Spillover: the empirical utilisation of the concept. An empirical review of the social scientific corpus between 2004-2014

Abstract

In recent decades, spillover has become a highly influential concept which has led to the initiation of new theoretical and methodological approaches that are designed to understand how people attempt to reconcile their work and private lives. The very notion of spillover presupposes that these spheres are connected, since the people who move between them bring certain 'less visible' content with them such as cognitive or affective mental constructs, skills, behaviors, etc. This paper attempts to create fresh insight into the different areas, themes and methodologies related to how spillover has been addressed over the last ten years. Four main categories are discussed based on the 76 academic articles that were selected: (1) general spillover research, (2) job flexibility and spillover, (3) individual coping strategies, and (4) the spillover effect on the different genders. The final section of the paper provides a tentative synthesis of the main conclusions and findings from the examined papers.Keywords spillover, work-life balance, flexibility, gender differences, coping strategy, empirical review 1 Gábor Király (corresponding author) is associate professor at the Budapest Business School and senior lecturer at the Corvinus University of Budapest, e-mail: kiraly.gabor@pszfb.bgf. hu, gabor.kiraly@uni-corvinus.hu, Beáta Nagy is professor at the Corvinus University of Budapest, Zsuzsanna Géring is research fellow at the Budapest Business School, Márta Radó is Ph.D. student, Yvette Lovas and Bence Pálóczi are undergraduate students at the Corvinus University of Budapest. This review was prepared as part of a Hungarian Scientific Research Fund project (OTKA K104707). The title of the project: Dilemmas and strategies in reconciling family and work. We would like to express our gratitude to Dávid Ádám who contributed to building the database we utilised in this review. Moreover, special thanks to our fellow members in the 'OTKA' research group for the dedication and energy they provided and keep doing so throughout the project. Last but not least, the authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors for their valuable comments and remarks on the previous versions of this paper. Responsibility for any errors in the resulting work remains our own. 94

Information and Communications Technology’s Impact on Work–life Interference: Cases of ‘Employee-friendly Organizations’

“…For example, in the framework of spillover theory (e.g. Király et al, 2015), with ICT tools work can have positive and negative impacts on the other domains and vice versa, so four different groups of impacts can be identified. In the case of border theory, the relationship is more complex: 'border theory argues that the primary connection between work and family systems is not emotional, but human.…”

PHD and Childbearing? - Work-life Balance of Female PHD Students in the Field of Engineering

“…Those with a partner, but particularly with children, reported several conflicts that could be easily identified with those of time, strain, and behaviour-based conflicts described by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985). They also frequently encountered negative, but occasionally positive spillovers (Király et al 2015). Single students not engaged in careers tended to find their lives quite balanced even if they spent significantly more time on studies.…”

“…The essence of the theory is that these filtering effects only become spillovers if they cause similarities between constructs of life domains in terms of mood, satisfaction, values, skills or behaviours (Edwards -Rothbar 2000). Firstly, the negative, then the positive spillovers became the focus of research, and the new focuses were the correlation between job satisfaction and subjective well-being and other positive effects, job flexibility or coping strategies and gender differences (Király et al 2015). Powell and Greenhaus (2010) pointed out that segmentation of life domains can enhance WLB, but it also impedes the flow of positive spillovers.…”

“…Time squeeze can produce time-based work-life conflicts that can lead to strain-based conflict, stress (Bell et al 2012), and burnout (Schuurman 2009). It also often generates more negative spillovers (Király et al 2015) or greater illness (Dembe et al 2005), as well as insomnia for women than men (Mountz 2016). Meanwhile, professionals (compared to service workers) can perceive higher negative spillover and lower work-and family-related stress at the same time, perhaps because they are more critical and sensitive regarding their own WLB (Grzywacz et al 2002).…”