Kristie L. McAlpine’s research while affiliated with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and other places

Drawing on self‐determination theory, this study advances our understanding of employees' experiences working from home (WFH). Specifically, we examine the effects of two social‐contextual characteristics of WFH arrangements: whether employees voluntarily initiate their arrangement ( WFH initiation) and the proportion of WFH employees in a unit ( WFH density ). We conducted multilevel analyses on a multisource dataset drawn from organizational HR records and two surveys of 2115 WFH employees in a Fortune 500 organization. Employees who voluntarily initiated WFH, rather than at their employer's direction, experienced higher job autonomy and lower isolation. WFH employees in units with a lower proportion of other WFH employees experienced higher job autonomy. WFH initiation and WFH density also had effects on several distal employee outcomes, including job satisfaction, organizational knowledge, and turnover intentions, through their effects on job autonomy and isolation. Our findings provide valuable insight into the experiences of WFH employees and call attention to two important, yet understudied, factors that shape these experiences.

In this chapter, we introduce a Disability Contingency Framework that draws from the person-job fit literature. It is centered on the idea of actual fit between the functional abilities of a person with a disability and the job demands or requirements of a specific job - disability-job fit. With this focus, our framework shares similarities with workplace accommodations (i.e., a focus on actual abilities and demands; acknowledgement of varying levels of fit between disabilities and jobs) and the disability- job fit stereotype literature (i.e., an emphasis on the importance of the job in question; a focus on the idea of fit). Yet, our framework also extends and integrates these ideas by focusing on the abilities of people with disabilities and highlighting that functional limitations in some areas can come with functional advantages in other areas and, if these advantages align with the demands of the job, performance advantages can result.

The growth in virtual work is reshaping how leaders interface with their followers: Face-to-face interactions are increasingly being supplanted by virtual exchanges. To advance understanding of the implications of leading in this changing environment, we apply functional leadership theory to synthesize the findings of the virtual leadership research that has been conducted across different leadership perspectives and levels of analysis. We identify four traditional leadership functions that empirical research suggests have a stronger effect on follower need satisfaction in virtual settings and highlight a new function—facilitate the use of technology—as particularly germane to virtual leadership. Our review reveals several promising future research directions, including the need to examine the effects of leadership along the full spectrum of virtuality and to consider the unique challenges that leaders may encounter in hybrid work environments. We also outline important practical implications for organizations, leaders, and their followers. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Volume 10 is January 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

The increase in remote work during COVID-19 has drawn attention to the function of commutes as work-home transitions. While prior work-home research has referenced commutes as an example of role transitions, little is known about how the characteristics of a commute or the behaviors and processes undertaken in a commute affect their nature. We integrate research on commute characteristics, role transitions, and psychological recovery to develop a transitional perspective of commuting. We provide a conceptualization of liminal space that differentiates its physical and temporal dimensions and its psychological dimension as characteristics of the space through which one transitions during the commute and the experience of rolelessness one may perceive while doing so. We argue that perceived liminality during the commute frees cognitive resources for psychological role transition and recovery. Based on our conceptual model, we discuss implications for role transitions, commuting, and telecommuting research. Plain Language Summary Commutes provide a regular opportunity for individuals to shift from the work domain to the home domain. While making this transition, commuters occupy a “liminal space” in which they are neither fully engaged with work or home thoughts and behaviors. We explain and explore the physical, temporal, and psychological dimensions of this space, how the characteristics of commutes shape these dimensions, and how these dimensions create an opportunity for individuals to both recover from work and more effectively shift into the home role domain after the commute.