| dc.description | Over the past twenty years the increase in women and dual earner couples within the North American workplace has generated research interest in understanding the work-family interface. Other changes in the business world have occurred through the adoption of alternative work arrangements, such as teleworking, where employees re-locate their paid work from organizational sites to their homes. Telework arrangements provide employees with unique opportunities to enact both family and work roles within the same setting. It also gives researchers the ideal environment for testing theoretical models that address work-family linkages. The overarching purpose of this study was to advance current understanding of work-family linkages by testing specific hypotheses in teleworkers and comparing them with a balanced non-teleworking sample. It focuses on answering the following questions. Does telework blur the boundaries between work and family? If so, what effect does blurring have on existing relationships between work, family, and organizational variables? Specifically, does blurring of the boundaries between work and family lead to positive or negative consequences for the teleworkers? Thirty-seven teleworkers and non-teleworkers (n = 74) participated in the study by completing questionnaires. Additionally, a subset of teleworkers was interviewed. Quantitative and qualitative results indicated that telework does indeed blur the boundaries between work and family and it may play a role in altering some important relationships between work, family, and organizational relationships. | en_US |
