Family-Supportive Organizational Culture and Fathers' Experiences of Work-family Conflict in Sweden

Abstract

This study explores fathers' experiences with work-family conflict and their perceptions of how supportive the organizational culture at work is regarding fathers' work-family needs, and whether a family-supportive organizational culture is associated with less work-family conflict. A total of 377 fathers working in private Swedish companies were surveyed. While a modest proportion of fathers experienced high levels of work-tofamily conflict, less family-to-work conflict was reported. Further, fathers perceived little work-family support from top managers, supervisors, and co-workers. Our results indicate that the cultures in the examined companies have norms that separate work and family from each other. Fathers seem likely to experience work-family conflict as long as the familysupportive organizational culture, especially at the work group level, is not well-developed. When fathers experience their work organizations as family-supportive, they are likely to be better able to combine work and family and thus to help Swedes achieve a more gender-equal society.

Behaviour-based Work-Family Conflict among Hungarian Manager Fathers

“…Empirical results from the United States (Ladge et al, 2014) as well as Sweden (Allard et al, 2011) showed that those men who are more family oriented and those living in dual-earner couples were more likely to experience work-family conflict than men in traditional male breadwinner families. Similarly, according to international comparative studies (Van der Lippe et al, 2006;Geszler, 2014), male employees in Northern-and Western-European countries face more work-family conflict than working men in post-socialist nations although the former ones put considerable emphasis on the issue of work-life balance.…”

Work-Family Conflict: A Review Of Antecedents And Outcomes

“…Research indicates that a positive work-family culture has a much stronger impact in work-family conflict experience than family-friendly policies (Premeaux et al, 2007). A study of Swedish fathers found that if they perceived the organization as family-friendly, they were better able to combine work and family and experience less conflict (Allard et al, 2011). Another study found that a hindrance organizational culture increases work-family conflict and leads to burnout, whereas a supportive culture leads to less conflict and more engagement (Peeters et al, 2009).…”

Uptake of organisational work–life balance opportunities: the context of support

“…Employee perceptions of positive work-life culture have been linked to improved job satisfaction and reduced intention to leave (Beauregard & Henry 2009) and to workfamily outcomes such as reduced conflict and improved wellbeing (Allard et al 2011) and improved well-being and employee commitment (Grandey et al 2007;Lapierre et al 2008;O'Neill et al 2009;Frenkel et al 2012;Straub 2012).…”