Who moved my boundary? Strategies adopted by families working from home

Abstract

With the increase of remote work after the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be expected that soon a great number of households will consist of more than one teleworker. This raises the question of how to manage work and nonwork boundaries for the collective of household members who work from home. To better understand the adjustment to collective work from home, we examined the experiences of 28 dual-income households with school-age children residing in five countries. In doing so, we found specific strategies that families used to manage boundaries between two or more household members' work, learning, and home domains. We identified four strategies to define boundaries in the collective (i.e., repurposing the home space, revisiting family members' responsibilities, aligning family members' schedules, and distributing technology access and use) and five strategies to apply boundaries to accommodate the collective (i.e., designating an informal boundary governor, maintaining live boundary agreements, increasing family communication, incentivizing/punishing boundary respect/violation, and outsourcing). Our findings have theoretical and practical implications for remote work and boundary management.

With the increase of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic (hereafter “the pandemic”), we can expect that soon a great number of households will consist of more than one teleworker2 (McKinsey Global Institute, 2021; Shirmohammadi et al., 2022). This raises the inevitable challenge of how to manage boundaries around work and nonwork, not just for the individual(s) working from home, but for everyone in the household. How do family members who work from home manage boundaries in the household? How does a family distribute the home space, responsibilities, technology devices, and even internet access to allow all members to get their work done? How are the work, family, and school schedules of parents and children coordinated, communicated, and aligned? These questions are unanswered by current work-nonwork research, which has paid little attention to either boundary management at a collective level or to strategies adopted to address the unique challenges of working from home. To provide more insight in managing work family boundaries, the scope of work-nonwork boundary research should expand to consider what family systems need to function effectively when more than one member is working from home.

Work-nonwork boundary management refers to an active process including decisions and actions to demarcate or combine the boundaries between work and nonwork domains of life (Rothbard & Ollier-Malaterre, 2016). The literature suggests that boundary management minimizes undesirable outcomes such as work-family conflict (Ashforth et al., 2000) or maximizes desired outcomes such as work-family balance (Clark, 2000), satisfaction (Rothbard et al., 2005), and productivity (Perlow & Kelly, 2014). The increasing permeability between work and nonwork domains has intensified the need to utilize strategies to manage the boundaries between them more actively (Allen et al., 2014; Ollier-Malaterre et al., 2013). The most commonly studied boundary management strategies include segmentation (e.g., keeping work out of the family), integration (e.g., combining work and family) (Allen et al., 2014; Rothbard et al., 2005), and use of technology to control boundaries between work and nonwork (Derks et al., 2016; Golden & Geisler, 2007). However, existing theory and research have primarily approached boundary management as an individual-level phenomenon (e.g., Kossek & Lautsch, 2012; Kreiner et al., 2009; Reissner et al., 2020). A collective or a small group of interdependent actors who recognize themselves as a unit (Gibson & Gibbs, 2006) may also adopt boundary management strategies. For example, when a group of people reside in the same physical space and have different roles and responsibilities, it is highly likely that they need to define and apply boundaries for the collective. This raises the question of "How do households manage boundaries between work and nonwork domains when more than one member works from home?"

Studies suggest that work from home increases the possibility of work and nonwork boundary-blurring and difficulty in distinguishing between work and nonwork roles (Fonner & Stache, 2012; Sullivan & Lewis, 2001). To manage boundaries, employees working from home may try to physically segment work and family domains by designating a home office space and closing the door (Allen et al., 2021; Mustafa & Gold, 2013), using work equipment, such as laptops, as symbolic rites of passage to transition from home to work, and communicating availability with office-based colleagues (Fonner & Stache, 2012). Very little pre-pandemic research has examined employees working from home by incorporating inputs from same-household co-residents in data collection (Raghuram et al., 2003; Sullivan & Lewis, 2001), thus excluding strategies adopted to manage boundaries in the household and/or actions taken for the sake of others. Pandemic-induced research has shown that the confinement, blurred boundaries, intensified work, and nonwork stressors in households where members stayed and worked from home led to family dysfunctions, such as tension, relationship density, and stress (Goldberg et al., 2021; Ipsen et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2020). To extend the existing understanding of adjustment to work from home, the question we answer is “What strategies do households with more than one member working from home use to navigate and manage boundaries?”

We conducted a qualitative study of 28 dual-earner households in China, Iran, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which had at least one school-age child learning from home and both partners working from home during the pandemic lockdown. Upon initiating our research, we positioned our work within the theoretical framework of work-nonwork boundary management theories (Ashforth et al., 2000; Clark, 2000). Also, informed by the first stage of our data analysis, we complemented the boundary management lens by drawing on the family systems theory (Broderick, 1993). We recognize the family as a social system (i.e., an entity beyond each member) (Bavelas & Segal, 1982), a collective unit, and identify boundary management strategies for the collective. Family members, when deciding about their work and nonwork boundaries, need to consider one another, and sometimes, for a system to function, boundaries need to be established for the whole family. If we consider boundary management solely at the individual level, we will miss not only accounting for the role of others in how work-nonwork boundaries are defined and applied, but also the multiple people who are impacted. Specifying the household as the unit of analysis allows the defining features of boundary management—the physical, behavioral, or temporal boundaries between individuals' work and nonwork domains—to extend to boundaries of multiple and interdependent actors in a system. Family systems theory (Broderick, 1993) draws attention to how family members behave to ensure functioning in changing circumstances. It allows expanding the outcomes of individual boundary management, such as personal balance, to include improvements in family functioning and adjustment to change. Categorizing individuals as integrators or separators does not fully capture how the work-nonwork boundary management may be experienced in a family system. Viewing family as a social system comprised of dynamic interactions creates opportunities to capture unique boundary management strategies. Most importantly, our approach accounts for inputs from multiple parties, since members of a family system may have different needs and constraints or bring varied resources to their collective unit.

Our research extends work-nonwork boundary management scholarship to a collective level. We define boundary management for a collective as defining and applying boundaries between two or more household members' work, learning, and home domains. We identify four strategies families use to define their work, learning, and home boundaries: (1) repurposing the home space (spatial), (2) revisiting family members' responsibilities (temporal), (3) aligning family members' schedules (behavioral), and (4) distributing technology access and use (technological). We also describe five distinctive strategies that families adopt to apply these boundaries: (1) designating an informal boundary governor, (2) maintaining live boundary agreements, (3) increasing family communication, (4) incentivizing/punishing boundary respect/violation, and (5) outsourcing.

Second, complementing pandemic-induced research, we show that the stress caused by confinement and the unexpected transition to work-from-home were addressed by boundary management strategies. Family systems theory suggests that families take actions to continue to function in stressful situations, which maps onto the boundary management strategies we have identified and the positive adaptation to adverse circumstances (Carr & Kellas, 2018; Olson, 2000). Accordingly, our findings outline what can be done in response to blurred boundaries when parents are working from home and children are learning at home. Since families were adjusting to new and involuntary circumstances, they explored boundary management through trial and error, creating a reciprocal dynamic between defining and applying boundaries.

Third, boundary management strategies drawn from lived experiences of families residing in five culturally different countries present a set of solutions that can inform many families with similar dynamics. Seeking patterns across families in five countries enables a nuanced understanding of the meaning and the essence of a shared lived experience, with great resonance for contexts beyond the current study (Meier & Wegener, 2017). By highlighting shared lived experiences across Western and non-Western contexts, we respond to the call for more inclusive work-from-home research. Finally, our findings have practical implications for employers who benefit from and support the emerging generation of remote and hybrid workers.

1. Theoretical background

1.1. Work-nonwork boundary management and individuals

Work-nonwork boundary theories concern how individuals create and manage boundaries between work and nonwork domains (Ashforth et al., 2000; Clark, 2000). It is rooted in the classic sociological work of Nippert-Eng (1996), which asserted that people naturally need to draw mental demarcations and categorize information to make sense of the world around them. The current scholarly literature considers work-nonwork boundaries as socially constructed spatial, temporal, and psychological lines between work and nonwork (Ashforth et al., 2000) that mark where one domain begins and ends (Kreiner et al., 2009).

Nippert-Eng (1996), as part of a foundational text on boundary work, proposed segmentation and integration as the ideal types of boundary management. Therefore, subsequent research adopting work-nonwork boundary theory has consistently focused on exploring individual preferences to separate or integrate work and nonwork domains (Allen et al., 2014). Scholars have also argued that individuals enact segmentation and integration preferences by using different boundary management strategies (also referred to as tactics or practices). For example, Kreiner et al. (2009) identified four categories of boundary work strategies in a qualitative study among priests; they found out that individuals use behavioral, temporal, physical, and communicative strategies to “create their ideal level of and style of work-nonwork segmentation or integration” (p. 704). Carlson et al. (2016) developed quantitative measures for each of these categories, exploring how preferences influence individuals' agency to obtain the desired level of segmentation. Much of the subsequent research has assumed that individuals have identifiable segmentation or integration preferences. Studies have suggested that individuals unable to act according to their preferred boundary styles experience work-nonwork conflict (e.g., Carlson et al., 2016; De Gieter et al., 2022) or boundary violations (e.g., Delanoeije et al., 2019; Derks et al., 2016).

The above studies have been followed by research that views boundary management to be more complex than initially conceptualized. For example, researchers have expanded boundary preferences to three styles of integration, separation, and alternation based on perceived boundary control (Ammons, 2013; Kossek & Lautsch, 2012). Accordingly, integrators combine their personal and professional domains, whereas separators keep them separate, and alternators switch back and forth between them. These boundary management styles were developed further to include role-firsters as individuals who identify with a dominant role and put that role first (Kossek, 2016). Some studies have suggested that segmentation and integration may co-exist, and individuals' preferences and boundary management strategies may not always align (e.g., Dumas & Sanchez-Burks, 2015). Other scholars have argued that individuals act selectively when permitting or rejecting boundary violations or interruptions by nonwork tasks in the work domain and vice versa (e.g., Sayah, 2013). These studies invite future researchers to further explore the variability and complexities of people's boundary management practices (Reissner et al., 2020). We add to this line of thinking by examining boundary management strategies at the collective level within the work-from-home context.

1.2. Work-nonwork boundary management and households

More directly relevant to our research is the limited literature on work-nonwork boundary management beyond the individual level. Existing studies primarily focus on couples' approach to managing work and nonwork demands (Craig & Powell, 2012; Forsberg, 2009; Wilson et al., 2018), suggesting that couples may restructure their commitment to paid work because of their spouse's work demands (Karambayya & Reilly, 1992; Masterson & Hoobler, 2015). Some couples accept, while others resist the control and pressure paid work and organizations impose on work-nonwork boundaries (Mazmanian et al., 2013; Perlow, 1998). Accepters may use strategies such as outsourcing care commitments, reducing sleep time, one partner devoting more time to family, and prioritizing paid work over domestic work, family life, and leisure (Higgins et al., 2010; Such, 2006). Resisters may adopt strategies such as scaling back at work, working non-standard hours, working from home, or becoming self-employed (Becker & Moen, 1999; Craig & Powell, 2012; Haddock et al., 2006; Moen & Yu, 2000). A few studies that have addressed joint couple strategies report ways to manage time, tasks, and childcare demands, including strategies such as taking turns with household work and childcare, multi-tasking, covering family responsibilities for each other, and detaching psychologically (Forsberg, 2009; Hahn & Dormann, 2013; Nansen et al., 2010). Partners also invest their efforts to secure employment at family-friendly workplaces, offered flexible work arrangements, and had supportive supervisors who respected employees' boundaries around work (Haddock et al., 2006).

The value of the existing couple-level research notwithstanding, the dynamics of managing boundaries for the family as a whole remains understudied. Dual-income households, with school-age children, where all members worked or studied from home during the lockdown represent an extreme case that enabled us to examine the nuances of boundary management strategies for a collective, revealing new ways of managing boundaries while working from home. Extreme cases offer unique opportunities for research access (Hällgren et al., 2018) and for the study of the phenomenon of interest when it is “transparently observable” (Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 537). We know from the existing research that working from home has a high potential for blurring boundaries between work and nonwork domains for individuals (e.g., Kerman et al., 2022). It could be expected that when more than one person works from home, boundary dynamics change and require a collective approach. Initial ideas supporting boundary management at the collective level include Kreiner et al.'s (2006) statement that while individuals frame boundaries, collectives also develop shared norms concerning the boundaries of specific domains. Beckman and Stanko (2020) argued that multiple outcomes, such as family cohesion and adjustability, are shaped by relationships that underlie the family system.

1.3. Work-nonwork boundary management, work from home, and the pandemic

Pre-pandemic work-nonwork research has examined the role of boundary management in improving work-from-home outcomes, such as work-family conflict and adjustment (e.g., Delanoeije et al., 2019; Lapierre et al., 2016; Raghuram et al., 2001). Such research has well established that working from home transforms the nature of boundaries, particularly that it blurs boundaries between work and nonwork domains (e.g., Kelliher et al., 2019; Kossek, 2016). Subsequently, studies have described how employees working from home segmented work and family using home office space or other strategies (e.g., Allen et al., 2021; Mustafa & Gold, 2013), or they utilized technology and mobile devices to integrate work and family responsibilities (Desrochers & Sargent, 2004; Piszczek, 2017). Despite the existing research supporting the necessity of boundary management while working from home, pandemic-induced research has cautioned us that simply segmenting or integrating may not be the only answers.

Pandemic-induced research invites scholars to revisit the prevailing assumptions about work and nonwork boundaries. For example, Chong et al. (2020) raised questions about individuals' preferences toward boundary flexibility (i.e., the degree to which boundaries are pliable, allowing work or nonwork to take place in different settings) and permeable (i.e., tending to psychologically involved with nonwork while physically present at work and vice versa) under the conditions of sudden and involuntary work from home. Allen et al. (2021), in a survey-based study with sampling from couples in the United States, suggested that strategies used by individuals partially mapped onto Kreiner's (2009) four categories of boundary strategies. In Allen et al.'s (2021) study, participants' answers to the open-ended questions on the survey also revealed three new strategies adopted to manage pandemic-induced circumstances: emulating office routines, purposefully disconnecting, and reducing work and home overlap. Such findings complement several other studies that reported blurred boundaries during the pandemic, which increased the challenge of detaching from work psychologically (Pluut & Wonders, 2020), experiencing job or life satisfaction (Kerman et al., 2022), and maintaining satisfactory mental health (e.g., O'Connor et al., 2020). While the existing studies have discussed the challenges and ways to face blurred boundaries while working from home during the pandemic, we emphasize the boundary management occurring at the household or collective level.

1.4. Application of family systems theory to our study

Because of our focus on households, we explored possible theories that could ensure us that boundary management could be theoretically extended to a collective level. We turned to the field of family studies and identified family systems theory, which helped us interpret our findings. Rooted in general systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1994), family systems theory offers a broad perspective to understand family as a social system (Broderick, 1993). This theory characterizes family as a dynamic and open system comprised of circular interactions, rather than causal or linear communication (Broderick, 1993). It has inspired researchers to describe patterns guiding family member interactions (e.g., Bush & Peterson, 2013; Friedlander et al., 2019) and to examine family dimensions that nurture family functioning (e.g., Dore, 2008). By specifying the system as the unit of analysis, researchers adopting the theory have been able to explore features that create change in family functioning at the system, rather than individual, level (Fingerman & Bermann, 2000).

Past research has applied family systems theory to explain organizational behavior showing how features of family systems influence individual or family outcomes (Jaskiewicz et al., 2017). For example, Caligiuri et al. (1998) showed that family support, communication, and adaptability influenced expatriate families' adjustment in a host country, thus influencing the expatriate's commitment to work. Hammer et al. (2003) suggested that work withdrawal (i.e., work interruptions, tardiness, and absenteeism) could be a coping mechanism that individuals adopt to deal with stress from the family, such as an overwhelmed partner. Carlson et al. (2016) found that mobile devices used for work during family time drained an employee's resources, leading to work-family conflict, and increasing relationship tension at the couple level.

Researchers interested in understanding work-nonwork dynamics have been encouraged to deploy family systems theory in their studies to go beyond individual-level theorizing by including work-nonwork boundary theory (Jaskiewicz et al., 2017). Responding to this call and building on the existing evidence, we adopt family systems theory to elevate the level of analysis from the individual level considerations of integration and segmentation emphasized by the existing boundary management literature to collective-level considerations of how work-nonwork boundaries are defined and applied and how they impact multiple people.

2. Methods

To understand how families as a collective manage work-nonwork boundaries, we conducted a qualitative interpretive study of dual-income households, with school-age children, who worked from home during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The qualitative interpretive approach facilitates understanding the meanings social actors assign to their lived experiences (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In addition, it offers researchers the possibility to “move beyond preconceived notions of what phenomena mean in a particular setting” (Bartunek & Myeong-Gu, 2002, p. 240).

2.1. Participants

A total of 28 households who resided in China, Iran, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and the United States participated in our study. We used the purposeful sampling approach (Patton, 2002) and applied the following criteria: (1) dual-income household (i.e., both parents employed), (2) both parents working from home during the COVID-19 lockdown (i.e., staying home while being responsible to work), and (3) at least one school-age child (i.e., 6–14 years old) learning from home during the pandemic. We thought this group, as households that managed boundaries between remote work, school, and nonwork, could be representative cases for collective boundary management. Parents in the households were 34 to 54 years old (the average age was 42), and the children were 6 to 14 years old. Nineteen families had two children, five had one child, and four had more than two. Although there were no gender requirements, all of the households that participated in our study comprised opposite-sex couples. Parents' professional experiences were diverse, including managerial, teaching, administrative, and consultancy positions in various industry sectors, such as financial services, research, education, health services, and construction. Fifty percent of the participants had a bachelor's degree, 42 % had graduate degrees, and the rest had a high school diploma and a professional certificate (Tables 1 and 2 in the Appendix illustrate the interviewees' and children's demographic characteristics). Our research team members offered an emic or insider's perspective (Merriam, 2009) into the study's context, as each team member either resided in or was originally from one of the five countries where we collected our data. Also, our team members reviewed and analyzed the data from countries outside of their place of residence or origin, which provided an etic or outsider's perspective (Merriam, 2009). The combination of insider and outsider perspectives facilitated reflexivity in our study and helped the research team to bracket assumptions and biases throughout the research process.

2.2. Data collection procedure

Upon receiving ethical approval, we began recruiting participants through our personal and professional contacts. In each household, we interviewed both partners, and we asked at least one child to draw a picture titled “My parents work from home” and to describe the drawing in their own words (voice-recorded descriptions or written). We conducted 56 interviews with parents as the major source of data and received input from 31 children. Interviews served as the primary source of data, and children's descriptions of their drawings served as a triangulation source.

We conducted semi-structured interviews separately with each partner for 60–90 min via a safe online video-conferencing application. During the interviews, the other partner was not present in the interview space; however, in some cases, children were present or appeared in the interview space for short intervals. In such instances, the interviewer paused and suggested that interviewee attend to the children if they needed to. All interviews were recorded upon receiving permission from participants. We asked the interview participants to describe their lived experiences, routines, challenges, and strategies relevant to managing work and nonwork during the lockdown (interview questions are attached as Appendix). Some participants in China and Malaysia were comfortable with and preferred being interviewed in English; otherwise, non-English interviews were translated by professional and high-quality translation services for analysis. One author checked the translations with original recordings to make sure the original meanings were captured, especially if the section of the text was selected as a representative quotation.

The data collection took place between April and May 2020. At the time of our study, our participants from the United Kingdom, Malaysia and the United States were still in lockdown, while China and Iran had lifted some of their national pandemic-related restrictions (see a detailed timeline of our data collection in Table 3 in the Appendix).

Throughout the data collection procedure, one of the lead authors listened to the recordings or read the interview transcripts as soon as they were conducted to monitor consistency across the data. We compared new data with the earlier data to see what insights were emerging; after the interview with the 25th household, we realized that no new codes were found in the data. We collected and analyzed data from three additional families to ensure data saturation.

2.3. Data organization and analysis

We transcribed all interviews and children's narrations of their drawings, which yielded 1214 pages of text (single-spaced; font size 12). All the authors had been engaged with conducting the interviews, which provided them an in-depth understanding of participants' experiences. In a reflective group discussion, we agreed that we had observed prominent patterns regarding families' boundary management strategies as a collective during the data collection. Therefore, we decided to focus on boundary management as the overarching lens for our analysis, while remaining open to new observations in the data.

Drawing on the constant comparative method (Charmaz, 2014; Lincoln & Guba, 1985), our data analysis unfolded in three stages. During the first stage, each of the four authors open-coded data from three households independently (12 families in total), which involved reading the transcriptions and assigning labels to specific units of text to capture their meaning (Charmaz, 2014). We assigned families from different countries to each author for open coding to induce outsider perspectives and maximize the possibility of developing nuanced codes. For example, the author who conducted interviews in the United States coded data from families in China, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom.

In a group meeting, we examined the codes and realized that the majority depicted strategies to manage a collective's boundaries, while some described individual actions to segment or integrate work and nonwork. Upon this realization, we took three further steps. We examined the available work-nonwork boundary literature review articles published in premier journals (e.g., Allen et al., 2014; Cobb et al., 2022; Dumas & Sanchez-Burks, 2015; Ollier-Malaterre et al., 2013) to compare our list of strategies with that of existing research and realized that the collective strategies had potential for theoretical contributions. To ensure boundary management strategies could be theoretically extended to a collective level, we turned to family studies and identified family systems theory, which helped interpret our findings. Once we narrowed the focus to boundary strategies at the collective level, each author checked the data from the three families to check whether all strategies taken to manage boundaries for a collective had been captured.

For the second stage, we compiled the initial codes pertaining to collective boundary management strategies. Then, we segregated codes relating to the same content into categories, while constantly comparing with each other (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This process led to 712 codes and 12 categories. Constructing categories is a highly inductive process (Merriam, 2009); therefore, our research team discussed the categories and their meaning many times, and sometimes re-labelled or merged them. We ensured saturation of our categories when no new properties of the category emerged during data analysis (Charmaz, 2006).

In the final stage, one author coded all the transcripts with the categories and codes generated in previous stages in mind. Then, another author reviewed all the codes. In cases of disagreement, the two authors discussed the codes until they reached a final decision. To perform an interrater reliability test, a third author coded 70 quotations from interview transcripts separately and reached 90 % agreement. Throughout the analysis process, the four authors kept a shared journal in which they iteratively and collaboratively explored the relationships between the emergent categories and organized the findings into a model (see Fig. 1 for the final categories and model). Table 4 documents how we upheld trustworthiness and met criteria for rigor in qualitative research (See Appendix).

Fig. 1.

Work-nonwork boundary management strategies adopted by families working from home.

3. Findings

The families who participated in our study accommodated their work-nonwork boundary management by using different strategies to define and apply boundaries for the collective. As evident in the visualization of our findings (Fig. 1), there was a reciprocal relationship between defining boundaries and applying them. The families were all new to working and learning from home as a collective, and learned to adjust by trial and error. For example, a family would define a spatial boundary (moving a family member's office downstairs), would then realize that the walls were not as soundproof as they imagined and that they could not maintain privacy in their meetings. To solve this problem, they would move their office or other family members' workstation once more to be able to get their work done. In cases like this, there would be a back-and-forth relation between defining and applying strategies. Below, we discuss different boundary definition and application strategies among the households that participated in our study, along with representative quotations (see Table 5 in the Appendix for additional quotations).

3.1. Defining boundaries for the collective

The families defined their work, learning, and home boundaries in four ways that each pertained to one type of boundary: spatial, temporal, behavioral, or technological. Although the boundaries we discuss are similar to the boundaries already explored in the individual-level boundary management literature (Allen et al., 2014; Kreiner et al., 2009), in our work, we refer to boundaries between two or more household members' work, learning, and home domains, and not one individual's boundaries. In other words, the boundary literature so far has mainly explored how one person manages boundaries between their work or nonwork, while our study illustrates how multiple family members working from home managed boundaries within their household. Given that the majority of the households examined in our study had only young children, the process of negotiating, defining or redefining boundaries could happen with or without participation of their children. However, the focus of our study is not on how such revised boundaries were generated, but how they were managed and maintained, which included parents as well as their children.

3.1.1. Repurposing the home space (spatial)

Working from home as a collective required the households to use their living space for both work and learning. To do so, the households had to make adjustments, such as rearranging or repurposing furniture, moving desks, and swapping rooms permanently or for part of each day. We identified three different patterns the families used to manage their space to accommodate their work-from-home contingencies. One pattern was designating individual space to family members for working or learning. In households following this pattern, typically parents agreed on a space where they could work without being distracted, whereas children worked in their own or shared bedrooms, or shared study areas. At least one parent made sure they were close enough to hear what was going on with the children so the other parent would not be distracted. The second and most common pattern was allocating separate space to one parent, whose job needed privacy or full concentration, while the other parent shared a space with the children to monitor and help them with their learning, while still getting some work done. Among the 17 families who followed this pattern, seven families designated the quiet space to the mother. Sharing work and learning space as a family and working around a table or in a room adjusted for this purpose, common among Malaysian households, was the third pattern. Family members could occasionally leave the room or ask others to remain silent while picking up a phone call or having a synchronous meeting, but they stayed together for most of their work and learning time. We acknowledge that the families who participated in our study were middle-class dual-income households, and had houses that could accommodate their work and learning space decisions.

The following quotation provides an example of a family who repurposed their home space by keeping both parents and two children in a shared room during office hours, suggesting integration. The narrative indicates that the mother, in consultation with her partner, decided to eliminate spatial boundaries to ensure the family kept functioning.

Actually, [the children] had their workstation… I found that they were not really doing their work… I needed to be there. Otherwise, they used the tab[let] to watch YouTube or something else, ha… ha… So [now] we do everything [together], they bring their works, and we open the Japanese table in our room, so they have the space to put their books and everything… we can monitor them closely… they learn more when they are doing [schoolwork] in our room…

(Family₁₂, Malaysia, Man)

We had a few challenges; the distraction was a lot… so I said to my husband… I think it is better we [move] upstairs … we are in a room, we are able to close the door, so we don't really get distracted around… it is a much better and more conducive for us to do our work and the children to do their schoolwork as well.

(Family₁₂, Malaysia, Woman)

In family₈, who lived in an apartment, the mother was a primary school teacher who needed a quiet place to record videos. They had repurposed the home space to accommodate this, as shown below.

I have turned my son's room into a classroom. Books and learning tools and all I need are here… I can close the door while the kids are watching TV in the living room… it has a small whiteboard that I can use as well.

(Family₈, Iran, Woman)

3.1.2. Revisiting family members' responsibilities (behavioral)

To create boundaries between house chores, learning, or work activities, especially those that were synchronous (such as online meetings) or had limited timelines (such as daily meals), family members swapped, delegated, or took on new responsibilities. For example, all family members had their daily meals and snacks at home, which was typically different from their routine before the pandemic, when they packed lunches or were served meals at work or school. Therefore, when a partner had work commitments at the time a meal was supposed to be prepared or served, the family member who was available during that period would agree to handle it. Revision of responsibilities typically enabled one or more family members to complete work or learning tasks that could not wait or be interrupted. Among our participant households, revision of household members' responsibilities was manifested by taking on new house chores, becoming responsible for certain meals or shopping, and supervising children or siblings with their schoolwork. In thirteen households, the man assumed additional responsibility (compared to pre-pandemic) for house chores, childcare, or learning, while in six households, the woman did the lion's share of those tasks.

Her workload significantly increased during [the pandemic]… she has a lot of stress from her job… every minute counts. So… I try my best to do as many house chores as possible… [so that] she can have more time to rest.

(Family₅, China, Man)

He knows that I am too busy, and it's impossible for me to cook, so he will basically bear this responsibility, so he gradually learned how to cook… he does more of [the housework]: cooking, house chores, mopping is also always him… if he cooks and also has house chores, basically the time to take care of our child will be relatively minimal, that is why a lot of homework was completed by our child independently

(Family₅, China, Woman)

Drawing by 10-year-old girl; Family₅

The meaning behind my drawing is what my family of three did during the pandemic. My mom is working, I am doing my homework, dad had… learnt to make many delicious dishes, he is cooking. (Family₅, China, Girl)

3.1.3. Aligning family members’ schedules (Temporal)

To accommodate their school-age children who required learning support and to address additional house chores emerging from their collective work-from-home experience, households revised their daily routines or developed new ones. Without routines that aligned both the parents' work schedules and their childcare or child learning contingencies, our participants would not be able to separate or integrate their work, learning, and home responsibilities sensibly. In families with at least one parent who could work flexibly (22 in our sample), schedule alignment worked more smoothly than in other households. Some parents started work later, had extended work breaks, and finished work later than usual to spend more time with family or to have family meals.

We only have one spare room and we agreed that my wife works there. It might sound somehow funny, but I wake up early morning and go to the attic to record my lessons without disturbing our children who wake up later than usual. It was not hot in the morning and, I could focus and get things done faster

(Iran, Family₁₀, Man)

To accommodate child learning or childcare, in some households, one or both parents would do the bulk of their professional work before the children woke up, after the children went to bed, or during the weekends. In the six families in which both parents had flexible work hours, parents either divided the daily work hours between themselves, or worked on different days of the week. To implement the former, one parent worked in the morning while the other parent worked in the afternoon. Taking the latter approach, one parent had fewer but extended workdays while the other took care of house chores, childcare, and child learning; then mid-week, they would swap their schedules. As the example below demonstrates, this division enabled them each to separate their work and home times and to alternate focusing on their work or nonwork domain.

There was this initial [period of asking], “okay, how we're going to handle this?”, and then we started trying a new routine. And that was really hard for a while. But then I would say like two or three weeks ago it kind of just became the norm enough that we've adjusted.

(USA, Family₂₆, Woman)

[Ours] is more like a morning-evening split. So, [I] go off and work, like in the mornings. Getting back here at 1:00 or so; [then my partner] goes off and works until like evening. I'll watch the kids in the afternoon; she watches the kids in the morning. So, we kind of switch… some days she needs more time, or I need more… we will adjust it sometimes. But that's kind of the split that we've … settled on.

(USA, Family₂₆, Man)

Despite the wide range of collaborations among the households participating in our study, in six households, mothers assumed the lion's share of housework or children's responsibilities (in effect, taking care of them all), while the father had a routine schedule and spent time with family outside work hours.

3.1.4. Distributing technology access and use (technological)

Being professional dual-income families, most household participants could afford separate computers, tablets, or phones for family members to enable virtual work and learning, which might not be the case for many other families. Thirteen households in our sample had to distribute technology use. In these families, to navigate work, learning, or home boundaries, either one or both parents shared a device with their children, or the siblings took turns in using a device. In most cases, decisions about who could access a device depended on the perceived significance of the task that required the device, and was typically applied to synchronous meetings.

But we also hit a problem with not having enough computers, even though we've got loads. Everybody wanted to be on the best computer at the same time, … we had to buy a new screen, and I've moved where I work now so that the kids have got access to our home computer and between that and the iPad that's enough. I kind of have to plan it so that they don't both need the same tools at the same time.

(UK, Family₁₈, Woman)

Broadband capacity was another factor that was considered in the households when crossing work, learning, or home boundaries in a virtual environment. Having multiple users would slow the internet speed, and some households had to balance their engagement with online activities to accommodate tasks that were perceived as more important to the family.

Meetings are not always predictable. So it would have to be okay; Dad's meeting is going slow right now, so you need to go do this other assignment that doesn't require streaming… we had to balance that a lot, and there were times when they had to go back after the school day and watch their videos because he'd been in a meeting all day long… we just have three kids in right now… if they try to do them all at the same time, sometimes, if it was just a bad Internet day or a stormy day, two people would crash the Internet… sometimes I would have to… use just cellular data… so they could watch their assignments or whatever

(USA, Family₂₇, Woman)

3.2. Applying boundaries to accommodate the collective

To manage boundaries between their members' work, learning, and home domains, the households adopted five strategies to encourage and enable such management. Below, we describe each strategy complemented by a representative quotation from our participants.

3.2.1. Designating an informal boundary governor

When transitioning to working from home as a collective, and having to integrate childcare and learning with professional work, many families felt disoriented. Anticipating or experiencing interruptions, schedule overlaps, inability to accommodate childcare or learning during synchronous meetings, insufficient technology access, and other similar issues required collective coordination. In all the households, one member coordinated family members' plans and made sure there were no time, space, responsibility, or technology clashes; we labelled this role informal boundary governor. Some families had a timetable—for all the members—parents, or children— that was updated on a daily or weekly basis to ensure the members' work or learning requirements did not conflict or were accommodated.

In our family that makes life a lot easier because… I [put the daily schedule] on the wall with times, and the kids have altered that as time has gone by because we've realized we needed a bit more time for this, a bit more time for that. And it is not all work… if we didn't have some structure around it everybody would get really cross with each other, everybody would get fed up, everyone would start arguing… the kids are much more autonomous within a structure. I mean they don't even need to look at it now because they know exactly what happens when. (UK, Family₅, Woman).

3.2.2. Maintaining live boundary agreements

To deal with household contingencies while addressing multiple work or learning tasks, family members had to show some level of flexibility in their daily routines and in the boundaries they had set for household members. For example, a sick child, broken essential home appliances, technology issues, calls for emergency work meetings, and children's arguments were among the unexpected issues that required immediate attention. Therefore, although the households had provisional and preferred spatial, temporal, responsibility, and technology-related boundaries, those boundaries were blurred or adjusted as needed to address unexpected demands. Although these issues happen regardless of household members' work or learning arrangements, collective work from home intensified them and caused them to have a more tangible impact on work, learning, and home boundaries. Our participants accepted that their boundary agreements were provisional and could be updated depending on daily household demands or family members' needs.

Every day, we need to talk to each other. “Who will do what?” and “Who is using whose computer?” So we arrange it. It's not something like we have drawn a plan, or follow… a duty rooster, no, it's not like that, it's just a quick discussion, every day.

(Malaysia, Family₁₇, Man)

3.2.3. Increasing family communication

To share their work or learning demands and coordinate their boundaries, family members had to interact more than they had before they began working and learning from home. For example, parents had conversations with children to familiarize themselves with the children's schoolwork, synchronicity requirements, and deadlines; children asked questions about their parents' job responsibilities and obligations; or couples consulted one another before scheduling meetings. Boundary-related communication among household members could be verbal (e.g., informal chats, family meetings), nonverbal (e.g., showing hand gestures to inform others when in meetings with open cameras, or leaving the door open when available), written (e.g., putting notes on the doors, exchanging text messages or emails), or via tools (e.g., whiteboard or synched calendars). Increased communication made family members aware of what was going on in the household on a constant basis and enabled them to make more informed decisions.

The night before, he will ask like, “what sort of meetings do you have?” We sync our calendars, our google calendars, so he can actually see if I have a lot of online meetings. So, sometimes he says, “oh yeah, you have a full schedule tomorrow... I'll handle the lunch, so you don't have to worry about what to cook”. So for me, it's a blessing because lunch is usually my… territory. Laundry is him … it's important to share your schedule with your spouse… It helps a lot … That's how you'll be able to understand each other

(Malaysia, Family₁₂, Woman)

In terms of communicating… I'd normally tell them in advance, otherwise [the children] would be wondering why I've closed the door and what am I up to. So I'd tell them that “mummy has to work, so don't come in, mummy will play with you once mummy's done.” I won't normally just close the door without telling them.

(China, Family₁, Woman)

3.2.4. Incentivizing/punishing boundary respect/violation

Transitioning to work or learn-from-home mode was a challenge for most household members, but it was more challenging for children. For many children, being at home with parents felt like a holiday period during which attending to schoolwork was not expected. Also, children were allowed more access to their devices to accommodate their learning, but many struggled with navigating between fun and learning activities on their devices. Pre-pandemic, many children had used tablets or phones mainly for entertainment; therefore, they found it hard to get used to remaining focused on learning activities without switching to fun activities on their devices. Also, it was not easy for some children to understand that their parents were at home, but not available to them as they had been before. Some found it hard to wait until after their parents' synchronous meetings were finished to talk to them or seek help with their schoolwork. To encourage children to observe the boundaries set for them, some families rewarded their children for observing the set boundaries or punished them for crossing the boundaries.

[Homework] still has to get done, but again, you're in your own home. There's not that sense of urgency. There's not that sense of responsibility. There's not that sense of expectation from anybody else besides mom or dad… So I had to explain to them that just because we are at home, it doesn't mean that your responsibility in school stops. We are not on vacation. This is still school. This is just part of the challenge. You're going to have to find a way to be disciplined and stay motivated… this is the method I've found to be very helpful is, so say my youngest will come to me and say, “Hey, my friends want to [hang out] tomorrow.” And I'll say, “Okay, great, you can [join them] as soon as all of your homework is caught up...” and then he goes and does his homework, and that's a win-win.

(USA, Family₂₄, Woman)

[We] give them like a reward system, so…if you don't disturb me and only [interrupt] me whenever [there is a] question you don't know … we can work on some music [you] like or maybe like just treat them to a cake [or a] delivery.

(Malaysia, Family₁₅, Woman)

Although incentives were typically used for children, in some families, when the family allowed a parent to accomplish their work without interruption, that parent acknowledged their support by treating them to a dessert or by being available when other members needed similar consideration.

3.2.5. Outsourcing

In some households, due to their workload or the nature of their job, parents needed external help with childcare or child learning in order to navigate their work and maintain work-home boundaries, especially during synchronous meetings that could not be interrupted. These families outsourced such tasks whenever possible. For example, during the lock-down period when childcare services were not provided, some families sought help from grandparents. Depending on governmental restrictions in their country of residence, a grandparent would physically stay with the family, arriving at their house when needed, or connecting virtually to help with childcare.

We've got grandparents who are very doting, and Zoom. And they've been reading stories. They've been playing games. They've put on little shows and stuff like that. And that is a decent half-hour, 45 min of time [I just say] all right, you guys sit in there; you can talk to gran and grandad. I'm going to get on with some work and, you know, send emails to fire off that kind of stuff.

(UK, Family₁₉, Man)

I also think the difference for me compared to others is I have my mom… [she] comes over, and she does watch my girls for me while I work… if they're misbehaving, I have to get into the middle of it, whatever. But you know, I'm not having to really like being with them the whole time because mom helps

(USA, Family₂₈, Woman)

In Malaysia and China, many families enrolled their children in complementary virtual classes to accommodate their learning. For example, in the case of Family13, because both parents were fully occupied with work while at home and they had a two-year old who required extensive care, they could not engage with their two school-age children's home learning as they wished. Therefore, the family had decided to outsource the supervision of children's homework to after school tutoring programs referred to as tuition centers in Malaysia.

I don't really involve much as I mention, but they got tuition [classes] […] if we rely on the school [to engage with the children], I don't think so there is much activity [going on]. […] they got the website, some homework as well, but didn't cover much syllabus in the school, there is very limited [engagement]. While doing homework and so on, we did adhere them to all this tuition [classes], [to] help our children to engage […] Even weekends my children will have tuition.

(Malaysia, Family₁₅, Man)

Depending on factors such as the nature of parents' jobs, number and age of children residing in the household, size of the house, or technology access, families applied the aforementioned strategies with varying frequencies., which could change depending on the parents' work schedule or the children's afterschool or extra-curricular activities. All these factors shaped the utilization of the strategies we identified in our study. For example, with regard to defining boundaries, if their house was big enough to accommodate the required space for the family members' work and study, the families did no or minor repurposing of their home space. However, households with limited space had to do more frequent repurposing (e.g., turning the dining table to a study table during children's online classes and back to a dining table during meals). In cases where the parents' work did not comprise several meetings, and the children did not have synchronous school lessons, there was less need for adopting aligning family members' schedules. Also, families with sufficient devices (e.g., laptops, tablets) or a wide internet bandwidth did not need to distribute technology access and use. Similarly, families in which the members did not require extensive focus for their work or study or had fewer meetings or synchronous lesson, made less use of boundary governing or communication. On the other hand, households with pre-school children incentivized boundary respect or outsourced more than other families.

4. Discussion

Our findings provide insights into how dual-income households with school-age children managed boundaries in the household as a collective during the pandemic. We elaborated on how families may adopt and apply boundaries to ensure the whole family continues to function. We found four strategies to define boundaries in the collective (i.e., repurposing the home space, revisiting family members' responsibilities, aligning family members' schedules, and distributing technology access and use) and five strategies to apply boundaries to accommodate the collective (i.e., designating an informal boundary governor, maintaining live boundary agreements, increasing family communication, incentivizing/punishing boundary respect/violation, and outsourcing). These strategies were employed so that multiple family members who worked from home could manage boundaries in the household, rather than one person managing boundaries between their work or nonwork.

4.1. Theoretical contributions to work-nonwork boundary management literature

The boundary literature so far has mainly explored how one person manages boundaries between their work and nonwork, while our study illustrates how multiple family members who worked from home managed boundaries in the household. We expect this to be a promising path for future research to follow as it calls researchers' attention to the boundaries between two or more household members' work, learning, and home domains. Also, we draw future researchers' attention to factors such as the nature of jobs, number and age of children residing in the household, size of the house, and technology access when studying boundary management among those who work from home. We contribute to the boundary management literature by documenting specific strategies families adopt to accommodate collective functioning. In doing so, we expand the existing knowledge, which has focused primarily on individual integration and separation preferences (Allen et al., 2014; Rothbard et al., 2005). We also add to the work-nonwork boundary literature by highlighting the role of adjustment and feedback loops, which enable researchers to account for the iterative nature of curving out strategies for responding to boundary management needs imposed on them by their environment.

We argue that the boundary management strategies we have identified are likely to be transferable to other contexts beyond dual-income households and the pandemic. With the increase in remote and hybrid work arrangements (Lund et al., 2020), many households may find themselves in a situation like the one in our study. In this case, our study suggests boundary management strategies that families may consider working from home. Also, our findings can inform couples who work together at home as co-entrepreneurs, and couples who home-school their children while working from home. Although the context of our research is unique, in that work and learning from home as a collective have not been a choice for our participants, these strategies still apply to families adjusting to simultaneous work and childcare during certain times of day, on days their children stay home, and when schools are closed, such as for winter or summer holidays.

While we examined strategies for defining boundaries for the collective, we could link them to three out of four categories of individual boundary management strategies that Kreiner et al. (2009) identified. This suggests that spatial, behavioral, and temporal types could be applied to the collective level boundary management as umbrella terms when describing families' boundary-setting strategies. Our findings also align with Allen et al. (2021) study, which examined couples working from home during the pandemic. They found partial evidence supporting the application of Kreiner et al.'s typology and added three subcategories to behavioral and temporal categories (i.e., “emulating office routine,” “purposefully disconnecting,” and “reducing work and home role overlap”). Strategies we identified differ from Kreiner et al.'s and Allen et al.'s subcategories because of their collective nature. However, it is still possible to draw parallels across the core ideas in our findings and those of individual level strategies. For example, “reducing work and home roles overlap” in Allen et al.'s study (i.e., working while family members are not around or are asleep to avoid distractions) relates to part of “revisiting family members' responsibilities” in our study (i.e., one or both partners completing the bulk of their professional work before the children woke up, after the children went to bed, or during the weekends).

As a noticeable contribution, we added the technological category to Kreiner et al.'s typology of boundary management strategies. Kreiner et al. (2009) included “leveraging technology” as a subcategory of behavioral strategies referencing cell phones and caller IDs. However, the technological category in our data (i.e., how families allocated devices among family members to enable virtual work and learning) emerged as a standalone category. Surprisingly, Allen et al. (2021), when matching comments made by couples working from home to this category, found only two participants mentioning alarms and timers to separate work and nonwork time. We suggest that maybe it is time to consider technological as an independent category, including various types of technology such as laptops, computers, smartphones, tablets, broadband, and other platforms used in virtual settings. Our findings also indicate the need to go beyond technology use and consider the number of available devices in a household, the degree to which household members share technology, and the importance of access for each family member. We acknowledge that we collected data early in the pandemic when people may not have had a chance to prepare or even purchase the devices or broadband needed to work from home. However, considerations about technology use and access in a household could be a factor that workers consider when deciding whether to work from home or not. Given that technology tends to change profoundly and rapidly, we encourage future researchers to continue to modify the technological category, especially when studying remote workers' boundary setting.

Unique to our study is “designating an informal boundary governor” strategy for applying boundaries to the collective. We believe this category emerged because we incorporated perspectives from more than one family member. This role can be included in future research examining boundary management of those working from home. Also, “maintaining live boundary agreements” emerged specifically in our results, demonstrating some level of flexibility in how boundaries are applied to daily household routines and activities. We emphasize that dealing with household contingencies calls for flexibility in the same way some scholars have argued that individuals might act selectively when managing boundaries (e.g., Sayah, 2013). Our findings regarding “increasing family communication” strategy present key ideas parallel with Clark (2000) observations. Clark (2000) found that frequent communication between border-keepers and boundary-crossers helped both reach agreement. Complementing Clark (2000) discussion, we draw attention to the involvement of parents and children when communicating about work or learning demands and coordinating their households' boundaries. For example, our findings highlighted that parents had conversations with children to familiarize themselves with the children's schoolwork requirements and deadlines, or children asked questions about their parents' job responsibilities and obligations. We invite future researchers to consider the verbal, nonverbal, and written communication, and interactions via digital tools that we mentioned in our findings. Our findings regarding “incentivizing/punishing boundary respect/violation” take the notion of boundary violations noted in the literature (e.g., Kreiner et al., 2009) to the collective level. While the definition of individual-level boundary violations concentrates on episodes of breaching the preferred work-home boundary, our findings emphasize ways to encourage others to observe the family's set boundaries. We draw researchers' attention to behaviors such as rewarding, punishing, and acknowledging others when examining boundary violations and considering other family members' roles.

4.2. Theoretical contributions to work from home literature

Our work adds to the recent research that has indicated that the pandemic exacerbated blurred boundaries and stress in households (e.g., Lee et al., 2020; Parlak et al., 2021; Trougakos et al., 2020) and provides further understanding of how families adjusted to work from home by developing and implementing boundary management strategies. Whereas most related research during the pandemic has focused on the prevalence of tension in households, such as increased family conflict when participants worked from home (e.g., Ayuso et al., 2020; Goldberg et al., 2021), relational strain between partners due to togetherness and lack of alone time (e.g., Goldberg et al., 2021; Shockley et al., 2021), and tension in parent-child relationships due to work and study at home (e.g., Hertz et al., 2020; Parlak et al., 2021), our findings complement this picture by providing insights into what can be done in response to blurred boundaries and stress when parents are working from home and children are learning at home. We provide detailed examples of how families adopted, revised, and maintained boundary management strategies for the household, which enabled the whole family to function and to meet their work and learning requirements. In doing so, we contribute to the narrow body of research linking boundary management to work-from-home outcomes (Lapierre et al., 2016; Raghuram et al., 2001). We suggest that specific boundary management strategies can enhance adjustment to work from home or perhaps to other flexible work arrangements. Overall, by integrating family systems theory and boundary theory, we suggest that adjustment to work from home for a collective involves defining and applying boundary management in the household, not just for the individual teleworker.

Our approach examines the lived experiences of working from home while accounting for inputs from more than one household member. Work-from-home research has traditionally limited itself to explorations of individual teleworkers as situated in work interactions and relationships with colleagues and supervisors (Golden & Raghuram, 2010). The work domain represents one aspect of a teleworker's life, which means much of traditional work-from-home research overlooks the worker's family life that takes place at home. In our application of family systems theory, we offer researchers a novel approach that situates the individual within a small group of interdependent actors at home, which can account for the multiple people being impacted. Accounting for how family manages boundaries in the household should be of interest to workplaces and managers given the potential impact boundary management can have on teleworkers' work outcomes, such as adjustment, productivity, and performance (Bolino et al., 2020). Also, responding to the call from scholars for more inclusive work-from-home research, our findings highlight shared lived experiences across Western and non-Western contexts.

4.3. Practical implications

Our findings can provide practitioners with insights about how to help employees adjust and respond to working from home with strategies to manage boundaries in the household. Our findings highlight how critical it is for employees working from home and employers to be aware of how multiple family members working from home can induce a need for adjusting work and nonwork boundaries at home. As we noted, working from home for couples with school-age children often creates additional layers of boundary management, which require them to consider the use of space, time, and technology for the household. Awareness of these added considerations on the employee side calls for support and relevant resources from supervisors and employers, which should be tailored to household contingencies. For example, dual-income households with jobs requiring synchronous tasks and meetings may need more assistance with outsourcing housework and childcare. Supervisors may consider adding asynchronous tasks to employees with childcare responsibilities or spouses with inflexible work schedules. Given this knowledge, managers can help teleworkers, particularly on days employees have childcare responsibilities or when employees belong to dual-income households. Organizational leaders may recommend that households temporarily redefine routines at home, including repurposing the home space, revising responsibilities, assigning a partner as the boundary governor, and increasing communication with family members. Organizations can invest in training managers to accommodate the boundary management needs of employees with compassion and flexibility. Allowing employees time and offering them opportunities to craft strategies that work best for them could also be beneficial.

4.4. Limitations and future directions

Certain strategies in our study may have emerged because our participants were dual-income, middle-class, and financially secure families. We acknowledge that a disproportionate number of telecommuters are found in professional and managerial jobs and in industries involving information, finance, insurance, and services (Delsiver, 2020). This means our participants probably approached boundary management with significant resources, such as home space and technology; other families, with less access to resources, may face hardships in managing boundaries for the collective, adopt different strategies, and struggle to adjust. We recognize that our study was conducted during early stages of the pandemic; therefore, it is possible that the novelty of working at home together boosted the collective family spirit in our sample and contributed to the emergence of strategies that led to relatively good family adjustment. It is possible that with the continuation of work from home or emergence of new arrangements, such as hybrid work and reopening of schools, the collective spirit may fade away and strategies may be revised. While we theorized boundary management strategies of a collective, we did not directly collect data to determine the effectiveness of each strategy in the overall adjustment of each family. Quantitative examinations of the relationships between strategies and outcomes need to address this limitation. Another potential line of future research is exploring the implications of national culture for remote work. Although we interviewed families in five different countries, our research questions did not directly target cultural differences; hence, our data did not reach saturation regarding cultural influence.

We encourage future research to explore additional applications of boundary management to collective and household levels. Specifically, we encourage future researchers to operationalize the strategies we identified to quantitatively examine their effectiveness under different circumstances (e.g., employment types such as salaried or self-employed, single parent households, urban vs. rural households). Future research can also examine these boundary management strategies in workplace settings to see how teams and departments manage boundaries at the collective level. Examining how-work from-home practices during and after the pandemic influence boundary management in households and long-term adjustment to work from home is another potential topic that deserves further scholarly attention. Future research can examine strategies adopted by families adjusting to the return to the workplace and to hybrid work experiences.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary material

Data availability

The authors do not have permission to share data.