Work-life Conflict Research Articles

Words matter: The impact of workplace verbal aggressiveness on workgroup relationship conflict, work-life conflict, and employee-organization relationships

Workplace verbal aggressiveness is detrimental to employees and organizations and is perceived as unwanted and unproductive. This study examined whether and how verbal aggressiveness from supervisors and coworkers influences workgroup relationship conflict, employees’ work-life conflict, and employee-organization relationships. An online survey was conducted with 392 full-time employees in the United States. The key findings of this study showed that when verbal aggressiveness abounds in a workgroup, it creates workgroup relationship conflict, which triggers individual employees’ work-life conflict and tarnishes their trust, satisfaction, commitment, and sense of shared power with their organizations.

Ongoing Remote Work, Returning to Working at Work, or in between during COVID-19: What Promotes Subjective Well-Being?

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a massive turn to remote work, followed by subsequent shifts for many into hybrid or fully returning to the office. To understand the patterned dynamics of subjective well-being associated with shifting places of work, we conducted a nationally representative panel survey (October 2020 and April 2021) of U.S. employees who worked remotely at some point since the pandemic (N = 1,817). Cluster analysis identified four patterned constellations of well-being based on burnout, work-life conflict, and job and life satisfaction. A total return to office is generally more stressful, leading to significantly lower probabilities of being in the optimal low stress/high satisfaction constellation by Wave 2, especially for men and women without care obligations. Remote and hybrid arrangements have salutary effects; moving to hybrid is especially positive for minority men and less educated men, although it disadvantages White women's well-being.

A Bibliometric and Co-Occurrence Analysis of Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance helps to maintain an attractive organizational culture and remove work-life conflicts and show the path to employees of how to be more efficient in different work roles. This balanced practice is giving a care and feeling of protection to the employees. It motivates better performance that contributes to employee engagement indices. The main purpose of this study is to report work-life balance pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic by bibliometric analysis. This study analyzed 4,030 “work-life balance” studies published between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019, from the pre-pandemic era, and 1,143 studies published during the pandemic (between January 1, 2020-March 24, 2021). The data were extracted from the Scopus database using keywords “work-life balance” and keywords in titles (items) analyzed using VOSviewer software. Co-occurrence connection between keywords in titles and density visualization based on the total link strength clearly shows that COVID-19 significantly impacted work-life balance and related research.

Investigating the Factors Related to Work-Family Conflicts Experienced by Working Women: A Systematic Review

Context: In recent decades, women’s participation in the labor market has increased dramatically. However, this has confronted working women with work-family conflicts. Objective: This systematic review aimed to find the factors related to work-family conflicts befallen women working. Methods: All scientific articles published on the subject from June 2000 until June 2021 were searched in five databases (Science Direct, Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Google Scholar) using the Keywords of factor, female, working, work-life balance, life-work imbalance. Results: We found 3967 articles in the databases mentioned. After removing duplicate items, the titles and abstracts of 2573 articles were screened, 34 full-texts of which were reviewed, leading to the final selection of 31 articles (13 qualitative studies and 17 quantitative studies). Then we searched for the documents that cited any of the initially included studies, as well as the references of the primarily included studies; however, no additional articles were found in this step. We categorized the factors related to work-life conflicts into four categories and 22 sub-categories. The first category was individual factors (e.g., individual capacities and skills); the second category was interpersonal factors (e.g., spousal support and lack of family support); the third category was organizational factors (e.g., organizational policies and working hours), and the fourth category was cultural factors (e.g., patriarchal hegemony in society and family-friendly culture). Conclusions: First, individual skills are needed to be paid more attention to, such as planning, which may be simply modifiable and has the potential to inform therapeutic interventions and preventative strategies. Second, foremen and directors should be informed about the importance of work-life conflicts experienced by women and their decisive role in creating a work-life balance to help improve their working conditions.

Relationship between daily work connectivity behavior after hours and work-leisure conflict: Role of psychological detachment and segmentation preference.

Work-leisure conflict (WLC) can have a series of negative effects on individuals. Against the backdrop of the rapid development of communication equipment, does individuals' use of communication equipment to handle work during nonworking hours lead to WLC? Previous studies have failed to discuss this relationship. Therefore, based on boundary theory, this study explored the possible effect of work connectivity behavior after hours (WCBAH) on WLC as well as the roles played by psychological detachment and individual segmentation preferences in this relationship. In this study, 82 employees were investigated via daily diary research for a period of 5 continuous working days, and a multilevel model was developed. The results indicated that daily WCBAH is positively related to WLC and that psychological detachment plays a mediating role in this relationship. Individual segmentation preferences can significantly moderate not only the relationship between WCBAH and psychological detachment but also the indirect effect of WCBAH on WLC via psychological detachment. This study increases our understanding of boundary theory and provides management suggestions regarding ways of reducing WLC.

Employee posts on personal social media: the mediation role of work-life conflict on employee engagement.

Personal social media, as a private space, seems to have become another important arena for employees to share work-related posts, and the number of employee posts on social media is proliferating. However, academic scrutiny of the impact of social media usage remains inconclusive, and little is known regarding how employee posts affect employee engagement. The present study aims to fill this crucial gap in the existing research by constructing a conceptual model to unravel how employee posts shared on different personal social media platforms (strong-tie vs. weak-tie) influence employee engagement, as well as the moderating role of post content and employees' work-life segmentation preferences. Taking the Chinese workplace as a case, we conducted a survey of 402 participants from more than 30 organizations. The results revealed that employee posts on strong-tie social media platforms will lower employee engagement via the mediating role of work-life conflict. Moreover, these negative effects can be attenuated for sharing user-oriented posts (vs. organization-oriented posts) and employees with lower segmentation preferences, confirming the moderating role of post content and segmentation preferences. The findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of employee engagement by expanding boundary theory, and provide managerial implications for social media strategies, and organizational support.

Ex post i-deals, work-life balance, and work well-being in the hospitality industry: the moderating role of gender

PurposeThis study aims to examine the effect of several types of ex post idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) on work–life balance and work well-being, focusing on the mediating effect of work–life balance on the relationship between ex post i-deals and work well-being as well as the moderating effect of gender on the relationship between ex post i-deals and work–life balance in the hospitality industry.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a questionnaire survey of 642 hotel managers from developed cities in China and analyze the data with structural equation modeling. This study also conducts on-site interviews among 20 hotel managers to support conclusions of the survey.FindingsThe results indicate that task i-deals as well as career and incentives i-deals significantly promote work–life balance, thereby indirectly improving work well-being. However, the impact of flexibility i-deals on work–life balance and work well-being is insignificant. The influence of career and incentives i-deals on work–life balance for males is slightly stronger than that for females.Practical implicationsThis study has practical implications for hotel employers in terms of using various ex post i-deals to motivate and retain hotel managers by improving personal work–life balance and work well-being.Originality/valueAs one of early attempts to highlight the potential of i-deals to serve as solutions for work–life conflicts and unhappiness issues among hotel managers, this study provides novel insights into the mediating process between ex post i-deals and work well-being from the work–life balance perspective as well as distinct influences of various ex post i-deals on work–life balance for male and female managers.

The stress and resources of higher status hypotheses in light of COVID-19: Effects on work-life conflict and self-rated health

This paper explores the heterogeneous effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees’ well-being regarding their work–life conflicts and self-rated health. Following the stress of higher status and resources of higher status hypotheses, we compared employees with and without supervisory responsibility. We used the third wave of a longitudinal linked employer–employee dataset (LEEP-B3) conducted in 2018/19 and a COVID-19 follow-up survey conducted in late 2020, providing information on 733 employees in establishments having more than 500 employees. Thus, we provide a longitudinal perspective covering the situation before the pandemic and possible pandemic-induced changes. We found that supervisory responsibility offered a comparative advantage for decreasing work–life conflict during the pandemic, but no such difference was detected among non-supervisors. However, there was no significant difference between employees with and without supervisory responsibility for self-rated health. Self-rated health status decreased during the pandemic in both groups to a similar degree. Our results indicate that having supervisory responsibility during the COVID-19 pandemic can be a double-edged sword, acting as both a resource and a stressor when it comes to employees’ work-life conflict and self-rated health.

The role of psychosocial safety climate on flexible work from home digital job demands and work-life conflict.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of employees in flexible work from home has increased markedly along with a reliance on information communication technologies. This study investigated the role of an organisational factor, psychosocial safety climate (PSC; the climate for worker psychological health and safety), as an antecedent of these new kinds of demands (specifically work from home digital job demands) and their effect on work-life conflict. Data were gathered via an online survey of 2,177 employees from 37 Australian universities. Multilevel modelling showed that university level PSC to demands, y=-0.09, SE=0.03, p<0.01, and demands to work-life conflict, y=0.51, SE=0.19, p<0.05, relationships were significant. Supporting the antecedent theory, university level PSC was significantly indirectly related to work-life conflict via demands (LL -0.10 UL -0.01). Against expectations PSC did not moderate the demand to work-life conflict relationship. The results imply that targeting PSC could help prevent work from home digital job demands, and therefore, work-life conflict. Further research is needed on the role of digital job resources as flexible and hybrid work takes hold post COVID.

The stress and resources of higher status hypotheses in light of COVID-19: Effects on work-life conflict and self-rated health (Online-Appendix)

This paper explores the heterogeneous effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees’ well-being regarding their work–life conflicts and self-rated health. Following the stress of higher status and resources of higher status hypotheses, we compared employees with and without supervisory responsibility. We used the third wave of a longitudinal linked employer–employee dataset (LEEP-B3) conducted in 2018/19 and a COVID-19 follow-up survey conducted in late 2020, providing information on 733 employees in establishments having more than 500 employees. Thus, we provide a longitudinal perspective covering the situation before the pandemic and possible pandemic-induced changes. We found that supervisory responsibility offered a comparative advantage for decreasing work–life conflict during the pandemic, but no such difference was detected among non-supervisors. However, there was no significant difference between employees with and without supervisory responsibility for self-rated health. Self-rated health status decreased during the pandemic in both groups to a similar degree. Our results indicate that having supervisory responsibility during the COVID-19 pandemic can be a double-edged sword, acting as both a resource and a stressor when it comes to employees’ work-life conflict and self-rated health.

Mothers as Others in Collegiate Athletic Departments: The Impact of a Gendered Organization on Women Coaches

Work–life conflict and the underrepresentation of women in college coaching have been widely examined topics in sport research. However, more limited attention has been devoted to exploring the influence of parental status on the careers of coaches. The purpose of the study was to understand the experiences of women who voluntarily left the coaching profession because of its perceived incompatibility with motherhood. Utilizing Acker’s Theory of Gendered Organizations framework, the current study interviewed six former National Collegiate Athletic Association women coaches whose collegiate coaching careers ended prematurely due to the difficulty in balancing parental and professional responsibilities. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, three high-order themes were constructed: (a) no space for women; (b) getting out, wanting to be in; and (c) impact of gendered society. Findings indicate that women coaches with children experience unique barriers and challenges, which can ultimately lead to women exiting the college coaching profession. Findings dispel the myth that women “don’t want to coach” and implicate the compounding stress of gender roles in the family and broader society.

Há Tanta Vida Lá Fora! Work-life Conflict, Mulheres e Pós-Graduação em Contabilidade

ABSTRACT Objective: this article discusses women’s experiences during their doctoral education in accounting, focusing on the work-life conflict. Theoretical framework: we adopted feminist theories to discuss the imposed social role on women through the sexual division of labor and how this social role relates to the search for balance between personal and professional life. Method: we adopted constructionism as the epistemological strand and feminist post-structuralism as a theoretical perspective. We conducted in-depth interviews to construct the research corpus. We analyzed the evidence through template analysis and ordered codes according to the research characteristics and purpose. Results: due to the fact that the academic structure replicates the sexual division of labor found in society, imposed dichotomies were found as ‘abandonment or postponement’ of personal life to the detriment of academic life, mainly by issues related to motherhood and the high demands of graduate programs. Conclusions: as a result, we conclude that female doctoral students play several social roles traditionally attributed to women. Therefore, they relegate their personal lives, deciding to postpone marriage and maternity or entering doctoral studies. Thus, considering both the personal relationships built with peers and teachers and the academic institutional environment, the academy still needs to advance to contemplate the trajectory of women so that the difficult choices do not fall on them. The paper contributes to the literature by offering insights and reflections specific to the accounting Brazilian academia.

Uticaj digitalnih tehnologija na angažovanost zaposlenih - studija slučaja kompanije "A" u Srbiji

The rapid and progressive advancement of modern digital technologies and tools, as well as their widespread application, have changed the working environment and working conditions. As a result, many concepts, methods, practices, and activities related to employee engagement must be reconsidered and adapted to the needs of the new workplace. This paper highlights the key changes in employee engagement caused by digital technologies. Obtained results from conducted case study in one IT company from Serbia showed that modern technologies enable remote work, flexible working hours, more challenging and interesting tasks, but also lead to a variety of challenges among which are technologically caused stress, over-reliance on technology, work-life conflict, and burnout syndrome. The findings presented in this paper can be useful for managers and leaders who want to build, improve, and nurture employee engagement in the digital age. Human resource managers also have valuable information on how to develop practices and methods for using digital technologies and tools in the best possible way, without negative effects and consequences on employee engagement.

There’s so Much life out there! Work-life Conflict, Women and Accounting Graduate programs

RESUMO Objetivo: o presente artigo busca problematizar as experiências na pós-graduação e o work-life conflict na vida de doutorandas em ciências contábeis no Brasil. Marco teórico: o presente trabalho se apoia em teorias feministas que discutem o papel social imposto à mulher por meio da divisão sexual do trabalho e como tal papel social se relaciona na busca do equilíbrio entre vida pessoal e profissional. Método: foi adotado o construcionismo, como vertente epistemológica, e o pós-estruturalismo feminista como perspectiva teórica. Para construção do corpus de pesquisa foram realizadas entrevistas em profundidade, analisadas pela técnica de template analysis, com a construção de códigos ordenados, de acordo com as características da pesquisa e a intenção das pesquisadoras. Resultados: devido ao fato de a estrutura acadêmica replicar a divisão sexual do trabalho encontrada na sociedade, foram encontradas dicotomias impostas como ‘abandono ou adiamento’ da vida pessoal em detrimento da vida acadêmica, principalmente por questões relacionadas à maternidade e às altas cobranças dos programas de pós-graduação. Conclusões: como resultado, conclui-se que as doutorandas desempenham diversos papéis sociais tradicionalmente atribuídos às mulheres. Para tanto, relegam a vida pessoal, tomando a decisão de postergar casamento e maternidade ou a entrada no doutorado. Assim, consideradas tanto as relações pessoais construídas com pares e professores quanto o ambiente institucional acadêmico, a academia ainda precisa avançar para contemplar a trajetória de mulheres, de forma que as difíceis escolhas não recaiam sobre elas. O presente trabalho contribui para a literatura ao lançar olhares e reflexões específicas da academia contábil do Brasil.

THE ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL TRUST ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORK-LIFE BALANCE A

The most critical and sensitive resource of business organizations is their employees. Therefore, job satisfaction, mental peace and life balance of employees play a major role in the efficiency and performance of an organization. Work-life balance has an essential role in job satisfaction. Work-life conflict occurs when people can not have enough time and energy on their duties and responsibilities both in their business and private lives. Work-life balance also improves organizational trust which can lead the employees to stronger job satisfaction and enable them to have a sense of belonging. In this study, it is aimed to examine the reflection of work-life balance of employees on their trust in the organization, and the reflection of this trust on their job satisfaction. In this context, both the effect of work-life balance on organizational trust, the effect of organizational trust on job satisfaction and the direct effect of work-life balance on job satisfaction were investigated. In order to test the research model, a survey including the scales of the variables and demographical questions is conducted to the employees of a company operating in the aviation sector in Ankara, Turkey, chosen by the convenience sampling method. The results were statistically analyzed in the SPSS 21 program. The main research question of the study, whether organizational trust has a mediating role in the effect of work-life balance on job satisfaction, was answered by hierarchical regression analysis. The results obtained confirm the hypotheses and the whole research model and reveal that organizational trust has a partial mediating role in the effect of work-life balance on job satisfaction.

THE IMPACT OF WORK-LIFE CONFLICT AND DUAL-CAREER COUPLE ON JOB SATISFACTION WITH THE MODERATING ROLE OF PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT

The major intent of this research is to inspect the impact of work-life conflict, job stress and work overload of dual-career life partners on job contentment and how perceived organizational support moderates their relationship. We collected data from 170 employees of different organizations and companies in the capital city Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Moderation regression inspection was used to get results from the data and close-ended and adopted questionnaires were used in order to collect data. Analysis findings described that work overload, job stress and work-life conflict have a negative impact on job satisfaction in dual-profession couples. And if the organization provides support, then these problems may reduce. This study helps and guides managers, policymakers and market leaders in order to develop a flexible and supportive organizational culture to boost their workers’ job contentment. The data we collected for this study was mainly from two cities in Pakistan, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. So we are not able to generalize this study to the whole country. Other researchers and investigators may target other problems of dual-career professionals and they can target other cities’ populations.

Psychosocial risk in healthcare workers after one year of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed the capacity of the healthcare system, affecting the volume of demands and the care tasks of healthcare workers. To examine the health indicators and exposure to psychosocial risks of Spanish healthcare workers 1 year into the COVID-19 pandemic and compare them with the results of the first wave. We conducted a cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire (April-May 2020 and 2021). The data stem from the COTS 1 project database, corresponding to the first wave of COVID-19 (n = 1989) and COTS 2 (n = 1716) corresponding to 1 year later. The samples were independent. The prevalence of exposure to psychosocial risks and adverse health indicators was estimated for every occupational group, segregating the data by sex. Professionals of all types presented worse perception of health. In general, the results were worse for women, while geriatric assistants presented the greatest exposure to psychosocial risk in COTS 2 compared to COTS 1. Sleep problems, high quantitative demands and high concern about becoming infected and spreading COVID-19 were cross-disciplinary in COTS 1, while worse perception of health, high pace of work, high work-life conflict and low development opportunities stood out in COTS 2. Exposure to psychosocial risks was already high during the first wave and a significant decline in working conditions was observed. The prolongation of the pandemic exacerbated these results and seems to have multiplied the pre-existing inequalities between the axes of segregation in the labour market.

Managing work and nonwork responsibilities when labour protection is weak: The role of family supportive supervisor behaviours

AbstractKnowledge concerning the reconciliation of work and life in developing countries with weak labour protection and little governmental support (e.g. statutory work–life support) is still very limited. In this mixed‐method study, we explore how employees manage their work and nonwork responsibilities in Lebanon—a developing country with poor national and organisational work–life support. Findings from a qualitative study of 10 blue‐ (BC),10 white‐collar (WC) workers and 10 HR professionals from companies in various industries identified contextual challenges and strategies to reconcile work and nonwork responsibilities. In a quantitative study based on a survey of 269 employees, we examined the effect of family supportive supervisor behaviour (FSSB) for different groups of workers and explored one potential mechanism of FSSB, namely, schedule fit. Results show that FSSB increases employees' perceptions of schedule fit, which, in turn, minimises their work–life conflict (WLC). We also found that BC workers seem to benefit more from FSSB than WC workers. We inform work–life research on less supportive contexts and offer practical recommendations for HR managers to operate successfully within these environments.

Diversifying gender equity in leadership in public relations: the role of mentoring and instrumental support at the organizational level

PurposeThe rise of a professional career presents women in today's public relations profession an intense challenge in balancing professional and family responsibilities. Therefore, this study is motivated to investigate female public relations professionals' perceptions of work–family conflict in their daily life. Specifically, the authors focused the research on women working in the professions of communication and public relations in the United States.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was designed and conducted in the United States. The final sample includes 512 women working full-time in public relations and communication. In addition, the authors pre-specified several demographic quotas in sampling design in order to recruit a diverse group of female professionals nationwide.FindingsThe findings of this research study confirmed that female professionals have to constantly make changes to their plans for family activities when there is a conflict due to work-related duties. Such impact is particularly intense for professionals in the age bracket of 31–40. They have to use a wide variety of coping strategies to manage the work–family conflict. Findings in the present research study confirmed the critical role of mentoring in providing extra support and to help junior female professionals find coping solutions. Effective mentor–mentee networks can be established and used as valuable resources to support women in managing work–family conflict.Originality/valueBy investigating current female professionals' perceptions on work–life conflict and their adoption of relevant coping strategies in the workplace, this research provides solid evidence that organizations should dedicate efforts in providing strong support in programs and policies and makes the options available to female professionals at all levels. The present research highlights the importance of building mentor–mentee relationships as an effective supportive approach when managing work–family conflict.

Employee Performance Analysis Along Work from Home During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Purpose: The aim of the study was to analyze the effect of work environment and workload on employee performance mediated by work motivation along Work From Home during the COVID-19 pandemic at the Department of Manpower and Transmigration, North Musi Rawas Regency, North Sumatra, South Indonesia Theoretical framework: Recent literature has reported there are three dimensions of implementing or realizing work from home including, the dimensions of transformation space, time, and social roles. Employees who do not have clear boundaries between roles at home and work will create more work-life conflicts (Kinman, 2016) and (Putnik et al., 2018) from the results of research (Sheikh, 2010) stated that doing work and family tasks concurrently makes employees face multiple conflicts and roles, apart from having to divide work space and family life space Design/methodology/approach: The sample of the study was all employees and partners of the Manpower and Transmigration Office of North Musi Rawas Regency as many as 109 people. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis is used to analyze the data which is run through the AMOS 24 program Findings:The results of the research carried out prove simultaneously that workload, work motivation and work environment have a significant and positive effect on performance, which partially each variable workload, work motivation and work environment affect the performance, but work motivation variables have a very dominant impact on the employee performance, while the work environment and also workload have a significant and positive effect on the work motivation. This proves that work motivation is a very important mediating variable in improving the performance of the employee during the COVID-19 pandemic by working at home. Research, Practical &amp; Social implications: The theoretical implication is that this research is expected to be a reference for further researchers, especially in terms of increasing employee productivity during the pandemic, especially for those who wish to conduct research in the public and business service sectors. The practical implication of this research is that research can be done on work supervision variables, in addition to workload, work environment, work motivation during this pandemic so that a comparison can be seen on the achievement of the results. While the supervision of work during Work From Home. Originality/value: The results of this study prove that work motivation is a very important mediating variable in improving employee performance while working at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic