Work-family conflict/enrichment: the role of personal resources

Abstract

Purpose The conservation of resources (COR) theory provides a theoretical foundation for work-family research. The purpose of this paper is to investigate thoroughly the associations between threat of or actual loss of resources as well as gain of resources and work-family interaction, employing COR assumptions and measures. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 216 working mothers filled out a questionnaire that included conservation of resources evaluation and scales measuring work-family conflict (WFC) and enrichment. Analyses of variance were performed to test the hypothesized associations. Findings WFC and family-work conflict (FWC) were positively correlated with the threat of and actual loss of resources; family-work enrichment (FWE) was positively correlated with the gain of resources. Participants who reported higher threat of loss of resources compared to gain of resources reported high levels of WFC and FWC; those who reported higher loss of resources compared to gain of resources reported high levels of FWC. In addition, participants who reported gains that outweighed losses (whether actual loss or simply threat of loss) reported higher levels of FWE. Originality/value The findings support using the COR theory as a theoretical basis for work-family research and emphasize the detrimental role of threat of loss of resources. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Work-Family Conflict Impact on Psychological Safety and Psychological Well-Being: A Job Performance Model

“…According to recent studies and extensions on COR theory, resource loss directly predicted the occurrence of work-family conflict, while resource gain weakened the positive relationship between work-family conflict (Chen and Powell, 2012;Chen et al, 2014). Conflict is therefore related to the downward change in resources (Oren and Levin, 2017). Stressful situations disrupt employee's perception of psychological safety as key resources are found to be endangered.…”

“…Stress is a response to a threatening work environment or a change diminishing employees' resources (Hobfoll, 1989). The conditions that elicit stress are associated with endangering one's marriage, tenure or health (Oren and Levin, 2017). To ensure the psychological safety, one must exert behaviors not only to protect from resource loss, but even this conservation requires additional resource output.…”

Employee–Spouse Perceptual Congruence in Employee Work-to-Family Enrichment Affects Family and Work Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Relationship Conflict

“…Work-to-family enrichment (WFE) describes the positive relationships between work and family roles and is defined as the extent to which experiences in work roles improve the quality of life in family roles (Greenhaus and Powell, 2006 ). Under this definition, a wide body of evidence from numerous studies indicates that high WFE levels have positive family and work effects, including higher family and job satisfaction, higher family functioning, and higher job performance (Mcnall et al, 2010 ; Carlson et al, 2011 , 2019 ; Oren and Levin, 2017 ; Wayne et al, 2017 , 2020 ; Zhang et al, 2018 ; Kalliath et al, 2020 ; Wu et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Finally, this study extends the family cohesion and emotional exhaustion literature by examining employee–spouse perceptual (in)congruence in WFE of the employees as antecedents of both family cohesion and emotional exhaustion. Prior studies have examined the impact of the perceptions of both employees and spouses on the WFE of the employees on family and work variables separately (e.g., Oren and Levin, 2017 ; Zhou et al, 2018 ; Tan et al, 2021 ) while overlooking their joint impact.…”

“…Additionally, high levels of relationship conflict engender an unpleasant and stressful family environment, which produces a great deal of psychological distress (Leiter and Maslach, 1988 ; Fujiwara et al, 2003 ). Employees must exert greater effort to cope with these stresses (Oren and Levin, 2017 ), which in turn leads to emotional exhaustion (Alarcon, 2011 ). Moreover, interpersonal conflict limits the information-processing abilities of the employees, and the existing literature has demonstrated that emotional exhaustion results from using inadequate strategies to cope with problematic interpersonal events (Alarcon, 2011 ).…”