David T. Wagner

When Can Employees Have a Family Life? The Effects of Daily Workload and Affect on Work-Family Conflict and Social Behaviors at Home

This article presents a longitudinal examination of antecedents and outcomes of work-to-family conflict. A total of 106 employees participating in an experience-sampling study were asked to respond to daily surveys both at work and at home, and their spouses were interviewed daily via telephone for a period of 2 weeks. Intraindividual analyses revealed that employees perceptions of workload predicted work-to-family conflict over time, even when controlling for the number of hours spent at work. Workload also influenced affect at work, which in turn influenced affect at home. Finally, perhaps the most interesting finding in this study was that employees behaviors in the family domain (reported by spouses) were predicted by the employees perceptions of work-to-family conflict and their positive affect at home.

THE SPILLOVER OF DAILY JOB SATISFACTION ONTO EMPLOYEES' FAMILY LIVES: THE FACILITATING ROLE OF WORK-FAMILY INTEGRATION

The longitudinal, multisource, multimethod study presented herein examines the role of employees’ work-family integration in the spillover of daily job satisfaction onto daily marital satisfaction and affective states experienced by employees at home. The spillover linkages are modeled at the within-individual level, and results support the main effects of daily job satisfaction on daily marital satisfaction and affect at home, as well as the moderating effect of work-family integration on the strength of the within-individual spillover effects on home affect. That is, employees with highly integrated work and family roles exhibited stronger intraindividual spillover effects on positive and negative affect at home. Modern technologies such as the Internet, cellular phone, Blackberry, iPhone, and other mobile communication devices have enabled employees and their family members to communicate with each other nearly anywhere, anytime. Moreover, flexible work arrangements under which employees can complete some work tasks from home are

Explaining affective linkages in teams: individual differences in susceptibility to contagion and individualism-collectivism.

To expand on the understanding of how affective states are linked within teams, the authors describe a longitudinal study examining the linkages between team members affective states over time. In a naturalistic team performance setting, they found evidence that the average affective state of the other team members was related to an individual team members affect over time, even after controlling for team performance. In addition, they found that these affective linkages were moderated by individual differences in susceptibility to emotional contagion and collectivistic tendencies such that the strength of the linkage was stronger for those high in susceptibility and those with collectivistic tendencies. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Lost sleep and cyberloafing: Evidence from the laboratory and a daylight saving time quasi-experiment.

The Internet is a powerful tool that has changed the way people work. However, the ubiquity of the Internet has led to a new workplace threat to productivity-cyberloafing. Building on the ego depletion model of self-regulation, we examine how lost and low-quality sleep influence employee cyberloafing behaviors and how individual differences in conscientiousness moderate these effects. We also demonstrate that the shift to Daylight Saving Time (DST) results in a dramatic increase in cyberloafing behavior at the national level. We first tested the DST-cyberloafing relation through a national quasi-experiment, then directly tested the relation between sleep and cyberloafing in a closely controlled laboratory setting. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory, practice, and future research.

Changing to daylight saving time cuts into sleep and increases workplace injuries.

The authors examine the differential influence of time changes associated with Daylight Saving Time on sleep quantity and associated workplace injuries. In Study 1, the authors used a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health database of mining injuries for the years 1983-2006, and they found that in comparison with other days, on Mondays directly following the switch to Daylight Saving Time-in which 1 hr is lost-workers sustain more workplace injuries and injuries of greater severity. In Study 2, the authors used a Bureau of Labor Statistics database of time use for the years 2003-2006, and they found indirect evidence for the mediating role of sleep in the Daylight Saving Time-injuries relationship, showing that on Mondays directly following the switch to Daylight Saving Time, workers sleep on average 40 min less than on other days. On Mondays directly following the switch to Standard Time-in which 1 hr is gained-there are no significant differences in sleep, injury quantity, or injury severity.

Making Sense of Motivational Leadership: The Trail from Transformational Leaders to Motivated Followers:

This paper presents a theoretical model that integrates two related, but distinct mechanisms by which transformational leaders influence follower motivation. That is, we propose that an affective mechanism by which charismatic leaders induce positive emotional experiences in their followers, and a cognitive mechanisms that includes communicating the leaders vision and its effects on goal setting explain the connection between charismatic and transformational leadership and follower motivation. Further, we specify the pathways through which affective and cognitive processes influence three components of follower motivation: The direction of action, the intensity of effort, and effort persistence.

Harmful Help: The Costs of Backing up Behavior in Teams

Prior research on backing-up behavior has indicated that it is beneficial to teams (C. O. L. H. Porter, 2005; C. O. L. H. Porter et al., 2003). This literature has focused on how backing-up behavior aids backup recipients in tasks in which workload is unevenly distributed among team members. The authors of the present study examined different contexts of workload distribution and found that, in addition to the initial benefits to backup recipients, there are initial and subsequent costs. Backing-up behavior leads backup providers to neglect their own taskwork, especially when workload is evenly distributed. Team members who receive high amounts of backing-up behavior decrease their taskwork in a subsequent task, especially when a team member can observe their workload. These findings indicate that it is important to consider both the benefits and costs of engaging in backing-up behavior.

Sleep and moral awareness

The implications of sleep for morality are only starting to be explored. Extending the ethics literature, we contend that because bringing morality to conscious attention requires effort, a lack of sleep leads to low moral awareness. We test this prediction with three studies. A laboratory study with a manipulation of sleep across 90 participants judging a scenario for moral content indicates that a lack of sleep leads to low moral awareness. An archival study of Google Trends data across 6 years highlights a national dip in Web searches for moral topics (but not other topics) on the Monday after the Spring time change, which tends to deprive people of sleep. Finally, a diary study of 127 participants indicates that (within participants) nights with a lack of sleep are associated with low moral awareness the next day. Together, these three studies suggest that a lack of sleep leaves people less morally aware, with important implications for the recognition of morality in others.

The benefits of bad economies: Business cycles and time-based work-life conflict

Recent management research has indicated the importance of family, sleep, and recreation as nonwork activities of employees. Drawing from entrainment theory, we develop an expanded model of work-life conflict to contend that macrolevel business cycles influence the amount of time employees spend on both work and nonwork activities. Focusing solely on working adults, we test this model in a large nationally representative dataset from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that spans an 8-year period, which includes the Great Recession from 2007 through 2009. We find that during economic booms, employees work more and therefore spend less time with family, sleeping, and recreating. In contrast, in recessionary economies, employees spend less time working and therefore more time with family, sleeping, and recreating. Thus, we extend the theory on time-based work-to-family conflict, showing that there are potential personal and relational benefits for employees in recessionary economies.

From the Bedroom to the Office

Sexual behavior represents relatively common and mundane home-life behavior, with demonstrated impact on both mood and general physical and psychological well-being. Integrating emergent research on sex and mood with theory on work-life enrichment, we propose a novel model demonstrating the effects of sexual behavior at home on next-day job satisfaction and job engagement as a function of positive affect. Using a 2-week daily diary study of married, employed adults, we found that (a) when employees engaged in sex at home, they reported increased positive affect at work the following day, independent of the effects of marital satisfaction; (b) sex at home increased both daily job satisfaction and daily job engagement as a function of increased positive affect; and (c) daily work-to-family strain-based conflict significantly reduced the likelihood of engaging in sex at home that evening. Accordingly, we extend theory on work-life enrichment by demonstrating the import of seemingly banal behavior on daily work life, with implications for work-life impingement.