The structure of ownership and control in organizations: does organizational identification attenuate the relationships of work‐to‐family conflict and job strain with job search behavior?

Abstract

Based on conservation of resources theory, this study investigates how work‐to‐family conflict may lead to job strain and job search behavior. Using social identity theory, it also examines how organizational identification and worker cooperatives influence the relationships of both work‐to‐family conflict and job strain with job search behavior. Using a longitudinal data set of 305 employees in 25 worker cooperatives and 27 matched conventional corporations, we tested a set of hypotheses through multilevel moderated mediation and mediated moderation analyses. We found that worker cooperatives indirectly moderate, via organizational identification, the associations between work‐to‐family conflict and job search behavior and between job strain and job search behavior. Our findings suggest that the effects of work‐to‐family conflict and job strain on job search behavior may be contingent on the structure of ownership and control in organizations and the degree of employees' organizational identification.