Over the past 30 years, conservation of resources (COR) theory has become one of the most widely cited theories in organizational psychology and organizational behavior. COR theory has been adopted across the many areas of the stress spectrum, from burnout to traumatic stress. Further attesting to the theory's centrality, COR theory is largely the basis for the more work-specific leading theory of organizational stress, namely the job demands-resources model. One of the major advantages of COR theory is its ability to make a wide range of specific hypotheses that are much broader than those offered by theories that focus on a single central resource, such as control, or that speak about resources in general. In this article, we will revisit the principles and corollaries of COR theory that inform those more specific hypotheses and will review research in organizational behavior that has relied on the theory.

Conservation of Resources in the Organizational Context: The Reality of Resources and Their Consequences

This study provides and meta-analytically examines an organizing framework and theoretical model of work–family conflict. Results, based on 1080 correlations from 178 samples, indicate that work role stressors (job stressors, role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, time demands), work role involvement (job involvement, work interest/centrality), work social support (organizational support, supervisor support, coworker support), work characteristics (task variety, job autonomy, family friendly organization), and personality (internal locus of control, negative affect/neuroticism) are antecedents of work-to-family conflict (WFC); while family role stressors (family stressors, role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, time demands, parental demands, number of children/dependents), family social support (family support, spousal support), family characteristics (family climate), and personality (internal locus of control, negative affect/neuroticism) are antecedents of family-to-work conflict (FWC). In addition to hypothesized results, a revised model based on study findings indicates that work role stressors (job stressors, role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload) and work social support (organizational support, supervisor support, coworker support) are predictors of FWC; while family role stressors (family stressors, role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload), family involvement (family interest/centrality), family social support (family support, spousal support), and family characteristics (family climate) are predictors of WFC. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Antecedents of work–family conflict: A meta‐analytic review

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Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It

We investigated how people manage boundaries to negotiate the demands between work and home life. We discovered and classified four types of boundary work tactics (behavioral, temporal, physical, and communicative) that individuals utilized to help create their ideal level and style of work-home segmentation or integration. We also found important differences between the generalized state of work-home conflict and “boundary violations,” which we define as behaviors, events, or episodes that either breach or neglect the desired work-home boundary. We present a model based on two qualitative studies that demonstrates how boundary work tactics reduce the negative effects of work-home challenges. “Balance” between work and home lives is a much sought after but rarely claimed state of being. Work-family researchers have successfully encouraged organizations, families, and individuals to recognize the importance of tending to their needs for balance. Over 30 years ago, Kanter (1977) spoke of the “myth of separate worlds” and called attention to the reality that work and home are inexorably linked. Yet, she argued, organizations are often structured in such a way that their leadership forgets or ignores employees’ outside lives. Although organizational leaders and managers generally tend more to employees’ nonwork needs than they did when Kanter wrote her landmark work, struggles to balance work and home demands are still common

Balancing borders and bridges: negotiating the work-home interface via boundary work tactics

This study investigated the relationship between work-to-family enrichment (WFE) and family-to-work enrichment (FWE) with work-related, non work-related, and health-related consequences using meta-analysis. We conducted a meta-analytic review of 21 studies (54 correlations) for WFE and 25 studies (57 correlations) for FWE. We found that both WFE and FWE were positively related to job satisfaction, affective commitment, and family satisfaction but not turnover intentions. WFE was more strongly related to work-related variables, whereas FWE was more strongly related to non work-related variables. We also found that both WFE and FWE were positively related to physical and mental health. Additionally, relationships appear to depend on moderating variables including the proportion of women in the sample as well as the construct label (e.g., enrichment, facilitation, positive spillover). Our work indicates that organizations need to consider ways to not only reduce conflict, but also increase enrichment, which will drive many important outcome variables. This is the first meta-analysis on the positive side of the work–family interface.

A Meta-Analytic Review of the Consequences Associated with Work–Family Enrichment

This study was designed to gain more insight in the different ways in which work and family roles can benefit each other. Both qualitative (N=25) and quantitative (N=352) results obtained in a financial service organization supported the distinction between energy-based, time-based, behavioral, and psychological work-family facilitation, in addition to different types of work-family conflict that were identified in previous research. As expected, facilitation contributed substantially and differentially to the prediction of work and nonwork outcomes, over and above the effects of conflict. As predicted, women experienced higher levels of facilitation than men did. Furthermore, results indicate that examining facilitation, in addition to conflict, is especially important to predict the work and home life experiences of women.

How work and family can facilitate each other: Distinct types of work-family facilitation and outcomes for women and men.

Past work–family research has shown that employees' work–family conflict experiences relate to adverse self-reported health and performance outcomes, whereas work–family facilitation experiences relate positively to these self-reports. The present research extends these findings by relating experiences in the work–family interface to objective health and performance indicators. We conducted two studies within a multinational financial services organization. The results of Study 1, a large-scale cross-sectional study (N = 1134), supported our hypotheses that conflict experiences relate to objective indicators of poor health (cholesterol level, body mass index, physical stamina), whereas facilitation experiences indicated better health. Study 2 (N = 58) was designed to longitudinally examine the relationship between employees' facilitation experiences and their objective physical health (cholesterol level, body mass index), actual sickness absence, and objective job performance over time. Corroborating our hypotheses, facilitation at Time 1 reliably predicted better physical health (cholesterol level and BMI), lower absenteeism, and increased job performance one year later (after correction for base-line indicators). This research makes an important and much needed contribution to the literature and indicates that supporting employees to combine work and family roles not only enhances subjective well-being of individual employees but also objectively benefits the organizations they work in. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Is managing the work-family interface worthwhile? Benefits for employee health and performance.

This study was designed to examine whether spouses' work-to-family (WF) enrichment experiences account for their own and their partner's marital satisfaction, beyond the effects of WF conflict. Data were collected from both partners of 215 dual-earner couples with children. As hypothesized, structural equation modeling revealed that WF enrichment experiences accounted for variance in individuals' marital satisfaction, over and above WF conflict. In line with our predictions, this positive link between individuals' WF enrichment and their marital satisfaction was mediated by more positive marital behavior, and more positive perceptions of the partner's behavior. Furthermore, evidence for crossover was found. Husbands who experienced more WF enrichment were found to show more marital positivity (according to their wives), which related to increased marital satisfaction in their wives. No evidence of such a crossover effect from wives to husbands was found. The current findings not only highlight the added value of studying positive spillover and crossover effects of work into the marriage, but also suggest that positive spillover and crossover effects on marital satisfaction might be stronger than negative spillover and crossover are. These results imply that organizational initiatives of increasing job enrichment may make employees' marital life happier and can contribute to a happy, healthy, and high-performing workforce.

Work-family enrichment, work-family conflict, and marital satisfaction: a dyadic analysis.

Stress, on average, is bad for relationships. Yet stress at work is not always associated with negative relationship outcomes. The premise of the current study was that associations between workload and trajectories of marital satisfaction depend on circumstances that may constrain or facilitate partners' ability to negotiate their multiple roles. We hypothesized that the covariance between changes in workload and marital satisfaction over time should be moderated by (a) the extent to which spouses like their work, (b) their parental status, and (c) their gender. Analyses drawing upon eight waves of data on workload, work satisfaction, and marital satisfaction from 169 newlywed couples assessed over four years confirmed these predictions. Specifically, across couples, demands at work covaried positively with marital satisfaction for spouses who were more satisfied with their jobs. For nonparent couples, increases in husbands' workload covaried with increases in marital satisfaction for both spouses. For parent couples, however, increases in husbands' workload covaried with declines in marital satisfaction for both spouses. Unexpectedly, for parent couples, increases in wives' workload corresponded with increased marital satisfaction. Finally, consistent with predictions, wives were more affected by their husbands' workload than vice versa. Thus, tension between work and marriage is not inevitable, instead depending on circumstances that facilitate or impair performance in multiple roles. Couples, employers, and practitioners should recognize the role that external circumstances play in determining how work and marital life interact.

Workload and the trajectory of marital satisfaction in newlyweds: job satisfaction, gender, and parental status as moderators.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a mandatory transition to New Ways of Working (NWW) on employees’ job demands (i.e., mental demands, workload, and task ambiguity), job resources (i.e., autonomy, supervisor support, coworker support, and possibilities for development), and their levels of burnout and work engagement. Additionally, it was investigated whether the effects of the transition depended on employees’ personal resources (Psychological Capital—PsyCap).Design/methodology/approachWe investigated an organization in transition. In three waves (one before and two after the transition), data were collected via online surveys among 126 employees of a large Dutch provider of financial services.FindingsNWW were beneficial in reducing mental demands and workload and did not harm the relationships with supervisor and coworkers. However, autonomy and possibilities for professional development decreased. Burnout and work engagement remained stable over time. The effects of the...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0033294117740134

Elianne F. van Steenbergen

Papers

How work and family can facilitate each other: Distinct types of work-family facilitation and outcomes for women and men.

Is managing the work-family interface worthwhile? Benefits for employee health and performance.

Work-family enrichment, work-family conflict, and marital satisfaction: a dyadic analysis.

Workload and the trajectory of marital satisfaction in newlyweds: job satisfaction, gender, and parental status as moderators.

Transitioning Towards New Ways of Working: Do Job Demands, Job Resources, Burnout, and Engagement Change?: