Schedule Control, Work Interference With Family, and Emotional Exhaustion: A Reciprocal Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

T he current research drew upon the resource perspective (Grzywacz & Marks, 2000;ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012) and firstly focused on the reciprocal mediation relationship between schedule control, work interference with family (WIF) and emotional exhaustion. First, the present study proposed that WIF mediates the negative relationship between schedule control and emotional exhaustion, and emotional exhaustion also mediates the negative relationship between schedule control and WIF. Second, family time adequacy was expected to play an amplifying role in the first path of the two mediations. Using a sample of 563 employees and adopting hierarchical linear modelling, the three-wave study first revealed that the emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between schedule control and WIF while WIF also mediates the schedule control-emotional exhaustion relationship, which demonstrated a reciprocal mediation. Furthermore, the relationship between schedule control and emotional exhaustion, as well as the indirect effects of schedule control on WIF via emotional exhaustion, were stronger for employees with higher family time adequacy. Implications of the findings and future directions are discussed.

The Influence of Workload and Work Flexibility on Work-Life Conflict and the Role of Emotional Exhaustion

“…The findings of the present study emphasize the important role played by the balance between work and private life in conveying not only the detrimental effects of job demands but also the alleviating effects of job resources on employee fatigue. They support previous propositions that the impairment of private life acts as a key mechanism linking work conditions to EE and burnout [ 16 , 27 , 28 ]. As suggested by [ 16 ], the present results suggest that WLC should be integrated into the job demands resources model as a central mediator through which both work demands and work resources affect the health of the employees.…”

“…Furthermore, hypothesis H2 postulated that temporal latitude mitigates EE not only directly but also indirectly by reducing the work-related impairment of private life. As expected, the model found a significant negative, indirect effect between WF and EE, which was slightly higher than in a comparable study (β = −0.08 [ 27 ]).…”

“…For example, a longitudinal study of an Australian population sample [ 13 ] found that WLC partially mediated the negative effect of general autonomy at work on the health of employees according to [ 26 ]. Yu et al [ 27 ] investigated the possibility of flexible working hours (schedule control), a construct very similar to the time margins defined in this paper. The study also found a significant partial mediation of the negative effect of time flexibility on EE.…”

The mediating effect of work-life interference on the relationship between work-time control and depressive and musculoskeletal symptoms

“…Results from this study are in line with previous research. Based on an occupational cohort with one year follow-up, a study found that WLI mediated the relationship between a general measure of WTC and emotional exhaustion ( 29 ). Our findings support these results but additionally highlight several points: (i) the two sub-dimensions of WTC differed consistently in size; (ii) indirect effect estimates varied for different health outcomes; (iii) reciprocal mediation, direct and reversed direct effects explained a smaller part of the effect; and (iv) effects remained robust even after controlling for a number of covariates.…”

“…A more recent study based on a sample of workers in the healthcare sector concluded that WLI did play a mediating role in the relation between WTC and emotional exhaustion ( 29 ). The author also found evidence that emotional exhaustion mediated effects of WTC on WLI, meaning WTC affected emotional exhaustion which in turn influenced WLI.…”