The goal of this study was to address the following research question: How do couples with young children make micro work‐family decisions? Using a qualitative approach, we interviewed 29 couples, ...both together and apart, about work‐family decision‐making, including common routines (work hours, childcare/school drop‐offs, and pickups) and daily decisions (dealing with sick kids and unexpected work). We analysed over 200 decisions using thematic and critical incident analysis, and came to understand the stories in our data from the lens of decision logics. We observed that different types of couples made different choices because they had different rules for appropriate behaviour guiding their decisions. This way of making decisions is consistent with the logic of appropriateness model of decision‐making, in which decisions are made by following rules that are derived from identity construals. We observed that couples’ rules emanated from their joint family identity construals, rather than their individual construals. This is a novel finding that drives theory on decision‐making forward by showing how this decision logic can apply when couples are the decision‐making unit. Practically, our results can be applied to broaden employers’ awareness of how work and family responsibilities can be met by different employees and to increase couples’ knowledge of alternative approaches.
Practitioner points
Employees who are part of dual‐income couples make work‐family decisions based on their family identities, but there are numerous ways to construe family identities and employers should not assume that all men see their family roles as providers, nor do all women see their family roles as caregivers.
Employers should welcome employees’ suggestions about how they can best complete their work and should recognize that employees can be creative when it comes to managing work and family demands.
Employers should promote a more open environment in which employees and managers can discuss their work and family situations, and how they approach meeting family demands.
Interventions could be designed to help dual‐income couples increase their own understanding of their family identities and their awareness of different ways to be a dual‐income couple.
Many organizations are blurring the boundaries between work and nonwork through practices such as flextime, telecommuting, and on-site day-cares. Such integration of work and nonwork is purported to ...help employees find the seemingly elusive "work-life balance." Scholarly investigations of this issue have increased in number, but a standard measure of work-nonwork boundary strength has yet to emerge. The purpose of this research is to explore the boundary strength construct through the process of measure validation. In Study 1, data were collected from students (N = 162) to pilot test the measure. Study 2 was a longitudinal field study in which data were collected from employees of Canadian organizations (Survey 1: N = 193; Matched data for Surveys 1 & 2: N = 205). Confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesized two-factor structure of the work-nonwork boundary strength measure, confirming the importance of differentiating boundary strength at home (BSH) and boundary strength at work (BSW). Longitudinal analyses confirmed the structural invariance of the measure and revealed that boundary strengths are relatively stable over a period of 1 year. Role identification was related to boundary strength at home only. Weak boundaries, both at home and at work, were associated with high inter-role conflict.
How do daily experiences affect work-nonwork boundaries? In this paper, we present a dynamic framework of boundary permeability that aims to answer this question. We propose that daily events are ...associated with increases in permeation across daily work and nonwork boundaries, and that these increases are strongest on the days when the events occur. We further argue that support seeking and social capitalization are critical interpersonal processes that provide additional insights into the relations between daily events and daily boundary permeation. In Study 1, working parents (N = 88) completed a paper diary for seven days (612 observations), with repeated measures of daily events (hassles and uplifts) and daily work and nonwork boundary permeation. In Study 2, employed individuals (N = 138) completed a similar diary on-line (834 observations) that also included measures of the interpersonal processes. Results of both studies were generally consistent with our hypotheses, and offered support for our dynamic framework. At a practical level, our findings reinforce the importance of incorporating flexibility into human resources practices that are meant to support employees' efforts to manage the work-nonwork interface - because every day brings about new events.
This longitudinal study examines how person–organization fit, operationalized as congruence between perceived and preferred organizational culture, relates to employees’ affective commitment and ...intention to stay with an organization during the early stages of a strategic organizational change. Employees in a large energy company completed surveys before (
N
=
687) and after (
N
=
627) the change. We measured perceptions and preferences with regard to four components of organizational culture (human relations, open systems, internal process, and rational goal) derived from the Competing Values Model (
Quinn, 1988), as well as affective commitment to the organization and intention to stay. Using polynomial regression and response surface analyses, we found that both perceived culture and culture fit related positively with the criterion variables within and across time. The strongest evidence for relations involving fit was obtained for those components of culture specifically targeted for change. Implications for future research and the management of organizational change are discussed.
Employees today are involved in many different types of activities outside of work, including family, volunteering, leisure, and so on. The purpose of this study was to understand how participation ...in such nonwork activities can both enrich and interfere with well-being and behavior at work. Four dimensions of nonwork-to-work spillover were examined to better understand this process (i.e., positive emotional, negative emotional, positive behavioral, and negative behavioral). Survey data were collected in 2 waves from 293 staff and faculty members of a large Canadian university (
N
= 108 matched surveys from both waves). We found that volunteering is associated with increased well-being and work satisfaction, and that it creates positive emotional and behavioral, and negative behavioral spillovers. We also found that sports, recreation, and fitness are associated with improved well-being and positive emotional spillover. Negative spillover is associated with negative outcomes.
Full text
Available for:
CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine associations between work-family conflicts, threat appraisals, self-efficacy, and emotional exhaustion. Threat appraisal was hypothesized to mediate ...relations between work-family conflicts (work-to-family and family-to-work) and emotional exhaustion. Self-efficacy was hypothesized to moderate relations between work-family conflicts and threat appraisal, with relations expected to be weaker for individuals high in self-efficacy.Design methodology approach - University employees (n=159; 67 percent female) participated in this non-experimental study. Data were gathered via questionnaire. Two-thirds of participants completed measures of work-family conflicts and threat-appraisal a few weeks prior to completing measures of self-efficacy and emotional exhaustion; remaining participants completed one cross-sectional survey.Findings - Observed relations were consistent with predicted mediation hypotheses. Contrary to predictions, self-efficacy did not moderate relations between work-to-family conflict and threat-appraisal and the relation between family-to-work conflict and threat-appraisal was stronger for those with higher self-efficacy. Self-efficacy was negatively related to emotional exhaustion.Practical implications - Organizations should foster positive work-family climates to help alleviate work-family conflicts. Managers should demonstrate compassion when dealing with employees who have serious family concerns, as even efficacious individuals may find such situations threatening.Originality value - This research integrates stress theories with research on the work-family interface. The relevance of threat appraisal and the role of self-efficacy are highlighted.
This research examined polychronicity, which refers to an individual’s preference for working on many things simultaneously as opposed to one at a time. It was hypothesized that supplies–values fit ...on this temporal variable is related to well-being. Specifically, it was predicted that deficient and excess polychronicity supplies are associated with poorer well-being, and that well-being is uniformly high along the continuum of polychronicity fit. It was also hypothesized that fit effects are stronger for individuals who place high importance on how their time is allocated than for individuals who place low importance on that dimension. Participants in Study 1, a laboratory experiment, were students (
N
=
266); participants in Study 2, conducted in a field setting, were employees of Canadian organizations (
N
=
746). No fit effects were observed in Study 1. Consistent with the hypotheses, however, fit on the dimension of polychronicity was related to job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and psychological strain in Study 2. The role of value importance as a moderator of the relation between supplies–values fit and well-being was not supported.
Although advocates of teamwork suggest that teams enhance performance, empirical evidence does not consistently, or robustly, support these claims. Still, a belief in the effectiveness of teams—among ...managers, employees, and the general lay population—seems very strong. What accounts for this ‘romance of teams’? In this paper, we offer a psychological answer to this question. We review evidence regarding the actual effectiveness of teams, in order to show that teams are not as effective as many believe them to be, and we argue that the romance of teams stems from the psychological benefits of group‐based activity. Specifically, we propose that team members experience both social‐emotional, and competence‐related, benefits, and we review an eclectic mix of research in support of this claim. We argue that these psychological benefits of teams lead people to assume that teams are ‘high performance’, thus, causing the romance of teams. Finally, we discuss potential implications of the romance for organizations, researchers, and employees.
Balancing multiple roles is a challenge for individuals in many sectors of the population. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that individuals have dispositional tendencies to ...experience interrole conflict and facilitation. We also aimed to show that coping styles and life satisfaction are correlates of dispositional conflict and facilitation tendencies. Two survey studies were conducted with individuals involved in 3 life roles (i.e., employee, student, and family member; Study 1:
N
= 193; Study 2:
N
= 284). The hierarchical structure of conflict and facilitation was examined in both studies. Support for the dispositional model was found in both cases through the use of hierarchical confirmatory factor analyses. In Study 2, a longitudinal assessment of the nomological network surrounding conflict and facilitation tendencies was conducted with structural equation modeling analyses; we found that coping styles had synchronous relations with dispositional conflict and facilitation; dispositional conflict had a lagged and negative relation with life satisfaction.
Full text
Available for:
CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ
In our paper "The romance of teams: Toward an understanding of its psychological underpinnings and implications," we offered a psychological explanation of a puzzling situation: the apparent mismatch ...between faith in team effectiveness and the research evidence regarding team effectiveness. Needless to say, we read the four commentaries by Meindl (2004), Paulus & Van der Zee (2004), West, Brodbeck & Richter (2004), and Cordery (2004) with considerable interest and we appreciated the ideas offered by these authors. If anything unites the four commentaries, it is the desire to see more - and better - research on teams. To West et al's pair of critical questions, we add a third question that must be answered first. Are teams the most appropriate work design for this task - or can the goals be accomplished better in other ways? As we imply in our paper, it is not impossible that researchers themselves have been too dazzled by the idea of teamwork to take this question as seriously as they might.
