Are night owls more robust to commuting? The role of chronotypes in commuting

Many employees spend a significant portion of their workday commuting to and from work, albeit with considerable day-to-day variability in those commutes. Based on the time-scarcity perspective, scholars have reached a consensus that time spent commuting is generally draining for employees. This raises an important question: Do all employees have negative reactions to longer commuting times? Challenging this view, we use a temporally based chronotype fit perspective to argue that time spent commuting is less fatiguing for some people compared to others. We propose that at the within-person level, morning (evening) commuting time negatively relates to work (family) role performance via fatigue at work (home). The chronotype moderates the within-individual effects of time spent commuting on fatigue and performance at work and home. The harmful effects of time spent commuting on fatigue and performance are attenuated for persons with a biological preference for evening activity. These effects stand in contrast to previous research that predicted workplace advantages for those individuals with a biological preference for morning activity. We also propose the spillover effects of fatigue at work on fatigue at home and of work role performance on family role performance. Two experience sampling method surveys largely support our hypotheses.