Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
European Congress of Psychology, Brighton, İngiltere, 3 - 06 Temmuz 2023, ss.32
Working-from-home (WFH) practices have become more common during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the self-isolation requirements. Although quarantine measures were lifted, the WFH has become permanent for many companies. The research on the effectiveness of WFH prior to the pandemic has yielded contradictory results. The outcomes of the WFH might differentiate based on how organizations configure the process. Thus, it is vital to examine in which circumstances WFH is beneficial for employees' work-life balance. Our study aims to fill these by examining how the extended availability resulting from the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) moderates the relationship between WFH and work-life balance. Although ICTs are considered beneficial as they enable employees to be available anytime and anywhere, it also yields potential dangers for them. The extended availability leads to prevent employees from psychologically disengaging from work and hinders the recovery process. Thus, we propose that extended availability will moderate the relationship between WFH and work-life balance. Respondents of our study (N=307) are employees of private and public firms in Turkey. We tested our research model using an online cross-sectional survey design. We used PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013) to analyse our hypotheses. Results revealed that WFH is not significantly associated with employees’ worklife balance (β= .11, p> .05). However, interaction effect of WFH and extended availability on work-life balance is significant (β= -.12, p< .05). Conditional effects showed that the effect of WFH on work-life balance was only significant when the extended availability was low. Therefore, our hypothesis was supported. These findings suggest that higher extended availability might hinder the work-life balance in the WFH context during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, we discussed several limitations of the study and provided recommendations for theoretical and practical implications.