Is Small Beautiful? Work-Family Tension, Work Conditions, and Organizational Size

Abstract

Although 55.4% of the U.S. private sector workforce is employed in establishments with fewer than 100 employees (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992), little is known about the implications of small workplaces for workers and their families. Although a large body of research examines the connections between family and employment (see reviews by Hoffman, 1989; Menaghan & Parcel, 1990; Piotrkowski, Rapoport, & Rapoport, 1987), studies either ignore workplace size (Bell, 1382) or focus exclusively on large workplaces (e.g., Friedman, 1991; see Loscocco & Leicht, 1993, for a recent exception). Our purpose in the present research was to compare, for the first time, the connections between women's feelings of tension between family and and conditions in small and large workplaces. Work-family tension as used here is a broad term including feelings that work and family interfere with each other...or...disrupt family life (Voydanoff, 1987, p. 62). We believe that because of some unique features of smaller workplaces, employment there will generate stronger links--both positive and negative--between certain conditions and work-family tensions. Two such unique features were proposed by Bell (1982). The first concerns the nature of supervision and its impact on job experiences. Although large firms are more likely to have more formal structures, rules, and administrative layers, small firms are likely to be less formal and more personal, and to have variable practices for employees (see also Astley's [1985] evolutionary model of bureaucratization). As a result, employees' experiences in small firms may be more subject to the arbitrary influence and discretion of particular superordinates. Although such influences could lead toward either more responsiveness or more exploitiveness toward employees, there is evidence that the greater flexibility of smaller workplaces is associated with greater employee satisfaction (Gunsch, 1991; Idson, 1990), participation, and emotional involvement (Wicker, 1973). The second unique feature proposed by Bell concerns the nature of co-worker relationships. Small employers are more likely than large ones to recruit new employees by relying on informal referrals from family, friends, and current employees. In turn, these preexisting affinities among employees will promote closer interpersonal relationships at work. Manning theory suggests another difference between small and large workplaces. Because small workplaces are more likely to be undermanned, they may provide that is more substantively complex, and employees may be more likely to make decisions, coordinate with each other, and perceive themselves as needed (Greenberg, Wang, & Dossett, 1982; Wicker, 1973). In this scenario, workers will benefit, as suggested by data based on socialization theory. Jobs that are more substantively complex (i.e., less routinized, more autonomous, more multi-faceted, and more likely to involve working with people) enhance workers' intellectual flexibility (i.e., the range and complexity of cognitive reasoning [Kohn & Schooler, 1978; Miller, Schooler, Kohn, & Miller, 1979]) as well as their satisfaction (Gunsch, 1991). Not all features of smaller workplaces will redound to the greater satisfaction of workers. In larger workplaces, the greater rigidity of the bureaucratic structure may protect the worker from the exploitive tendencies of certain superordinates, who at smaller workplaces may have the power to more arbitrarily create the rules, rather than simply up. hold them. And at smaller workplaces employees receive lower wages (Idson, 1990) and fewer benefits (Ferber & O'Farrell, 1991; Small Business Administration [SBA], 1990) than their counterparts in larger firms; low wages may exacerbate work-family tension Menaghan & Parcel, 1990). Although small business employees are less likely to have certain benefits (e. …