Dana Sumpter Co-Authors Study Identifying How Working Parents Reclaim Control After Workplace and Family Shock Events

In a newly published study in Applied Psychology, Pepperdine Graziadio Business School Professor of Organization Theory and Management Dana Sumpter and co-author Mona Zanhour introduce the concept of "de-agentic boundary management" to explain how sudden external shock events disrupt how working parents manage the line between professional and family life. Analyzing two waves of qualitative data from working mothers navigating remote work and childcare loss, the authors demonstrate that multi-domain shock events—such as pandemics, natural disasters, or major organizational crises—simultaneously destabilize both work and home environments. Under these severe constraints, traditional individual preferences for segmenting or integrating roles are replaced by forced behaviors, making certain boundary management tactics unavoidable out of necessity while rendering preferred strategies entirely unavailable.

The study challenges long-standing assumptions in organizational behavior that employees consistently retain control and agency over when, where, and how they work. As external demands intensify across multiple roles at once, working parents experience heightened cognitive fatigue and boundary violations, forcing them to adopt reactive coping mechanisms rather than proactive schedules. However, the research also tracks how individuals eventually restabilize their roles, identifying key mechanisms through which parents gradually reclaim agency over time to establish new, sustainable work-life boundaries following a crisis.

Ultimately, the findings offer vital insights for organizational leaders and human resource executives seeking to support employees during large-scale operational disruptions. Rather than assuming standard flexibility policies are sufficient, organizations must recognize that shock events severely limit personal agency, requiring proactive institutional support, realistic performance expectations, and empathetic management to help employees navigate role overload without burnout.

Read the full peer-reviewed study in Applied Psychology here.