Consequences of Work–Family Conflict

Most employees are challenged to combine work and family roles. Although both roles can provide self-esteem, self-fulfillment, and happiness, they can also interfere with each other making it more difficult to fulfill work and family demands. Work–family conflict is the construct that captures interference between work and family roles. High work–family conflict has been associated with potential consequences such as low health, high turnover intentions, and low job performance. My main aim in this dissertation is to extend research on work–family conflict and potential consequences. To this end, I conducted three empirical studies. Study 1 examined the relationship between work–family conflict and strain, an umbrella term for constructs such as exhaustion, depression, and somatic symptoms. Specifically, my coauthors and I tried to work toward resolving two debates. The first debate is about the direction of relationships between work–family conflict and strain. We examined whether work–family conflict predicts strain, whether strain predicts work–family conflict, or whether work–family conflict and strain reciprocally predict each other. The second debate is about the pattern of relationships between work–family conflict and domain-specific outcomes. The currently dominant cross-domain perspective suggests that family-to-work conflict (FWC) is mainly related to work-related strain. The less-popular matching perspective, however, suggests that work-to-family conflict (WFC) is mainly related to work-related strain. To address those two debates, we applied meta-analytic path analysis to 33 panel studies (total N = 13,029) that had repeatedly measured work–family conflict and strain. For the direction of relationship, results showed reciprocal relationships for both forms of work–family conflict and strain. More specifically, WFC predicted strain (β = .08) and strain predicted WFC (β = .08). Similarly, FWC predicted strain (β = .03) and strain predicted FWC (β = .05). These findings held for both men and women and for different time lags between the two measurement waves. For the debate on matching versus cross-domain relationships, results showed that WFC had a stronger relationship with work-specific strain than did FWC, supporting the matching hypothesis. Study 2 focused on work–family conflict and turnover intentions. More specifically, it compared two theoretical perspectives that make competing predictions about the relationships between work–family conflict and domain-specific outcomes. The cross-domain perspective predicts that FWC should be more important than WFC in predicting increases in turnover intentions. The matching perspective, however, predicts that WFC should be more important than FWC in predicting increased turnover intentions. We expanded the debate about matching versus cross-domain relationships by testing whether work-family specific social support should stem from the same domain as the conflict as the matching principle would indicate or from the other domain as the cross-domain perspective would indicate. Additionally, we hypothesized that changes in WFC and FWC predict changes in turnover intentions and tested reciprocal relationships between WFC/FWC and turnover intentions. With a time-lag of five months, 665 employees from a large company filled out surveys at two time points. Results revealed that (increases in) WFC predicted increased turnover intentions, whereas (increases in) FWC did not. Work-family specific support from the leader buffered the relationship between WFC and increased turnover intentions, but work-family specific support from family and friends did not. Furthermore, results revealed reverse relationships such that turnover intentions predicted increased WFC and FWC. Taken together, the study results supported the matching principle rather than the cross-domain perspective. The reverse relationships found between work–family conflict and turnover intentions challenge the common view that work–family conflict antecedes turnover intentions unidirectionally. Study 3 examined the cross-domain relationship between work–family conflict and job performance. Overall, Study 3 was intended to better understand work–family conflict as a dynamic construct that changes over short periods, such as from day-to-day. Specifically, we used a within-person daily research paradigm to examine the relationship between daily FWC and daily job performance. On the basis of theory on dynamic behavior, we hypothesized that daily FWC impairs daily job performance through the mechanism of daily concentration. Additionally, we predicted that psychological detachment from work during time off (i.e., mentally switching off) buffers the negative relationship between daily FWC and daily job performance. Over one workweek, 95 employees from a large German company completed two surveys each day. Multilevel modeling results showed that daily FWC was negatively associated with daily job performance and that daily concentration mediated this relationship. Furthermore, general psychological detachment, but not daily psychological detachment, buffered the negative relationship between daily FWC and daily job performance. The findings of Study 3 advance our understanding of dynamic short-term processes at the intersection of work and family by demonstrating that short-term changes in FWC go along with fluctuations in job performance. This dissertation offers several practical implications. For example, Study 2 shows that work-family specific leader support buffers the relationship between high WFC and high turnover intentions. Study 3 shows that psychological detachment from work during time off buffers the relationship between high FWC and low job performance. Thus, organizations should foster leader support and encourage their employees to psychologically detach from work during time off to buffer the relationship between work–family conflict and relevant business outcomes. In sum, this dissertation contributes to research on work–family conflict and its potential consequences by addressing ongoing debates and gaps in the literature

Followership styles scrutinized: temporal consistency and relationships with job attitudes and self-efficacy

While followership has been repeatedly acknowledged as an important part of leadership, key questions are still awaiting empirical testing. In our two studies, we test Kelley’s prominent concept of followership styles for the first time in a longitudinal design. Specifically, we use a latent-state trait approach to examine the degree to which followership behaviors (i.e., active engagement [AE] and independent, critical thinking [ICT]) reflect rather stable or rather dynamic behaviors. Furthermore, we examine the relationships of followership behaviors with job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and self-efficacy in latent states cross-lagged models. We first test our hypotheses in a sample of N = 184 employees from eleven German service organizations, which were surveyed twice with a time lag of nine to 12 months. To replicate and extend our findings from Study 1, we conducted Study 2 with a sample of N = 570 participants from a German open-access panel, which were surveyed twice with a time lag of four months. In Study 2, we additionally test leader humility and perceived organizational support (POS) as potential moderators of the relationships between followership and job attitudes. While our findings support Kelley’s conceptualization of followership styles as rather consistent behavior patterns, mixed results were found for the relationships with the other variables. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings as well as the relevance of time in followership research

Transformational Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Test of Underlying Mechanisms

Based on social exchange theory, we examined and contrasted attitudinal mediators (affective organizational commitment, job satisfaction) and relational mediators (trust in leader, leader-member exchange; LMX) of the positive relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Hypotheses were tested using meta-analytic path models with correlations from published meta-analyses (761 samples with 227,419 individuals overall). When testing single-mediator models, results supported our expectations that each of the mediators explained the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB. When testing a multi-mediator model, LMX was the strongest mediator. When testing a model with a latent attitudinal mechanism and a latent relational mechanism, the relational mechanism was the stronger mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB. Our findings help to better understand the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB

Transformational Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Test of Underlying Mechanisms

Based on social exchange theory, we examined and contrasted attitudinal mediators (affective organizational commitment, job satisfaction) and relational mediators (trust in leader, leader-member exchange; LMX) of the positive relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Hypotheses were tested using meta-analytic path models with correlations from published meta-analyses (761 samples with 227,419 individuals overall). When testing single-mediator models, results supported our expectations that each of the mediators explained the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB. When testing a multi-mediator model, LMX was the strongest mediator. When testing a model with a latent attitudinal mechanism and a latent relational mechanism, the relational mechanism was the stronger mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB. Our findings help to better understand the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB.</p

On the asymmetry of losses and gains:Implications of changing work conditions for well-being

There is ample evidence that work conditions affect employees’ well-being. Losses in work quality (increased job stressors and reduced job resources) are thought to be related to deteriorations in well-being, whereas gains in work quality (reduced job stressors and increased job resources) are believed to improve well-being. The way most previous studies tested linkages between work conditions and well-being assumes that as much as a loss in work quality harms well-being, a gain in work quality results in an improvement. However, Hobfoll’s conservation of resources (COR) theory argues that losses have a stronger impact than gains do. To date, this assumption still awaits a thorough empirical test. Using data from three longitudinal studies (Ns = 10,756, 579, and 2,441), we investigated the effects of changes in work conditions on well-being. Changes in work conditions were related to changes in well-being and these relationships were weaker with longer time lags. Moreover, in line with COR theory, our analyses suggested that the effect of a loss in work quality was generally stronger than the effect of a gain. Interestingly, however, we found a more consistent pattern for the effect of certain stressors (e.g., social stressors) than others (e.g., workload). By testing a central principle of COR theory, this research advances theoretical understanding of how work affects well-being. Furthermore, by revealing that previous studies may have underestimated the detrimental effects of deteriorating work conditions and overestimated the positive effects of improved work conditions on well-being, this research also has implications for organizational interventions