Just Role with It?: The Impact of Transition Space Harassment on Work Role Engagement

Although millions of employees traverse public space every day on their way to work, this public transition space has been overlooked in much of the management literature, even as public harassment that occurs in this space has increased in prevalence. We delineate the transition space between nonwork and work spaces as a construct, building on theories related to work nonwork borders, role transitions, and organizational space to explain how transition space harassment negatively impacts work role engagement, particularly upon initial movement across the work boundary. We then present a series of propositions to address under what circumstances transition space harassment may impede transitions from into one’s work role and use specific examples and scenarios to illustrate the predictions of our model. Finally, we present ideas for future research examining the transition space and harassment that occurs within that space.