Cultural Contingencies of Resources: (Re)Conceptualizing Domestic Employees in the Context of Globalization

At a time when the world is increasingly connected, we applaud Lau & Shaffer’s (2021) effort to shed novel light on the impact of globalization on domestic employees. Despite its merits, we observe two critical theoretical omissions, and interrelated conceptual irregularities in the authors’ treatment of domestic employees and their resources, that may threaten the utility of their work. Overlooking theoretically relevant complexity of the phenomenon, the authors treat resources as exogeneous to specific cultural features of domestic employees and the globalization agent in question. Such a view fails to capture cultural contingencies of resources, making the model unfortunately incomplete. With the aim of ensuring sound theory building, we discuss the authors’ treatment of domestic employees and their resources, and show how addressing them may contribute to stronger theorization.