BACKGROUND: In an increasingly competitive marketplace, workers struggle to find a good balance between work and personal life. Difficulties in fulfilling the demands arising from these different domains may undermine employees’ well-being and job-related outcomes, thereby, impairing organizational productivity. OBJECTIVE: Does resilience play a relevant role in relation to work-life interface? And, if so, how is resilience related to its three facets (i.e., work-life conflict, enrichment, and balance)? To answer these questions, the current paper systematically reviews studies analysing the role of resilience in the work-life interface. METHODS: A key terms literature search was performed using multiple electronic databases (i.e., Scopus, PsycINFO, Web of Science, PubMed) without setting any publication date limitation. The review process followed the international PRISMA statement guidelines. A quality assessment was conducted using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. RESULTS: A total of 26 eligible papers published between 2009 and 2020 were included. Among these, 6 employed a qualitative design, while 20 studies adopted a quantitative design mostly examining resilience as antecedent. Data were predominantly collected in the healthcare sector. Resilience was mainly analysed in relation to work-life conflict. The most commonly used theoretical framework was Conservation of Resources theory. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, resilience was negatively associated with work-life conflict and positively related to both work-life balance and enrichment. A positive work-life balance can promote resilience, but resilience can also help workers to balance work and life. Additionally, resilience can protect from the negative effects of both work-life imbalance and work-life conflict on workers’ health and job-related outcomes.

In the service sector, customer-related social stressors may weaken employees’ well-being, impairing job-related outcomes. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources theory and on the psychology of sustainability, fostering personal resources become critical to encourage service providers who can effectively manage such job demands. This study investigated how customer-related social stressors and customer orientation influence service recovery performance and whether resilience buffers the negative effects of customer incivility on service recovery performance. One hundred and fifty-seven Italian customer-contact employees completed a questionnaire analyzing customer incivility, customer-related social stressors, resilience, customer orientation, and service recovery performance. Regression analyses and SEMs were conducted. Although all customer-related social stressors indirectly and negatively influenced service recovery performance by increasing burnout symptoms, customer incivility only exerted a direct and detrimental impact on service recovery performance. Customer orientation was directly and positively associated with service recovery performance. Highly resilient employees were less affected by variations in service recovery performance across customer incivility levels. Within the psychology of sustainability framework, promoting resilient workplaces is crucial to foster healthy and sustainable work settings. Service organizations can greatly benefit from providing their employees with psychological resilience training programs, cultivating high customer-oriented attitudes through mentoring sessions, and hiring highly customer-oriented and resilient employees for customer-contact occupations.

Although a growing body of research has analyzed the determinants and effects of technostress, it is still unclear how and when technostress would impact workers’ psycho-physical health and work-family interface during the pandemic. To fill this gap, this study tests the mediating mechanisms and the boundary conditions associated with the impact of technostress on workers’ psycho-physical well-being and work-family conflict. A total of 266 Italian workers completed online questionnaires measuring (traditional vs. remote) working modalities, technostress, fear of COVID-19, working excessively, psycho-physical distress, work-family conflict, loss of a loved one due to COVID-19, and resilience. Structural equation models were performed. Results indicated that technostress was positively related to psycho-physical distress and work-family conflict, as mediated by fear of COVID-19 and working excessively, respectively. The loss of a loved one exacerbated the effects of fear of COVID-19 on psycho-physical health, while resilience buffered the effects of working excessively on work-family conflict. Since numerous organizations intend to maintain remote working also after the COVID-19 emergency, it is crucial to study this phenomenon during its peaks of adoption, to prevent its potential negative outcomes. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.

This study analyses for the first time whether and when moral distress may be related to work-family conflict and burnout. Additionally, this study examines whether resilience and positive refocusing might protect healthcare professionals from the negative effects of moral distress. A total of 153 Italian healthcare professionals completed self-report questionnaires. Simple and moderated mediation models revealed that moral distress was positively related to burnout, directly and indirectly, as mediated by work-family conflict. Highly resilient professionals experienced low work-family conflict, regardless of moral distress levels. Moreover, professionals who frequently used positive refocusing were less vulnerable to burnout following moral distress.