Given rising work and family demands in our society for both men and women, the experience of work-family conflict is commonplace. Work-family conflict occurs when the demands of work or family make it difficult to meet the demands of the alternate domain. A sizeable body of research has established work-family conflict and its nomological network. Despite decades of research, we have yet to form a precise understanding of when work-family conflicts occur and what happens when a conflict arises. The current research addresses these questions using an experience sampling, episodic approach. Two primary research questions are addressed. First, I used border and boundary theory to identify when work-family conflict episodes are likely to occur. Second, I used stressor-strain and allostatic load theories to examine what happens with regard to psychological, physiological, and behavioral strain following an episodic work-family conflict over time. The results suggest work-family conflict occurs when individuals transition in between work and family domains. Further, family-to-work conflict tends to occur in the morning, while work-to-family conflict tends to occur in the afternoon. Fatigue showed significant reactivity at the time of a family-to-work conflict and recovered in the following time point. Unhealthy eating also showed a sleeper pattern, such that unhealthy eating increased at the end of the day, following a work-to-family conflict. Unexpectedly, fatigue decreased at the time of a family-to-work conflict, indicating family-to-work conflict may be a restorative, rather than taxing. Post-hoc analyses showed some evidence that work-to-family conflict accumulation is associated with increased strain over the course of three days. Again, results suggest family-to-work conflict accumulation may reduce, rather than increase, strain. Implications for the theoretical relationship between work-family conflict and strain, as well as border/boundary theory are discussed. In addition, practical implications for flexible work initiatives and episodic research design are considered.

<p>The project identifies how the female owners of small and medium sized businesses deal with the issue of work and family balance in Vietnam – a developing country in Asia.</p>

The project identifies how the female owners of small and medium sized businesses deal with the issue of work and family balance in Vietnam – a developing country in Asia.

The sport industry is a popular and competitive career field with employees drawn to work in a dynamic, yet often untraditional work environment. The challenge of achieving work-life balance has received considerable study in sport, as employees often find a conflict in balancing their job and other life responsibilities, such as family (work-family conflict) and outside activities. This study introduces a new area of potential conflict (work-extracurricular conflict), the outside activities that may be neglected due to a job, which may impact employees. This area may be especially pertinent to a younger segment of the industry which has not been studied, graduate assistants who work in athletic departments while continuing their education. The purpose of this exploratory study was to assess work-life balance in graduate assistants (GAs) and their supervisors by comparing their levels of work-family conflict, work-extracurricular conflict, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction. Secondly, the study introduced the work-extracurricular conflict construct. Data were collected from GAs and supervisors (N = 47) working in five Division I university athletic departments. Descriptive statistics and ANOVA revealed significant differences between GAs’ and supervisors’ job satisfaction, while determining they did not differ on work-family conflict, work-extracurricular conflict and life satisfaction levels. They reported moderate levels of family and extracurricular conflict. Sport managers can utilize this information to better understand the work-life balance of GAs and establish dialogue on ways to improve GAs experience in hopes of keeping these sport professionals in the industry long-term.

The issue of work and family interaction attracts a lot of attention in the academic field. More and more researchers devoted their energy into the exploration of the mystery of how people manage themselves to live in the work domain and family domain at the same time. There are a lot of papers discussing about the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction and its moderators. However, very few researchers pay attention to what kind of the role the work-family linkage, comprising the theory of spillover, compensation, and segmentation, may play in the relationship. Only a few paper discussed about the influence of work-family linkage. There were also very few papers mentioning about how to measure the linkage of work and family. Researcher has yet to discover how these outcomes are related to different processes of work/family linkage and patterns of work/home intersection (Lambert, 1990). In order to understand the influence of work-family linkage, this study tried to measure the linkage and explore its relationship with other variables, such as job satisfaction, work-family conflict, etc. Below are the discoveries of this thesis: (1) Positive spillover is positively related to job satisfaction. (2) Negative spillover is positively related to work-family conflict. (3) Segmentation has no relationship with job satisfaction (4) Segmentation has no relationship with work-family conflict. Through the discovery of influence of work-family linkage, we may know to adjust ourselves between the work life and family life. We can try to change our linkage patterns in order to improve our job satisfaction or reduce our work-family conflict. Since high work-family conflict and low job satisfaction can both make employees hard to fully devoted themselves into the job, even these situation will force them to leave the company. We should try our best to find ways to help employees understand their own situation, and find the best strategy to cope with it.

Work and family lives are two inseparable domains for employees in the organizations. That causes a lot of research attention on studying work-family linkage and conflict, and on how job satisfaction being affected. The highlight of this research is to understand the impact of employees¡¦ relationship and closeness with their family members, defined as relationship quality, on the relationship between work-family linkage, work-family conflict, and job satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to find out the following questions: 1. How perceived work-family linkage is affecting work-family conflict, and how relationship quality is moderating? 2. How perceived work-family linkage is affecting job satisfaction, and how relationship quality is moderating? 3. How can work-family conflict affect job satisfaction? The result indicates a strong relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction. Moreover, relationship quality plays a significant role in influencing the relationship between work-family linkage and work-family conflict. Therefore, if the organization intends to improve job satisfaction, they should really work on eliminating work-family conflict. In the meantime, employees¡¦ relationships with their family members should be valued so that work-family conflict can be decreased.

In recent years, the working environment and structure have changed as a result of environmental changes and societal improvement. The job market in the past that contained mainly male no longer exists. More and more women join the working space to compete with men. Because there are more opportunities for women to participate in jobs, there are relatively more opportunities for men to participate in family chores. Therefore, both men and women must face problems in work-family conflict. The research done by Frone, Russell & Copper (1992) showed that work-family conflict not only causes negative psychological and physical effects on individuals, but also affects work negatively. Accordingly, in order for a company to retain excellent staff and keep their competitivity, it needs to consider how to help the staff decrease work-family conflict. Among the questions to consider is whether the work-family policy helps the staff decrease work-family conflict and improve their organizational commitment. This study is to investigate whether the implementation of work-family policy helps the staff decrease work-family conflict and improve their organizational commitment. It also studies whether the staff¡¦s work-family conflict and organizational commitment are negatively correlated; whether providing work-family policy affects the staff¡¦s organizational commitment due to the mediating effect of work-family conflict. This research surveyed 3 major sectors including the top 50 companies from the top one thousand manufacturers, top five-hundred service companies and top one hundred finance companies, according to the investigation of the 2005 CommonWealth Magazine. Totally 1600 copies of the questionnaire were released; 296 valid copies were returned with a valid sample return rate of 18.5%. Through statistical analyses such as t-test analysis of independence, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson¡¦s product moment correlation and multiple regression, the results of the investigation demonstrate the following important findings: 1.There exist some significantly different cognitions amongst different people and industries on work-family policy, work-family conflict and organizational commitment. 2.Work-family policy and work-family conflict are partially negatively correlated. 3.Work-family conflict and organizational commitment are partially negatively correlated. 4.Work-family policy and organizational commitment are partially positively correlated. 5.Work-family conflict was found to have partially mediating effects between work-family policy and organizational commitment.

Investigating the Relationship of Work-Family Conflicts Through the Self-Determination Theory Abstract: Interpersonal climates influence motivation of both family and work-related activities in the family and the workplace. Within the family, the feeling of being valued by one's partner directly affects a person¡¦s self-determination, while at the same time within the workplace, the feeling of being autonomy-supported by one's employer will affect one¡¦s self-determined motivation towards work related activities. If people had a high level of self-determination, they would be able to decide for themselves which activities to devote themselves to and would do so in high spirits, thus making it difficult for family alienation to occur. Nevertheless, once the phenomenon of family alienation occurs, one is no longer able to obtain family support and approval, thus is stripped of self-merit. Moreover, this phenomenon will also produce feelings of loneliness, frustration, which in turn influences the experience of work-family conflict. Ultimately in the end, work-family conflict leads to job burnout. This research uses Kaohsiung high school teachers as the subject of study, focusing primarily on how personal relationships affect self-determined motivation within the family and the workplace. Moreover, low levels of self-determined motivation in both the family and the work place leads to family alienation. Furthermore in discussing the relations among family alienation, work-family conflicts, job burnout, the factors of gender, age, position and the nature of the school were used to investigate and analyze the effects of interference of feeling valued by one's partner, feeling of being autonomy-supported by one's employer, motivation towards family activities, motivation towards work, family alienation, work-family conflicts, and job burnout. This research uses the method of survey questionnaire, and is analyzed with various methods of statistical analysis. The important discoveries are stated as follows: A. It was found that Kaohsiung teachers who had a strong feeling of being valued by one's partner within the family environment, also had a high level of self-determined motivation and therefore lessened the occurrence of family alienation. B. It was found that Kaohsiung teachers who did not have a strong feeling of being autonomy-supported by one's employer within the workplace but had adequate acceptance, possessed a lower self-determined motivation and less motivation towards work; Thereby making it easier for family alienation to occur. C. Taking care of children was the main factor leading to work-family conflict for Kaohsiung teachers¡¦. D. Family-work interference was the main factor leading to job burnout for Kaohsiung teachers. E. It was found that family alienation produces work-family conflicts and thus ultimately leading to job burnout. F. The interference effect of gender. 1. The interaction of motivation towards work activities and gender has an interference effect on family alienation. 2. The interaction of self-determined motivation towards work and gender has an interference effect on family alienation, work-family conflicts, and job burnout. G. The interference effect of occupational position 1. The interaction of Motivation towards family activities and occupational position has an interference effect on family alienation. 2. The interaction of self-determined motivation towards family and occupational position has an interference effect on family alienation, work-family conflicts, and job burnout. H. The interference effect of age 1. The interaction of motivation towards family activities and age has an interference effect on family alienation. 2. The interaction of self-determined motivation towards work and age has an interference effect on job burnout. I. It was found that effects of cultural difference between western and eastern culture created different methods for solving work-family conflicts. J. It was found that differing results produced from eastern and western cultural caused variations towards gender. Keyword: self-determined motivation, family alienation, work-family conflict, job burnout

Past research suggests that the relationship between work hours and work-family conflict is not as strong as expected, suggesting a need to investigate moderators of the relationship. This dissertation explores whether the value placed on time spent in a domain (subjective influence) moderates the relationship between actual time spent (objective influence) and subsequent work-family conflict. Value on time spent in a domain is operationalized as centrality, which draws upon the works of Mead (1934) and reflects the self-ascribed importance of a role identity (Ritzer, 1992). The concept of role-identities originates in sociological theories of identity: Identity theory (Stryker, 1980) and role-identity-theory (McCall &amp; Simons, 1978). This mediated model is tested in a cross-national sample consisting of participants from Sweden and the United States. Sweden and the United States have been chosen because they represent very different public policy conceptions, particularly in approaching the work-family issue. Swedish public policy supports the reconciliation of employment and parenthood while North American public policy supports the male breadwinner model.Results of a field study show that the moderating effect of centrality on the relationship between hours spent and work-family conflict is significant only for high earners. Analyses were also conducted to compare Sweden and the United States with regards to work and family hours, work and family centrality, and work-family conflict. As expected, Americans work longer hours than Swedes. However, there is no significant difference with regard to work-family conflict. Unexpectedly, Swedes reported higher work centrality. Antecedents and consequences of work-family were also investigated. Specifically, daycare satisfaction related negatively to work-family conflict, while work-family conflict related negatively to turnover intentions.

Idag möter många människor svårigheter med att balansera arbetslivet och privatlivet. Att tiden och energin inte riktigt räcker till för alla delar i livet. En grupp som särskilt möter dessa svårigheter är skiftarbetare. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur skiftarbetare som arbetar utifrån två olika arbetstidsmodeller upplever och hanterar balansen mellan arbete och fritid. För att besvara syftet har åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med undersköterskor från Norrlands universitetssjukhus. Resultatet från studien visar att samtliga undersökningspersoner generellt sätt upplever en god balans mellan arbete och fritid. Trots det upplever de stundtals konflikter däremellan. De främsta skillnaderna mellan hur undersköterskor som arbetar utifrån de två arbetstidsmodellerna upplever balansen är kopplade till ansvar, återhämtning samt kontroll över arbetsschemat. För att hantera konflikter mellan arbete och fritid använder sig undersökningspersonerna av olika strategier. Några av dessa är att planera och prioritera, söka stöd från omgivningen samt att acceptera läget.