Work-related helping and family functioning: A work–home resources perspective

Using the work–home resources (W-HR) model as an overarching framework, our study seeks to examine the interplay between employees’ provision and receipt of interpersonal organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB-I; i.e. helping behaviours), and its spillover effects on two family outcomes (family performance and marital withdrawal behaviours). Further, we simultaneously test resource depletion (emotional exhaustion) and resource generation (personal accomplishment) mechanisms linking OCB-Is and the family domain. Based on a time-lagged, dual-source study of 320 employees, we found that OCB-I enactment is positively related to both exhaustion (only for those who receive low OCB-Is from colleagues) and personal accomplishment at work (regardless of OCB-I receipt), which interferes with and enriches employees’ family lives, respectively. We discuss the theoretical contributions of these findings to OCB research and the W-HR model. Practitioner Points: Employees should realize that offering help at work can both enrich and hinder family life. Organizations could cultivate a culture of support and reciprocity to dampen the effect of helping at work on exhaustion and the ensuing negative consequences for family functioning.