Although organizational expectations on electronic-message monitoring (OEEM) have become prevalent in companies, scholars have paid little attention to the effects of OEEM on employee outcomes, especially work-family conflict. Drawing on job demands-resource theory and the dualistic model of passion, we develop a theoretical model to explore how and when OEEM influences the work-family conflict of employees. Via two scenario-based experiments (N = 164, N = 184) and a multi-wave field study (N = 352), we find that OEEM can increase the work-family conflict of employees by increasing their obsessive passion and reducing their harmonious passion. Moreover, external CSR can weaken the positive relationship between OEEM and employees’ obsessive passion as well as the indirect effect of obsessive passion on the relationship between OEEM and work-family conflict. Our study contributes to the understanding of the effect of OEEM on employees’ work-family conflict and sheds light on the social impact of external CSR on the mitigation of the negative effect of OEEM on employees’ work-family conflict in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
