Is digital technology the magic bullet for performing work at home? Lessons learned for post COVID-19 recovery in hospitality management

PURPOSE: The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly brought about a number of disruptions to when and where work is undertaken for hospitality employees. The rapid spread of COVID-19 forced many hospitality managers to use digital technologies to perform work from home, termed digital work connectivity. Yet little is known about how hospitality employees cope with it. The purpose of this study is to investigate an important yet underspecified issue as to how digital work connectivity can be detrimental for employees’ work behavior. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: We test our hypotheses using multi-wave and multi-source data collected from 467 middle managerial-level hospitality employees in China. FINDINGS: The findings show that digital work connectivity can lead to self-control depletion, which in turn is associated with disengagement from work. Further, the findings show that relational energy is an important resource that can buffer the detrimental effects of digital work connectivity on hospitality employees. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The association of digital work connectivity with employee withdrawal behavior highlights the urgent need for hospitality enterprises to have clear guidelines that regulate technology use at home for work purposes. SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS: Our research shows that the absence of clear guidelines in relation to the use of digital technology for work at home risks producing unintended consequences for both hospitality employees and their enterprises. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Our research draws from recent advances in resource allocation theories of self-control and adopts a more nuanced approach to uncover a counterintuitive reality that while people use digital technology to remain connected with work, doing so can actually contribute to their withdrawal behavior.