Role resources and work–family enrichment: The role of work engagement

Abstract

The majority of work-family research has focused on negative spillover between demands and outcomes and between the work and family domains (e.g., work-family conflict; see review by Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, & Brinley, 2005). The theory that guided this research was in most cases role stress theory (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985) or the role scarcity hypothesis (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000). However, according to spillover theory, work-related activities and satisfaction also affect non-work performance, and vice versa. Recently, in line with the positive psychology movement (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), work-family interaction research has also included concepts of positive spillover (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008; Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). This emerging focus supplements the dominant conflict perspective by identifying new ways of cultivating human resource strength. Greenhaus and Powell (2006) suggested that work-family enrichment best captured the mechanism of the positive work-family interface, and conceptualized work-family enrichment as "the extent to which experiences in one role improve the quality of life in the other role" (p. 73). Carlson, Kacmar, Wayne, and Grzywacz (2006) described the bi-directional and multidimensional concept of work-to-family enrichment (WFE) as how family roles benefit from work roles through developmental resources, positive affect and psychosocial capital derived from involvement in work. Similarly, family-to-work enrichment (FWE) is defined as how work roles benefit from family roles through developmental resources, positive affect and gains in efficiency derived from involvement in family. As the concept and measure of work-family enrichment has been specified and validated, the identification of factors that enable this positive side of work-family interface has become possible. Published theory testing research has demonstrated that the enrichment and conflict components of work-family interface are distinct,

Mediators of transformational leadership and the work-family relationship

“…Resource variables differentially mediated the relationship between TL and WFC and WFE, underscoring the related, yet distinct, nature of these constructs (Carlson et al, 2006). The present study further adds to empirical tests of Greenhaus and Powell's model of WFE (Siu et al, 2010). Managerial support for workfamily was a significant mediator for both WFE and WFC, and showed the strongest effects of all mediators.…”

Does Psychological Contract on Work-family Benefits Improve Employee Commitment?

“…For example, a study on work-family conflict among Malaysian employees has shown that informal workplace family support (such as greater discretion in managing work, and granting approval to leave work earlier than usual to deal with urgent family matters) has the potential of reducing work-family conflict (Aminah & Zoharah, 2013). Work-family facilitation can be enhanced by providing autonomy to employees (Baral & Bhargava, 2008;Innstrand et al, 2010;Siu et al, 2010) since autonomy is laden with resources including time-management skills, initiative, and self-confidence (Voydanoff, 2004) which could be applied to family activities. Another initiative is to increase employee job involvement since this is linked to work-family facilitation (Aryee et al, 2005).…”

Family Climate and Job Performance: The Role of Family-to-Work Enrichment

“…[3], core self-evaluations [4] and work engagement [5]. At Family level, FWE arises from the support received in family domain [3,4].…”