When Support and Passion Enrich Work and Home: The Role of Using Your Strengths
A study of 357 academics at public universities in Vietnam finds that social support at work and harmonious passion are positively related to work–home enrichment. Using one's strengths significantly moderated those relationships, which suggests that support and passion work together with the chance to use one's strengths.
Context
Research on sustainable careers asks how people can do well at work and at home over the long term. One part of that picture has had little study: how contextual resources, such as support from the workplace, and personal resources, such as a person's passion and strengths, depend on and interact with each other to help work and home life enrich one another.
The study addresses that gap. It looks at whether social support at work and harmonious passion help build work–home enrichment, and at what role strengths use plays in those links.
Methods
The authors combine conservation of resources theory with the sustainable career framework. They tested their hypotheses with a two-wave research design. The final sample was 357 academic respondents from public universities in Vietnam.
Key findings
Social support at work and harmonious passion were both positively related to work–home enrichment.
Strengths use significantly moderated these relationships.
The authors describe using one's strengths as a fundamental boundary condition for how support and passion relate to work–home enrichment.
For organizations, the practical message is to build a supportive environment and give people opportunities to draw on social support and apply their strengths. The authors say this can help people become more passionate and enrich their work and home activities.
Policy implications
The authors say organizations should cultivate a supportive environment and opportunities to help individuals utilize social support and exert their strengths to be more passionate and enrich their work–home activities. The authors write that organizations can assist employees in identifying, recognizing, and utilizing their strengths via effective personal development programs and strength-based interventions. The authors add that in collectivist cultures, where family obligations are central to individuals’ responsibilities, organizations should consider the cultural context when designing these supportive practices.
Keywords:
Work–Home Enrichment
Social Support
Harmonious Passion
Strengths Use
Sustainable Careers
Conservation of Resources Theory
Link:
Citation:
Nguyen, D. T. N., Nguyen, H., Teo, S. T. T., Nguyen, N. T. H., & Quan, T. H. M. (2025). The interactional effects of contextual and individual factors on work–home enrichment. Personnel Review.
