ABSTRACT
Shifts in labor market demographics, increasing work hours, workloads distributed on 24–7 operating systems, changes in pace and intensity of work, and the escalating financial, market, and job insecurity from the global economy have prompted scholars and practitioners to focus on work—life balance as an increasingly important area of research in organizational studies (Kossek & Distelberg, 2009). The idea of understanding what organizations do to help employees deal with balancing life and work issues and how employees perceive these actions has intrigued scholars from a variety of research areas. Early work on work—life balance examined how employee access and use of workplace support initiatives reduced work—family conflict (Goff, Mount, & Jamison, 1990; Kossek & Nichol, 1992). In recent years, this focus has shifted to understanding other forms of workplace support such as flexibility at work (Christensen & Schneider, 2011), supervisor support in work—family issues (Hammer, Kossek, Yragui, Bodner, & Hanson, 2009; Kossek, Pichler, Bodner, & Hammer, 2011), positive work—family organizational climate (Allen, 2001), and organizational support (Kossek et al., 2011).
