Navigating boundary-less work: how family-supportive leadership reshapes the impact of work-family blurring on professional women’s job engagement and taking charge in the digital transformation

In the context of a digital transformation that is fundamentally refining the nature of work and leadership dynamics, this research examines the mediating role of job engagement and the moderating role of family supportive supervisor behavior in the relationship between work-family role blurring and taking charge. A moderated mediation model is constructed using boundary theory and work-family border theory as foundational frameworks. The data were collected from 275 professional women in China. Moreover, family supportive supervisor behavior which is a key manifestation of supportive leadership in the modern, boundary-less workplace moderates the relationship between work-family role blurring and job engagement. Additionally, moderated mediation results confirm that a higher level of family supportive supervisor behavior increases professional women’s taking charge level through the indirect effect of work-family role blurring via job engagement. The findings highlight that in an era of pervasive digital connectivity, cultivating family supportive supervisor behaviors is a crucial strategy for management to mitigate role blurring and enhance professional women’s proactive workplace behaviors. This study enriches our understanding of the underlying processes of taking charge by developing a more comprehensive model that integrates the challenges of digital-era work design with the resource-providing function of leadership.