The Effects of Bi-Direction of Work Family Enrichment on Work and Family Related Outcomes among Women Faculty Members

TLDR: Work family conflict (hereafter WFC) is a negative aspect of work family interface and termed as work family conflict which occurs when there are incompatible demands between the work and family roles of an individual.

Abstract: 1. INTRODUCTIONThe origin of work and family concept was started when women wanted to be a labour force to share family responsibilities as well as to play multiple roles like homemaker, spouse, parent and employee etc. When women entered into labour force there was a conflict between the spheres of work and family (Greenhaus and Parasuraman, 1999). This issue was treated as negative aspect of work family interface and termed as work family conflict (hereafter WFC) which occurs when there are incompatible demands between the work and family roles of an individual. High involvement in both work and family roles lead to increased work-family role conflict (Frone et.al 1992a), higher level of job dissatisfaction and more psychological and physical health problems.Researchers (Kossek and Ozeki 1998; Allen et al. 2000; Byron 2005; and Ford et al.2007) have also noted that high levels of WFC resulted in negative consequences including lower job and life satisfaction, higher turnover intentions, greater psychological strain, greater somatic/physical symptoms, higher depression, and greater burnout. WFC is a bi-directional concept divided into three distinct categories such as work related, family related and domain unspecific outcomes (Bellavia and Frone 2005). The bi-direction of WFC namely work to family conflict and family to work conflict are associated with work related outcomes such as job satisfaction (e.g., Perrewe , Hochwarter, and Kiewitz, 1999), organizational commitment (e.g., Aryee, Srinivas, and Tan, 2005), intention to quit (e.g., Shaffer, Harrison, Gilley, and Luk, 2001), burnout (e.g., Peeters, Montgomery, Bakker, and Schaufeli, 2005), absenteeism (e.g., Kirchmeyer and Cohen, 1999), work related strain (e.g., Netemeyer, Brashear-Alejandro, and Boles, 2004), and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB; e.g., Netemeyer, Maxham, and Pullig, 2005), as well as family related outcomes, such as marital satisfaction (e.g., Voydanoff, 2005b), family satisfaction (e.g., Cardenas, Major, and Bernas, 2004), and family related strain (e.g., Swanson and Power, 1999) and domain-unspecific outcomes such as life satisfaction (e.g., Greenhaus, Collins, and Shaw, 2003), psychological strain (e.g., Kelloway et al., 1999), somatic complaints (e.g., Peeters, De Jonge, Janssen, and Vander Linden, 2004), depression (e.g., Vinokur, Pierce, and Buck, 1999), and substance use or abuse (e.g., Grzywacz and Bass, 2003). The relation between bi-direction of WFC and work related outcomes as well as family related outcomes are over researched.Focus on the conflict arising between work and family roles fails to account for another process, by which engagement in more than one role provides benefits that enhance individual's life rather than detract from them. In this context, Sieber (1974) and Marks (1977) questioned the conflict perspective and suggested the possibility that participation in multiple roles could be advantageous rather than deleterious to role performance in both work and family domain.Based on role accumulation theory and scarcity perspective, multiple roles could produce a positive outcome which leads to satisfaction of the employee. Crouter (1984) who was the first researcher used the positive aspect of work family interface namely positive spillover. Researchers like Edwards and Rothbard (2000); Grzywacz and Marks (2000a, 2000b); Grzywcz et al. (2002); and Kirchmeyer (1992a, 1993, 1995) have also used the term positive spillover and other different terms were also used namely, enhancement (Sieber, 1974; Greenhaus and Parasuraman, 1990; Barnett, 1998; Barnett and Hyde, 2001; Ruderman et al., 2002; and Tiedje et al., 1990) facilitation (Frone, 2003; Hill, 2005; and Wayne et al., 2004)and enrichment (Greenhaus and Powell 2006; and Carslon et al.2006).In recent decades of work-family literature concentrated on the positive aspect of work family interface namely, as work family enrichment (hereafter WFE) which explains the positive effect of one role increases the performance of an individual in the another role (Greenhaus and Powell 2006). …