Disentangling the Process of Work–Family Conflict

Abstract

Abstract. The purpose of this conceptual article is to deliver a new framework model for research on work–family conflict (WFC), which overcomes existing limitations. By adopting an organizational stress perspective on WFC we show that WFC should be conceptualized as a process. By disentangling its components we point out several problems of WFC research and how our new approach can help to avoid them. Research on WFC often does not comply with the current standards of organizational stress research. Common WFC measures bear the potential of content that overlaps with determinants and outcomes, which might spuriously inflate correlations. To avoid measurement overlap, we propose to operationalize incompatible demands by interaction effects between the work and the family domain. We further acknowledge that incompatible demands increase the need to make role decisions, which affect direct indicators of WFC like role performance. The separate measurement of the components of the WFC process delivers a more objective insight than measures of WFC that do not capture all those components separately. Many problems of WFC research have been addressed before, but this is the first attempt to solve several of them by providing an overall conceptual model. The propositions we derive from this model can easily be tested in future studies. We also point out how our model could be expanded to include other important concepts of the work–family interface.