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1 – 10 of 117Katie M. Lawson, Soomi Lee, Claire Smith and Kelsey C. Thiem
The COVID-19 pandemic may negatively impact the careers of U.S. women faculty in computer science (CS) – a field with few women and high attrition rates among women – due to…
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic may negatively impact the careers of U.S. women faculty in computer science (CS) – a field with few women and high attrition rates among women – due to difficulties balancing increased work and family demands (author citation). Thus, it is important to understand whether supervisors may help to decrease this work-to-life conflict and increase the odds of retaining women faculty. This study examined whether family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) were associated with better retention-related job outcomes (e.g., lower turnover intentions) among women faculty in CS, and whether this association was mediated by lower work-to-life conflict.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 379 CS faculty across the U.S. (54% women, 52% with children at home) were surveyed during the COVID-19 pandemic (Fall 2020-Spring 2021).
Findings
Compared to men, women CS faculty reported significantly higher work-to-life conflict, and that higher work-to-life conflict predicted poorer retention-related work outcomes for all faculty. However, for women only, FSSB predicted lower levels of work-to-life conflict, and in turn, better retention-related work outcomes.
Practical implications
Results suggest that emotionally-supportive supervisor behaviors may lower work-to-life conflict during the pandemic, which has important implications for retention-related work outcomes among women faculty in CS.
Originality/value
Research has yet to disentangle how managers can help to retain women CS faculty in light of the increasing and changing work and home demands due to the pandemic. The present study focused on whether FSSB – particularly emotional support – may benefit women CS faculty.
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Munmun Goswami and Lalatendu Kesari Jena
This study explores the interactive domains of work passion, work–life interface and leadership behavior. Drawing support from the Conservation of Resources Theory and the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the interactive domains of work passion, work–life interface and leadership behavior. Drawing support from the Conservation of Resources Theory and the Work-Home Resources Model, we empirically tested the mediating effect of dualistic work passion (harmonious, obsessive) and work-to-life interface (conflict, enrichment) between leadership behavior (transformational, abusive) and subordinates’ life satisfaction. The moderating effect of psychological detachment was also explored.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 292 full-time white-collar workers from the adult Indian population using an online survey. SEM using SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 22.0 was conducted for empirical analysis.
Findings
Harmonious work passion and work-to-life enrichment positively mediated between transformational leadership and life satisfaction, and psychological detachment moderated the relationship between harmonious work passion and work-to-life interface. The mediating role of obsessive work passion and work-to-life conflict between abusive supervision and life satisfaction was not observed, and neither was the moderating role of psychological detachment established.
Practical implications
From the managerial perspective, organizations need to be sensitive to the needs of the diverse workforce they have. Especially in the post-COVID-19 scenario, people are more aware and focused on balancing their work and life domains. Thus, interactive policies and practices are the need of the hour rather than the prevalent blanket one.
Originality/value
This study explores the effect of leadership on subordinates’ life satisfaction, which has not been explored through the pathway of work passion and work-to-family interface. It thus contributes to leadership, work passion and work–life interface research.
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Elizabeth A. Hamilton, Judith R. Gordon and Karen S. Whelan‐Berry
The purpose of this research is to focus on understanding the work‐life conflict of never‐married women without children.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to focus on understanding the work‐life conflict of never‐married women without children.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses survey data from two full‐service health care organizations and a financial services organization. Quantitative methodologies were used to address the study's research questions and hypotheses.
Findings
The findings show that never‐married women without children do experience conflict, specifically work‐to‐life conflict, and often at similar levels to that experienced by other groups of working women. The findings also suggest that work‐life benefits typically provided by organizations are frequently regarded as less important and used less often by never‐married women without children than by other working women.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should increase the sample of never‐married women without children, explore the sources of support these women use in juggling life roles, and incorporate comparative analysis across age and occupation groups as well as with never‐married childless men.
Practical implications
The research finds that not all employees value or utilize the benefits frequently offered by organizations. Human resource departments cannot assume a “one size fits all” approach to benefit administration but must recognize the unique sources of work‐life conflict for an array of employees and develop appropriate strategies to mitigate such conflict.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the work‐life literature by focusing on a vastly understudied group of employees whose growing presence in the workforce necessitates further exploration. This research advocates expanding the definition of work‐life as traditionally defined in the organizational behavior literature, allowing scholars to think more broadly about life roles other than spouse and parent that may have implications for conflict.
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Yeongjoon Yoon and Sukanya Sengupta
Research on the effect of pay cuts/freezes on employee morale is limited. More importantly, past studies examining this relationship tend to focus on fairness perception as a…
Abstract
Purpose
Research on the effect of pay cuts/freezes on employee morale is limited. More importantly, past studies examining this relationship tend to focus on fairness perception as a mediator. This study hypothesizes that work–life conflict also mediates the negative relationship between pay cuts/freezes and employee morale.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 13,139 employees in 1,830 workplaces in Britain in the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Survey were analyzed.
Findings
The analyses confirm the above hypothesis. The results also demonstrate that this mediating mechanism can be mitigated to some extent when work–life balancing practices are available, but much more strongly when they are actually used.
Practical implications
If possible, organizations should provide and encourage employees to use work–life balancing practices when employees' pay needs to be cut or frozen if maintaining employee morale is a concern.
Originality/value
Our study highlights the need to incorporate various theoretical frameworks, and not just the dominant justice/fairness theories, into the study of pay cuts and freezes. The current research demonstrates that the work–life conflict framework can also be applied to understand the relationship between pay cuts/freezes and employee morale.
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Ward van Zoonen, Joost W.M. Verhoeven and Rens Vliegenthart
The purpose of this paper is to examine the negative consequences of work-related social media use, and the extent to which the presence of social media policies in organizations…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the negative consequences of work-related social media use, and the extent to which the presence of social media policies in organizations are able to mitigate these consequences.
Design/methodology/approach
Internet-based survey data (N=575) was analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the indirect effect of social media use on exhaustion through work/life conflict.
Findings
This study shows that there is a dark side to social media use, as employees’ work-related social media use might be intrusive to their personal lives while simultaneously increasing life to work conflict. Furthermore, the results indicate that the current implementation of social media usage policies at work is not sufficient to defend employees against the negative consequences of social media use; namely, work/life conflict and ultimately exhaustion.
Research limitations/implications
The indirect pathways are assessed using cross-sectional data, which makes verifying causal relationships difficult.
Practical implications
The findings underscore the need for contemporary organizations to pragmatically intensify their efforts to mitigate the impacts of boundary conflict on workers’ well-being that result from increased use of social media for work.
Originality/value
This paper is among the first to demonstrate that the use of social media for work is related to exhaustion through increased work/life conflict.
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M. Eugenia Sánchez-Vidal, David Cegarra-Leiva and Christine Cross
Attention on the issue of individual level conflict between work and life roles remains a feature of studies on work-life balance. However, few studies have examined gender…
Abstract
Purpose
Attention on the issue of individual level conflict between work and life roles remains a feature of studies on work-life balance. However, few studies have examined gender differences in the work-to-life conflict (WLC) and the life-to-work conflict (LWC) over a given period in Spain. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap in the literature.
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses a two-wave (2009–2014) sample of working employees with children from an industrial sector in Spain.
Findings
The 2009 results showed no gender differences in WLC; however, women experienced LWC significantly more than men. Conversely, the 2014 results showed more men suffered WLC and no gender differences were found for LWC.
Research limitations/implications
One limitation is that we do not know if the same respondents answered the questionnaires in both time periods. Second, we did not analyse the inter-role conflict experienced by childless or single employees. Finally, and as stated before, findings may not be generalisable to other countries or sectors of activities.
Social implications
Our findings are discussed in the context of the economic crisis, the labour market and family co-responsibility in Spanish society.
Originality/value
Few studies have explored gender differences on inter-role conflict at two time points, and helps to identify key findings in terms of co-responsibility. Furthermore, this research is conducted in Spain, which is under-researched in WLB terms. The paper also identifies two distinct constructs of the inter-role conflict.
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Adem Sav, Neil Harris and Bernadette Sebar
– The purpose of this paper is to explore work-life conflict and work-life facilitation among employed Muslim men, a growing ethno-religious minority in Australia.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore work-life conflict and work-life facilitation among employed Muslim men, a growing ethno-religious minority in Australia.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is guided by the interpretive paradigm and is qualitative in nature. The primary data collection method was semi-structured in-depth interviews and 20 participants participated in the study.
Findings
Australian Muslim men experience both work-life conflict and facilitation simultaneously; however, facilitation is reported more frequently. Work flexibility, work and family support, and religiosity promote work-life facilitation. In contrast, workload and work hours lead to feelings of conflict, with workload being the stronger antecedent. Importantly, religious values and beliefs are an underpinning influence on participants’ experiences.
Research limitations/implications
The study is conducted with a small sample and hence, lacks the power to generalise findings to the broader Muslim male population.
Practical implications
There is a strong need to modify the traditional western models of work-life conflict and facilitation and workplace policies designed to assist workers when dealing with minorities, such as Australian Muslims. By including religion, the research offers a fresh voice to work-life research and encourages to think about the salience of other life domains beside family, an issue of great concern within the work-life literature.
Originality/value
This is one of the few studies to focus on Australian Muslim men and explore how religion fits into the current understanding of work-life balance.
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Sean McGinley and Wei Wei
The purpose of this paper is to examine why and how emotional labor influences hotel employee behavior outside the workplace.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine why and how emotional labor influences hotel employee behavior outside the workplace.
Design/methodology/approach
Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used. First, 21 entry-level hotel managers were interviewed, and grounded theory was used for the analysis of the interview data (Study 1). Then, 410 survey responses were collected from hotel employees, and the data were analyzed using a PROCESS model (Study 2).
Findings
The results of Study 1 indicated that people relied on social support networks and alcohol to cope with emotional labor. Specific hypotheses were tested in Study 2, which found that emotional labor leads to more partying when life and work responsibilities are in conflict.
Practical implications
This research provides strategic guidance for hotel managers to help employees cope with emotional labor by better managing life-work conflict.
Originality/value
This research represents an early attempt to elucidate the effects of emotional labor on individual behavior outside the workplace. Conditions were found across the two studies that suggest the role of emotional labor in increasing alcohol consumption among hotel employees.
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The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effects of work–life balance (WLB) on the employee motivation (EM), job satisfaction (JS) and emloyee performance (EP) of academic…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effects of work–life balance (WLB) on the employee motivation (EM), job satisfaction (JS) and emloyee performance (EP) of academic staff at universities.
Design/methodology/approach
In this regard, the authors collected 490 valid data from academic staff of major public and private universities in Kurdistan Region of Iraq. WLB was evaluated under three dimensions as work interference with personal life (WIPL), personal life interference with work (PLIW) and work personal life enhancement (WPLE).
Findings
The results of the analyses showed that WIPL and PLIW negatively and significantly affected EM but did not have any significant impact on JS. WPLE affected both JS and EM significantly and positively. Lastly, JS did not have significant impact on EP while EM did.
Research limitations/implications
As the research was conducted in Kurdistan Region of Iraq, it cannot be generalized to other countries and cultures.
Practical implications
Besides, the study suggests theoretical and practical implication as it was a special study proposed during COVID 19 lock downs.
Originality/value
There are very limited or no research works which attempt to study the pros and cons of WLB during such a catastrophic time, the study is useful for the university administrators and researchers in this field.
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Maria José Chambel, Vânia Sofia Carvalho, Francisco Cesário and Silvia Lopes
The purpose of this paper is to compare part-time and full-time employees, analyzing the relationship between job characteristics and workplace well-being (i.e. burnout and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare part-time and full-time employees, analyzing the relationship between job characteristics and workplace well-being (i.e. burnout and engagement) and the mediating role of the work-to-life conflict with a sample of 736 employees from 14 Portuguese call center companies.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses were tested with multiple group analysis on two samples: part-time and full-time employees.
Findings
The results confirm that in both the part-time and full-time subsamples employees’ perceptions of job characteristics are related to their well-being, and the work-to-life conflict partially mediates this relationship. Moreover, the study confirms that the relationship between employees’ perceptions of job demands and the work-to-life conflict and between the work-to-life conflict and workplace well-being were stronger for full-time than for part-time employees.
Research limitations/implications
The co-relational and cross-sectional design should be regarded as limitations. Moreover, each variable was only assessed with self-reported measures, and the sample comprised call center employees from only one country (Portugal), which may constrain the generalization of these results.
Practical implications
Part-time work is a good solution in order to prevent the work-to-life conflict. Furthermore, a reduced workload and time pressure, enhanced decision latitude and supervisory support appear to be crucial work characteristics for employees juggling their work with other roles and in the promotion of well-being at work.
Originality/value
This research study provides evidence that the traditional vision of the work-family conflict requires a broader conceptualization by considering the interference between life roles, particularly in the case of full-time young employees.
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