A Review Of The Literature Of The Antecedents Of Work-Family Enrichment

The rising and the development of positive psychology and positive organizational behavior has brought an increasing study of work-family enrichment, which has got a fruitful results both in theoretical research and empirical research. However, there are still a certain of problems among the antecedents research of work-family enrichment. On the one hand, extant reviews focus either on specific relationships between a limited number of personal and environmental variables or present selective summaries of the antecedents of work-family enrichment but not a comprehensive overview. On the other hand, extant reviews focus on the independent influences between variables and work-family enrichment, but fail to pay attention to the interactive influences between variables and work-family enrichment. Therefore, this article seeks to fill this void by reviewing work-family enrichment antecedents research from person-environment fit perspective, in order to provide a integrated framework, and to put forward effective suggestions to individuals and organizations when dealing with work-family relationship.The research method of this article are scientometrics method and qualitative research method. We use "Histcite" to make mapping and statistic analysis, by which to locate the most important journals and literature about work-family enrichment. Besides, we review and summarize the status, the trends and the future of work-family enrichment antecedents research by contents analysis.The present review is organized as follows:first, we define the concept of work-family enrichment and investigate the research perspectives of work-family enrichment, and then we summarize the personal variables and environmental variables, and discuss the fit variables from person-environment fit perspective, by which to discover the research status and probe into the research trends. As for the status research, we analyze what can influence work-family enrichment, how to influence and what are the influence results, and for trends research, we focus on the shorts about personal variables and environmental variables, and analyze the shift of research focus in order to deal with the shorts, and then infer the research trends of work-family enrichment antecedents. The last part of the article includes a summary and integration of the finds, along with suggestions for future research.The main conclusions of the article are as follows:first, personal variables contain biographical characteristics and individual differences, which influence work-family enrichment by impacting the perceptions and behaviors when dealing with work-family issues, and personal variables influence not only work to family. enrichment but also family to work enrichment; second, environmental variables contain work-related variables and family-related variables, which influence work-family enrichment by proving direct resources and indirect positive affects, and work-related variables have stronger influence on work to family enrichment while family-related variables have stronger influence on family to work enrichment; third, fit variables contain supplementary fit and complementary fit. Supplementary fit refers to the congruence of personal characteristics and environmental characteristics, and the complementary fit means that the weakness or need of the environment is offset by the strength of the individual, and vice versa, which influence work-family enrichment by impacting the perceived of satisfaction, and fit variables influence both directions of work-family enrichment. As fit variables make up for the shortages of personal variables and environmental variables to some degree, the researches of fit variables have got more attentions. The focus of work-family enrichment antecedents changes from emphasizing environmental variables only to both personal variables and environmental variables independent influences and to personal variables and environmental variables interactive influences.The innovations of this article are as follows:firstly, we systematically summarize what influence work-family enrichment, how to influence and what are the influence results, and discover the research status of work-family enrichment antecedents; secondly, we investigate the interact of personal variables and environmental variables, expand the research of antecedents by increasing the fit variables, probe into the research trends of work-family enrichment antecedents, and call for strengthening attentions to fit variables; thirdly, we build up a integrated framework of the antecedents of work-family enrichment from person- environment fit perspective, and complete the research of antecedents.The limitation of this research is that we we haven’t investigated the relationships between different dimensions and degrees of fit variables and work-family enrichment.