“I Can’t Help at Work! My Family Is Driving Me Crazy!” How Family-to-Work Conflict Diminishes Change-Oriented Citizenship Behaviors and How Key Resources Disrupt This Link

Abstract

This study investigates how employees’ experience of family-to-work conflict might turn them away from change-oriented citizenship behaviors, as well as how this negative link might be buffered by two relational resources (social interaction and goodwill trust) and two organizational resources (distributive and procedural justice). Data collected among employees in the Canadian banking and financial services sector reveal that negative interferences of family with work reduce the likelihood that employees undertake voluntary behaviors that alter and improve the organizational status quo; this effect is weaker though when employees maintain informal relationships with their peers, believe that peers do not take advantage of them, and regard organizational decision-making procedures as fair. The results do not support a buffering effect of distributive justice. This study thus pinpoints different ways organizational change professionals can reduce the risk of diminished change-oriented voluntarism, as might arise due to the spillover of family-related strain into the workplace.