Seeking an "i-deal" balance: Schedule-flexibility i-deals as mediating mechanisms between supervisor emotional support and employee work and home performance

Requests for flexible work practices have become commonplace in order to help employees perform more effectively in both their private and work lives. One approach is for employees to negotiate individualized work arrangements (i-deals). This study provides valuable insights into the nomological network of schedule-flexibility i-deals by drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory. We propose that, via resource accumulation, schedule-flexibility i-deals are a mechanism through which the emotional support of supervisors promotes employees’ family performance and reduces deviant work behaviors. Drawing further on the COR framework, we examine two boundary conditions, family-friendly environment and prosocial motivation, that guide employees’ resource investment. We collected multi-source data from South America and tested our hypotheses using structural equation modeling. Our results provide support for the key mediating role of schedule-flexibility i-deals. Moreover, the indirect relationship between supervisors’ emotional support and family performance through schedule-flexibility i-deals is stronger in a context of family friendliness at work, as well as when employees are prosocially motivated. Our results also show that, contrary to the expected effect, when prosocial motivation is high, employee supervisors’ emotional support is positively linked to deviant behaviors. We contribute to the literature by emphasizing the roles of perceived resources at the levels of leaders (i.e., supervisors’ emotional support), context (supervisors’ perceptions of family-friendly environment), and individuals (employees’ prosocial motivation). We demonstrate the importance of these resources in establishing and sustaining schedule-flexibility i-deals.