W ORK - FAMILY CONFLICTS

Striking balance between work and family are the two important life domains for most people (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992). Conflict may arise if work and home mutually exclude with one another. Work–family conflict is a source of stress that many individuals experience. Work-family conflict is a definition of interrole conflict in which the role gets pressured from the work and home domains are mutually exclusive (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985, p. 77).

A great many approaches have been used to measure work-family conflict by researchers. Traditionally speaking, work–family conflict has been unidirectionally measured by researchers. That is to say, they studied the conflict that took place when work hindered family (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). In recent days, researchers have started to specify the duality of work–family conflict by taking contrary directions into consideration: work hindrance to family and family hindrance to work (Duxbury,

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Higgins, & Mills, 1992). With a view to entirely catching on to the work–family interface, both directions of work–family conflict (WIF and FIW) need to be considered (Frone et al., 1992; Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985).

Researchers also have set out to consider the different types of work–family conflict (Netemeyer, Boles & McMurrian, 1996; Stephens & Sommer, 1993). Being consistent with Greenhaus and Beutell’s (1985) definition, three types of work–family conflict have been identified in the literature: (a) time-based conflict, (b) strain-based conflict, and (c) behavior-based conflict. If time dedicated to one role makes it difficult to take part in another role, time-based conflict may happen. Strain-based conflict recommends that strain experienced in one role invades and hinders participation in another role, and behavior-based conflict may happen if specific behaviors demanded in one role are unsuitable with behavioral expectation in another role (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). In 1991, Gutek et al. contended that each of these three work–family conflicts has two directions: (a) conflict due types work interfering with family (WIF) and (b) conflict due to family interfering with work (FIW). When these three types and two directions make combinations with six dimensions of work–family conflicts, which are likely to result: (1) time-based WIF, (2) time-based FIW, (3) strain-based WIF, (4) strain-based FIW, (5) behavior-based WIF, and (6) behavior-based FIW. As can be seen in Fig. 2.4(a), six specific dimensions of work–family conflict result from the combination of the types and directions of conflict. Looking over work–family conflict from this perspective raises questions regarding the degree to which the six dimensions have been blended in with the measures and research before.

Fig. 2.4(a) Dimensions of work–family conflict

Materials adapted from Dawn S. Carlson (2000), Construction and Initial Validation of a Multidimensional Measure of Work–Family Conflict, p.251

Directions of Work-Family Conflict Work Interference with

Forms of Work-Family Conflict

In all, this study’s goal is to explore a comprehensive understanding of work–family conflict that can be used so as to have a further comprehension of this complex phenomenon.

Work–family conflict is a source of stress that may affect the relation between work and personal life. More specifically, stress results from a lacking of striking the balance between the individual and the environmental requirements with family or on the job (Eulberg, Weekley, & Bhagat, 1988). This unbalance between the person and environment is a result of conflict between work and family due to the exclusive requirements from the two roles, and work-family conflicts also have been found to

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be positively related with stress (Lambert, Hogan, & Barton, 2003; Triplett, Mullings,

& Scarborough, 1999). Workers suffering from work-family conflicts will possibly feel stressed, which is likely to lead to spillover and arise problems at home (Lambert

& Hogan, 2005).

In spite of a positive relation between job stress and work-family conflicts reported in prior study (i.e., Byron, Bellavia & Frone, 2005), it is still valuable to investigate the relation between job stress and work-family conflicts, when stress is categorized into two stress types (i.e., hindrance-related stress and challenge-related stress). As mentioned above, prior empirical studies (e.g., Boswell et al., 2004; Lepine et al., 2004; Gevers et al., 2009) indicated that hindrance-related stress and challenge-related stress tend to have contrary relationships with employees’ attitudes and performance. And this study argues that both challenge stressor and hindrance stressor inclined to have a positive relation with work-family conflicts. Linney et al.

(2008) indicated that money and social status can buffer the negative impact of work-family conflicts. Therefore, if employees are under challenge stress, challenge stress may motivate them to face change at their work and make achievement in their workplace. In addition, this will result them to devote more energy, effort, time to their work, and help to improve family life in that challenge stress bring employees with promotion and higher salary if they are finished with their job on schedule. Thus, work-family conflicts among them will loosen because employees gain money and social status from their work accompanying challenge stress. On the other hand, hindrance stressor makes employees feel frustration, exhaustion and so on. When they feel frustration or exhaustion at their workplace, this may make them lose their patience and temper to deal with occasional events with their family. Thus, the higher hindrance stressor may make the work-family conflicts even worse. Based on the above rational, the following hypotheses are developed.

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H2a: Challenge stressor has a negative relation with work-family conflicts.

H2b: Hindrance stressor has a positive relation with work-family conflicts.

3. Research Methodology