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), and its spillover effects on two family outcomes. Further, we simultaneously test resource depletion 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, 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.