Addressing theoretical shortcomings in work-home research: Developing and testing a Person-Environment Fit Perspective on the Work-Home Interface

The work-home (W-H) interface has become an increasingly important research topic in the past few decades. Yet, the development of theory has not kept pace with empirical research and practice in the field and the currently used perspectives have been increasingly criticized for being inadequate to understand the increasing complexity of the W-H interface. Four key theoretical shortcomings have been identified: (1) the currently used theoretical perspectives have been used largely along each other without much integration; (2) it remains unclear through which mechanisms determinants operate; (3) the current perspectives implicitly assume that determinants have an inherent, universal value across individuals; and (4) they do insufficiently account for changes over time. The aim of this project is to develop and test an alternative theoretical W-H perspective, i.e., a “Person-Environment Fit perspective on the W-H interface”.

Keywords:work-home interface, person-environment fit

Disciplines:Applied psychology