Converting Hybrid-Work Affordances into Usable Resources: Resource-Conversion Mechanisms among Moroccan Vocational Trainers

Résumé

Abstract

This study examines how Moroccan vocational trainers at the Office of Vocational Training and Employment Promotion (OFPPT), convert hybrid-work affordances into usable resources within and across work and non-work domains. An interpretivist, abductive qualitative design was adopted, based on twenty semi-structured interviews in Morocco’s public vocational-training sector. Data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis, within-case reconstruction and cross-case comparison. The Work-Home Resources (W-HR) Model served as the primary sensitizing lens, complemented by an affordance perspective, while NVivo supported data organization, coding and comparison. The analysis identifies three distinct but complementary resource-conversion mechanisms. Temporal resource conversion transforms reduced commuting and scheduling discretion into recovered usable time through release, protection and reinvestment. Cognitive-professional resource conversion transforms temporal and spatial discretion into focused attention, improved organization and perceived professional effectiveness through task-environment alignment and more efficient resource deployment. Capability resource conversion transforms digital adaptation demands into digital and pedagogical competence, adaptability and confidence through learning, practice and accumulated experience. Across these mechanisms, the value of hybrid work depends on whether available affordances can be converted into resources, a process shaped by task characteristics, workload, technological conditions, organizational and peer support, and personal circumstances. Organizations can facilitate conversion through realistic workloads, adequate digital infrastructure, relevant training and sufficient discretion over when and where appropriate tasks are performed. These findings are especially relevant to public institutions navigating digital transformation in the Moroccan context. The study contributes to hybrid-work and work-home research by theorizing resource convertibility as a situated employee-level process linking potentially resourceful work conditions to realized resources. It further distinguishes three conversion logics, resource release and reinvestment, resource deployment, and resource accumulation, helping explain why similar hybrid-work arrangements generate different resource gains across employees and circumstances.

Keywords: hybrid work; telecommuting; resource convertibility; Work-Home Resources Model; work-family interface; vocational trainers; Morocco; human resource management.