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What if people’s private life constrained their career decisions? Examining the relationship between home-to-career interference and career satisfaction

Tess Schooreel (Faculteit Economie en Bedrijfswetenschappen, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium)
Kristen Michelle Shockley (Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA)
Marijke Verbruggen (Faculteit Economie en Bedrijfswetenschappen, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium)

Career Development International

ISSN: 1362-0436

Article publication date: 8 May 2017

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Abstract

Purpose

Previous research suggests that employees often make family-related career decisions (Greenhaus and Powell, 2012). The authors extend this idea and explore the concept of “home-to-career interference,” defined as the extent to which people perceive that their private life has constrained their career decisions to date. The authors expect that home-to-career interference has a negative impact on employees’ later career satisfaction via career goal self-efficacy and perceived organizational career support. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected quantitative data at three points in time, each six months apart in a Belgian telecommunications organization. Using the full information maximum likelihood path analysis approach, the authors performed analyses on a sample of dual-earner employees.

Findings

The results showed that employees’ home-to-career interference related negatively to their career goal self-efficacy and perceived organizational career support, which were, in turn, positively related to their career satisfaction.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the work-family literature by introducing the concept of home-to-career interference, by clarifying the mechanisms through which home-to-career interference relates to career satisfaction and by testing these relationships using a three-wave longitudinal design.

Keywords

Citation

Schooreel, T., Shockley, K.M. and Verbruggen, M. (2017), "What if people’s private life constrained their career decisions? Examining the relationship between home-to-career interference and career satisfaction", Career Development International, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 124-141. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-03-2016-0037

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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