Developing and Testing a Model of Dynamic Changes in Work-School Conflict and Workplace Deviance Over Time.

Abstract

Work–school conflict is a major stressor for many college students who have paid jobs while in college. Although work–school conflict experience is dynamic, the extant research has predominantly cast it and its consequences as between-person phenomena from a static perspective, ignoring its inherent temporal nature. As a result, little is known about the intra-individual changes in work–school conflict and their associated consequences as implied by the related theory. Drawing on the stressor–emotion model of counterproductive work behavior, we conducted a longitudinal weekly diary study to examine how work–school conflict change can predict changes in negative emotions and workplace deviance (i.e., the change-to-change effects). We also tested core self-evaluation, time management skill, and financial well-being as moderators of the proposed mediated relationship. Results from latent change score modeling showed that upward work–school conflict change had a positive relationship with upward workplace deviance change via upward changes in negative emotions. Further, time management skill and financial well-being weakened the indirect relationships between upward work–school conflict change and upward workplace deviance change. However, the moderating nature of core self-evaluation on the indirect relationship contrasted with our hypothesis. Implications for theory and future research are discussed along with implications for organizations and college institutions.