Research

Work-life flexibility policies (e.g., flextime, telework, part-time, right-to-disconnect, and leaves) are increasingly important to employers as productivity and well-being strategies. However, policies have not lived up to their potential. In this chapter, the authors argue for increased research attention to implementation and work-life intersectionality considerations influencing effectiveness. Drawing on a typology that conceptualizes flexibility policies [Read More...]

The literature on personality trait development has mainly focused on influences of life experiences in one single life domain (e.g., work or family) separate from one another and has primarily examined personality development in early life stages. Thus, less attention has been devoted to influences from interplays across different life domains and personality development in [Read More...]

Abstract ‘She cooks; I’ll clean the dishes’. ‘My wife picks up the kids. I drop them off’. If we consider the physical tasks only, we have an incomplete picture of the division of household labor. The thinking, planning, and managing of family work remains unaccounted for and hidden. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 22 heterosexual [Read More...]

The leadership and work–life balance literatures are not well-integrated, yet both examine the management of employees. Leadership theory is work-centric in conceptualizing leadership styles and underemphasizes nonwork influences on leaders’ and subordinates’ nonwork outcomes. Work–life studies overlook leadership theory regarding how work–life support reflects but one aspect of what leaders do. Competing narratives coexist over [Read More...]

Organizational scholarship on virtuality and women’s career equality are growing research streams relevant to the changing nature of work. Yet these streams are underintegrated, creating a lack of nuanced understanding of how virtuality impacts gender equality. We review findings from 100 articles and synthesize two main research perspectives to develop an integrative framework of virtuality’s [Read More...]

National reports widely publicized that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic’s disruption of work–nonwork boundaries impacted women’s careers negatively, as many exited their jobs to manage nonwork demands. We know less about the adaptations made by highly career-invested women to remain in the workforce in occupations where they are extremely under-represented. Based on qualitative data from [Read More...]

What does true flexibility look like? Most organizations approach it in one of two ways: as an ad hoc work-life accommodation available upon request, or as giving people permission to get their work done on their own schedule — as long as they’re available to answer emails or put out fires 24/7. Neither approach is [Read More...]

Historically, the careers literature, (grounded in vocational psychology) and the work-family literature, rooted in industrial-organizational psychology and organizational behavior (IO/OB), were not well-integrated, developed at separate speeds, and differed in gender focus. Early career studies targeted men's careers, while work-family studies centered on women's careers. Both literatures assumed conformity to an Ideal Worker norm. Looking [Read More...]

How Do Changes in Family Role Status Impact Employees? An Empirical Investigation. By: Perrigino, M., Kossek, E., Thompson, R., & Bodner, T. 2021. Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences. Vol. 4 Issue 5, p393-409. Purpose Despite the proliferation of work–family research, a thorough understanding of family role status changes (e.g. the gaining of elder [Read More...]

A highly productive female associate professor with a stellar record at a top U.S. business school asks to meet with her dean on a personal matter. She shares that her mother-in-law, who lives in Asia, has been diagnosed with late-stage cancer and requests family leave to fly overseas to care for her. The dean asked [Read More...]