Rethinking food at work: an examination of structural and social constraints and resource loss across the work-home interface

Abstract Although food-related behavior has become a topic of growing interest in organizational research, it is typically studied as a matter of individual choice about food content. In this study, we expand this conceptualization by examining the temporal, structural, and social contexts in which food-related decisions unfold. Based on an inductive analysis of interviews with workers managing type 2 diabetes, we examine how structural and social constraints at work influenced workers’ capacity to make and enact food-related decisions, including what, when, where, and how to eat. Applying tenets of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory in the final stages of our analysis, we show how workplace conditions can function as a resource caravan passageway, shaping workers’ access to several interrelated personal resources (e.g., time, energy, and willpower) critical to making and enacting these decisions. Drawing from participants’ accounts, structural and social constraints at work contributed to recurring cycles of resource loss across the work-home interface, leaving workers increasingly vulnerable to future threats. Beyond broadening the conceptualization of food-related behavior in organizational research, our findings extend work design theory by highlighting the need to account for how workplace conditions affect workers’ capacity to manage personal needs within and around work systems. We also offer an empirical elaboration of COR theory by illustrating how resource loss cycles unfold in everyday experiences across the work and home domains. We conclude by highlighting practical strategies organizations can adopt to support workers’ capacity to make and enact food-related decisions and promote well-being and performance at work.