Teleworker Well-Being in COVID-19 as a Function of Change in the Work/Home Boundary: A Multilevel Response Surface Approach

This dissertation explored how a change in the work/home boundary stemming from a mandatory switch to full-time telework influenced employee well-being. Organizational scholars have called for more investigations into how crisis events impact employees, and the COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity to examine a change in employees' work and home domains as it unfolded. Additionally, as full-time telework becomes a more common way of work, understanding how this once rare work arrangement affects employee well-being holistically is important. Using boundary theory, I hypothesized that a switch to full-time telework would increase the level of integration between employees' work and home domains, and that a greater change in integration level would associate with worse daily well-being outcomes. To explain this association, I turned to recovery theorizing and proposed daily work-related rumination and lack of psychological detachment as linking mechanisms. Additionally, I expected that teleworkers whose current level of integration was closer to their preferred level would experience better well-being. Using multilevel response surface analysis (MRSA), which enabled illustration of these complex associations in a more nuanced manner than is possible via either change scores or moderation analyses, I found that maintaining higher work/home integration both before and after telework co-varied with worse holistic well-being through work-related rumination and lack of psychological detachment. I also found that having higher integration than preferred and even high integration when preferred associated with worse well-being through work-related rumination and lack of psychological detachment. Based on these results, I point to boundary work and its facilitation of segmentation as a potential means of protecting employee well-being in the event of a future crisis that moves work into the home.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Department dc:contributor.department

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Mitropoulos, Tanya Elise

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Calderwood, Charles

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Hsu, Ning
• Boljonis, Rosanna Breaux
• Diana, Rachel A.

• Telework
• work/home boundary
• well-being
• response surface analysis
• COVID-19

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:38910

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/117104