Daily shifts in work–nonwork boundaries: The roles of perceived boundary misfit and boundary preferences.

Abstract

Dynamic models of boundary management highlight that how employees manage the boundaries between their work and nonwork roles fluctuates from day to day. However, the antecedents, consequences, and underlying mechanisms of these fluctuations remain unclear. We address this by examining how daily boundary behaviors and boundary preferences jointly shape employees' day-level perceptions of misalignment between their enacted and preferred role boundaries (i.e., perceived boundary misfit) and how these boundary misfit perceptions relate to same-day work-nonwork balance and next-day boundary behaviors. Multilevel path analyses based on data from a 2-week experience sampling study (Level 1, N = 2,244; Level 2, N = 270) showed that daily changes in boundary behaviors toward integration were associated with daily increases in perceived boundary misfit, particularly on days when segmentation preferences were elevated. Daily increases in perceived boundary misfit, in turn, were related to daily decreases in same-day work-nonwork balance and mediated the day-level effect of boundary behaviors on work-nonwork balance. We also observed a recursive pattern: Higher perceived boundary misfit was followed by reduced integration behaviors the next day, indicating behavioral adjustments in response to prior-day boundary misfit perceptions. By adopting a day-level lens, our study demonstrates that fluctuating boundary behaviors and preferences jointly produce perceived boundary misfit, which undermines same-day work-nonwork balance and shapes next-day boundary behaviors. These findings advance dynamic models of boundary management by identifying daily perceived boundary misfit as a mechanism and by revealing a short-term feedback loop through which boundary misfit perceptions shape subsequent boundary behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).