Graduation Year

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Granting Department

Psychology

Major Professor

Tammy Allen, Ph.D.

Keywords

Work interference with family, Family interference with work, Positive spillover, Work schedule fit, Mediation

Abstract

Managing the conflict between work and family role demands is a critical issue that has generated substantial interest for both individuals and organizations in recent decades. One factor thought to contribute to the occurrence of work-family conflict (WFC) is the amount of time committed to activities in either the family or to the work domain. Because time is a finite resource, it has been posited that when one dedicates a certain amount of time to one domain, this will invariably take away from the amount of time available for activities in the other domain. The result of this is conflict between the domains of work and family (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). However, the relationship between time at work and work-family conflict is not always this clear. In the current study, it was proposed that work schedule fit is a moderator of the relationship between working hours and both forms WFC.

That is, the nature of the relationship between the amount of time spent at work and WFC depends, in part, on perceived work schedule fit.Recent research has gone beyond the notion of the work and family domains existing in perpetual conflict and has begun to focus on how these two domains can benefit each other. It has been argued that certain resources gained in the work domain can be beneficial to the family domain, and vice-versa (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). Furthermore, affective states in one domain can spill over to the next, which could have both positive and negative consequences. In the current study, it was proposed that work schedule fit is a resource that facilitates both positive spillover from work and positive spillover from the family. Hypotheses were tested using moderated multiple regression and zero-order correlations. Support was not found for proposed moderator hypotheses, however support for mediation was found in exploratory analyses.

Support was also found for the proposed relationship between work schedule fit and both positive spillover from home and positive spillover from work. Implications of these findings are discussed.

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