Job characteristics, home characteristics, inter-role conflict and intention to work-from-home: Contextual study

Abstract

Work From Home (WFH) is seen to be more productive than working at the office as it enables employees to meet their work demands while located at home. Nevertheless, there are also rising potentials for WFH arrangements to cause inter-role conflicts between work and home demands. Evidence showed that WFH has invaded employees’ family life and pushed them into a more difficult situation to psychologically disengage from work while being at home. They are feeling cautious now since there are tendencies for WFH arrangements to cause such problems. This article covers the concept and literature that explains the creation of intention to WFH through the influence of job characteristics, home characteristics and inter-role conflicts. In this view, a conceptual framework has been designed by incorporating all these respective components which are relevant in creating the needed intention. A plethora of research in the past has been performed to examine the advantages, disadvantages and challenges of WFH and has suggested the best way to manage this flexible work arrangement from an organisational perspective. However, this article argues that it is also necessary to have an in-depth understanding of what characteristics are needed for employees and how it could overcome the inter-role conflicts while working from home. Empirical research is recommended for this study to validate and improve the predictive value of this research.