

KEYWORDS

remote work, resource caravan, schedule flexibility, sense of

control, well‐being, work–family balance

New Technol Work Employ. 2024;39:19–38. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ntwe

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits

use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or

adaptations are made.

© 2023 The Authors. New Technology, Work and Employment published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

Sources predicted 2020 would be the ‘year of remote work’(Farrer, 2020), but no one realised

the extent to which this would be true. In the face of the global coronavirus (COVID‐19)

pandemic, unprecedented numbers of people became remote workers worldwide. Estimates

suggest that at least 43% of American workers and 40% of Europeans worked primarily from

home during the pandemic (Eurofound, 2020; Robison, 2020), which is 1000% more than

before. This offers an opportunity to examine how remote work arrangements relate to ‘well‐

being’. After decades of debate on the benefit and adoption rates of remote work (Aroles

et al., 2019; Boell et al., 2016; Wöhrmann & Ebner, 2021), as well as its effect on power and

control held by employees (Aroles et al., 2019; Dimitrova, 2003), its impact on employee health

(Wöhrmann & Ebner, 2021), and how it changes the employer–employee relationship

(Donnelly & Proctor‐Thomson, 2015), now is the time to shed light on the resources employees

need to successfully work from home (Felstead & Henseke, 2017).

One open debate is the role of control. Scholars suggest that remote work may give

corporations more control at the expense of remote workers (Aroles et al., 2019; Baruch, 2000;

Boell et al., 2016; Dimitrova, 2003; Hodder, 2020; Wöhrmann & Ebner, 2021), despite a

common assumption that remote work imparts more flexibility and control to workers.

Furthermore, scholars continue to debate the benefits versus costs of remote work for

employees, especially in terms of the work–family interface and well‐being (Hilbrecht

et al., 2013; Wilks & Billsberry, 2007). These ongoing debates involve the changing

employer–employee relationship as work is distributed away from a central office

(Baruch, 2000; Donnelly & Proctor‐Thomson, 2015; Felstead & Henseke, 2017; Fonner &

Stache, 2012; Wilks & Billsberry, 2007; Wöhrmann & Ebner, 2021). We respond to calls for

more clarity on how leaders can better manage remote work arrangements, including

management of the altered employment contract. Instead of assuming remote work offers more

autonomy to workers, we explicitly assess positive effects of three types of autonomy (i.e.,

contextual resource at home, contextual resource at work, and personal resource) on

‘work–family balance’and ‘well‐being’of remote workers.

In line with the extant literature, we define remote work as conducting one's normal work

tasks at a location other than the primary office during normal work hours (Allen et al., 2015).

This means that only the context (where and when), and not the nature of work, changes when

adopting a remote work arrangement. The sociology and psychology fields both contain remote

work debates, suggesting certain resources are critical for success, including flexibility to make

decisions about how to conduct work and how to manage work and home responsibilities when

they occur in the same physical space (Fonner & Stache, 2012; Gajendran & Harrison, 2007;

Hilbrecht et al., 2013). Expanding on the previous debate over the benefit of control

(Dimitrova, 2003; Hodder, 2020) and drawing on the psychological concept of Conservation of

Resources theory (COR; Hobfoll, 2002), we examine ‘resource caravans’comprised of ‘sense of

control’over the work and home domains, ‘schedule flexibility’, and the employee's previous

‘remote work experience’. We theorise that these ‘resource caravans’impact ‘work–family

balance’and subsequent ‘well‐being’. We contribute to current sociological debates by

determining whether distinct forms of control are helpful resources, or may have a downside

(e.g., Boell et al., 2016). Specifically, our research indicates how different combinations of ‘sense

of control’,‘schedule flexibility’, and employees’‘remote work experience’have unique

influences on their ‘work–family balance’and ‘well‐being’, which are in line with COR theory's

‘resource caravan’.

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