WORK AND NONWORK DOMAINS OF SHIFT WORK EMPLOYEES: A BOUNDARY THEORY PERSPECTIVE

The concept of "flexibility" in the workplace has gained growing interest of scholars and organizational leaders as a solution for conflict between work and nonwork domains. The examination and implications of flexibility, however, have tended to focus on the experiences of professional samples. This focus has left certain aspects of workplace flexibility unchallenged. In this dissertation, I distinguish between employee-driven and organizationally-driven workplace flexibility and use boundary theory to test a hypothesized multilevel model of how these dual perspectives combine to predict outcomes in perceptions of work-nonwork conflict for non-professional employees. The findings indicate that organizationally-driven flexibility is a meaningful driver of conflict between work and nonwork domains in ways that were not anticipated. Moreover, employee-driven flexibility does little to mitigate the negative effects organizationally-driven flexibility.