There is a growing awareness that informal supports such as family-supportive supervision are critical in assuring the success of work-life policies and benefits. Furthermore, it is believed that family-supportive supervision may have positive effects regardless of the number or quality of work-life polices and benefits an organization has in place. Given this recognition, work-life experts have emphasized the need for supervisor training to increase family-supportive supervision. To date however, there has been a paucity of research on the predictors of family-supportive supervision which could be used as the target of such a training intervention. This dissertation had three major aims: 1) to investigate which supervisor-level (e.g., reward system, productivity maintenance, salience of changing workforce, belief in business case, awareness of organizational policies and benefits, role-modeling) and employee-level (e.g., support sought) factors are most strongly related to family-supportive supervision; 2) to explore whether supervisor factors moderate the relationship between support sought and family-supportive supervision; 3) and to use a multilevel design to confirm the association between family-supportive supervision and work-family conflict. This study used a cross-sectional, two-level (e.g., supervisor, and employee) hierarchical design. The data were collected from supervisors (Nurse Managers N=67) and employees (Nurses N=757) at five hospitals in the Pacific Northwest. All of the major analyses were conducted using multi-level regression in HLM. The results indicated that family-supportive supervision was higher for employees who worked for managers with a stronger belief in the business case and for employees who sought support. None of the other supervisor-level factors were found to be significant predictors of family supportive supervision. There was no evidence that supervisor-level factors moderated that relationship between support sought and family-supportive supervision. Higher levels of family-supportive supervision were related to lower work-to-family conflict. These findings suggest that organizations seeking to reduce work-family conflict and increase family supportive supervision should consider intervening at multiple levels. This dissertation reviews a rich body of evidence demonstrating the business case for offering work-life supports that could serve as a starting point for developing a training to increase supervisors' belief in the business case. In addition, strategies for organizations to increase support seeking, which has been shown to be an important coping mechanism, are discussed. The multi-level design of this dissertation also contributes to the literature by demonstrating that the largest proportion of variability in family-supportive supervision is at the employee-level. This finding suggests the importance of measuring family-supportive supervision at the employee-level and suggests that future research should focus on the employee-level predictors of family-supportive supervision.

Working mothers may encounter difficulty combining work and family, particularly as this interface involves child care arrangements. This research investigated the effects of various dimensions of child care support on stress and role conflict in employed mothers. It was hypothesized that as job support, affordability, spousal support, and satisfaction with child care increased, that child care stress, job stress, and role conflict would decrease. The data were derived from a survey (Lane County Dependent Care survey, Emlen, 1990} of women employed in 15 companies in the Lane County, Oregon area. The study sample consisted of 825 full and part-time employed mothers with children under the age of eighteen living in the home. This research analyzed the women's responses to questions pertaining to each of the four dimensions of child care support (four questions}, and two questions on stress (one on child care stress and one on job stress} and one on role conflict. The questions were formatted into Likert-type scales, ranging from three to six points. Crosstabulations were calculated to examine eight hypotheses, four with stress as the dependent variable and four with role conflict as the dependent variable. Hypotheses with job support as the independent variable were supported with moderate positive correlations. Hypotheses involving spousal support were tested using only married women. The independent variable showed no statistically significant correlations with either stress or role conflict. Hypotheses involving affordability were supported by moderate positive correlations between low levels of affordability, and child care stress and role conflict. The last hypotheses used dissatisfaction with child care arrangements as the independent variable. These were supported by moderate correlations regarding child care stress and weak correlations regarding role conflict. Further directions in the examination of relationships between help with child care and the reduction of stress and role conflict for women are suggested.

The present study examined the relationship between work involvement and family involvement and work-family conflict in dual-career families. Four hundred thirty-six couples (436 females; 436 males; N = 872) in dual-career relationships were recruited from a bank organization in the Northwest United States. The survey questionnaire contained three sections to measure work and family involvement, work-family conflict, and sociodemographic information. Data analyses were conducted using multiple regression analysis and a 1 X 4 ANOV A to examine the proposed relationships among the study variables. Results demonstrated the following: across study participants, work involvement accounted for a significant amount of variance in work-family conflict; family involvement accounted for a significant amount of variance in work-family conflict; the number of dependents accounted for a significant amount of variance in work-family conflict; work-family conflict was significantly higher for females than for males; and couples who were symmetric in both work involvement and family involvement experienced lower levels of work-family conflict than couples who were asymmetric in both work involvement and family involvement. The test of the effects of one's spouse/partner's work involvement and one's spouse/partner's family involvement on the individual's work-family conflict was not significant. An examination of the moderating effects of the number of dependents and age of youngest (or only) child on the relationships between work involvement and family involvement and work-family conflict was not significant. Implications of the study and future research ideas are discussed.

Money is consistently one of the most common and significant sources of stress in America. The American Psychological Association's annual Stress in America survey has found that money and work have been two of the top sources of "very" or "somewhat" significant stress for Americans since 2007, when the first report was released. Drawing upon the work-home resources model, this study examined the longitudinal effects of financial strain as a component of the work-home interface on a sample of 512 employed veterans from the post-9/11 era. The work-home resources model posits that contextual demands and contextual resources in one domain (i.e., work or non-work) influence outcomes in the opposite domain through losses and gains of personal resources. Lower scores on a measure of financial strain represent better ability to meet financial needs, and the ability to meet financial needs is argued to represent a personal capital resource that could serve as a mechanism in the work-home interface. Using three waves of data, the study examined longitudinal effects on both behavioral and attitudinal outcomes of importance to veterans and organizations alike. Results did not confirm the role financial strain plays in the interface between work and home domains, as hypotheses were generally unsupported. Implications for both theory and practice, as well as limitations of the study and future directions for research are discussed.

This study contributes to an understanding of the causes, consequences and complexities of gender inequity in career success (high levels of status and salary) in the New Zealand accounting profession. Sixty-nine (twenty-seven male and forty-two female) experienced Chartered Accountants were interviewed about their career histories. A feminist, interpretative and qualitative approach was followed and NVIVO was used for analysis. The first significant contribution of the study was the identification of five work/family strategies based on levels of family and work involvement (Traditional Men, Traditional Women, Family Balancers, Stepping Stone Men and Work First Women). Secondly, the level of family responsibilities explained career success much better than gender alone, although these two factors were commonly (but not always) directly related. The third contribution was the revision of the three-pronged model previously offered by Whiting & Wright (2001) to explain gender inequities in salary and status in the New Zealand accounting profession. Because the original model was derived from quantitative data, using qualitative data to revise the model constituted a sequential mixed method (pragmatic) approach. In the revised model, gender centrality and the three explanatory categories (Attributes, Structure and Attitudes) were removed. Career success was enhanced by high career aspirations (related to perceptions of stress, managerial and responsibility requirements and remuneration), long working hours and availability to clients, hard work, high technical competence and skills (enhanced by overseas experience), networking (less attractive to women), self-confidence (enhanced by mentoring for the least self-confident), flexibility to relocate if required (decreased by family and lifestyle ties) and large size and growth of the employing organisation. Most influential were career aspirations and a long hours/available work ethic. This demonstrated the pervasiveness of the male linear career model (derived from the male breadwinner-female carer family structure), that rewarded (in terms of progression) unilateral allegiance to the firm. Career aspirations, desire for responsibility, perceived ability to handle pressure, long hours, availability to clients, networking and possibly technical skills (if there were periods of extended leave) were all influenced by the Chartered Accountant�s level of family responsibilities. Those with the least family responsibilities (childless, Traditional Men and Work First Women) demonstrated unswerving commitment to the firm and were equally the most successful career wise. The impact of family responsibilities on career progression could be ameliorated by organisational cultural change. There were some indications of cultural change, being most prevalent in public sector and educational organisations. Enhancing conditions included a culture of flexibility and a concurrent atmosphere of trust, a less competitive work culture, absence of constant overtime demands and on-call work, encouraging top management who worked positively to retain and foster top performers over a longer period, and high level part-time positions supported by well-trained subordinate teams. To achieve these conditions provides an imminent challenge to organisations which employ Chartered Accountants, because the profession is increasing its proportion of females, has a younger generation more interested in work-life balance, and is losing many of its members overseas.

Thesis (M.S.)--Air Force Institute of Technology, 2007. / AFIT/GLM/ENV/07-M4. Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Nov. 30, 2007). "March 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-121).

Purpose: This study aims to explore how women’s roles at work and home interact with each other and focuses specifically on role conflicts which may arise.   Research questions: Primary question: When and why do role conflicts occur in women’s lives? Secondary questions: (1) What is a role? (2) How do roles affect women’s lives? (3) How do women cope/deal with role conflict?   Methodology: Qualitative research and interpretive approach   Findings: Theoretical and empirical findings state that role conflicts occur when traditional values, lack of time and unbalanced involvement interfere with how women fulfil their different roles. Moreover, this study analyses the ways that women might have to deal with such conflict by comparing

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Sociology, August 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1987.

Background: Nursing professional, up to today, is still women dominated. The consistent medical reform and scarcity of nursing labor force in China contribute to the high workload and work related pressure. On the other hand, family always plays an essential role in women’s life, especially for Chinese women. They are believed to be the principal person to provide family care. Therefore, female nurses always face the challenges in accomplishing the duty from work and family, and also face the difficulties in balancing the work-related role and family-related role. The incompatibility between work-related role and family-related role leads to work-to-family conflict. It is a kind of interrole conflict to which women are especially sensitive. Work-to-family conflict is defined as a type of interrole conflict which occurs as a result that the work related responsibilities interfere with family life. Literatures suggested that there were many aspects are significantly related to work-family conflict, such as the working model, workload, and social support. And work-family conflict was demonstrated to be associated with lower job satisfaction. Objectives: This study mainly aim to explore the relationship between shift work models and self-perceived work-to-family conflict in Chinese female nurses working in Guangzhou city hospitals. Many related aspects are also explored and we in particular focus on the effect of night shift work demand. Furthermore, we aim to detect the association between work-to-family conflict and job satisfaction among recruited sample subjects. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted in several Guangzhou city hospitals. Employed female registered nurses were included. Questionnaires were delivered to nurses in hard copy or soft copy, involving categories of working model, working demand, job satisfaction, and work-to-family conflict. 315 questionnaires were delivered and 261 of them were returned with a response rate of approximately 83%. After data cleaning, total 250 valid-responded questionnaires were analyzed finally. Statistical description, subgroup analysis, linear regression analysis, and multivariable linear regression analysis were established for data analysis and hypothesis testing. Results: In this study, family financial responsibility, occupation support from family, overall workload, overtime work, organizational policy support, supervisor support were found to be significantly associated with self-perceived work-to-family conflict. The effects of night shift on work-to-family conflict were different among subject with different demographic characteristic, family role, work role, family-related support, and work-related support. Shift model was found to be significantly associated to work-to-family conflict, and day-night shift was related to higher level of work-to-family conflict. But the relationship between the frequency of night shift and work-to-family conflict was not found through the linear regression model. And it was found that there was a significant negative correlation association between work-to-family conflict and job satisfaction, meaning that higher work-to-family conflict was associated with lower job satisfaction among the sample subjects of this study. Among the six items measuring the overall job satisfaction, job autonomy, task requirement, organizational policy, and professional status were found to significantly related to work-to-family conflict level. Conclusions: The association between shift models and work-to-family conflict was confirmed but it was affected by nurses’ demographic characteristic. The frequency of night shift was not found to significantly affect the self-perceived work-to-family conflict level. And there was a significant negative relationship between work-to-family conflict and job satisfaction, where higher job satisfaction was associated with lower work-to-family conflict. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health