The tertiary education environment has become known for its stressful working conditions.
Factors such as high work demands (i.e. work overload, excessive time demands and work
pressure) and insufficient resources (i.e. limited developmental possibilities, poor performance
feedback, lack of support, etc.) all contribute to these stressful circumstances. As a result, these
circumstances can cause employees to experience negative interferences between their work and
nonwork roles. In addition, employees do not have adequate time to invest in their nonwork
domains, hence nonwork roles are neglected (such as being a parent, being a spouse, spending
time on domestic activities and spending time on religious/spiritual activities). To decrease these
negative interferences, it is important for employees to recover from strains that were activated at
work. The objectives of this study were to determine 1) which demands and resources
significantly predicted work-nonwork interference among employees working in a tertiary
education institution; and 2) which recovery strategies were significant in dealing with high
levels of work-nonwork interference caused by high demands and a lack of resources.
A random sample of 366 married parents was taken from a tertiary education institution in the
North-West Province. A list was obtained of all the married parents of the institution. All of
these employees were given the choice to participate in the research. A measuring battery
measuring job demands (i.e. work pressure, emotional demands and cognitive demands), job
resources (i.e. autonomy, social support and developmental possibilities), work-nonwork
interference (i.e. work-parent, work-spouse, work-domestic and work-religion/spirituality) and
recovery strategies (psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery and control) respectively was utilised in this study. Descriptive and inferential statistics, Cronbach alpha coefficients, Pearson
product-moment correlations and stepwise multiple regression, using the enter method, were
used to analyse the data. The results indicate that work pressure and emotional demands
significantly predict interference between all four nonwork roles. Additionally, autonomy and
developmental possibilities significantly predicted work-parent and work-religion/spirituality
interference respectively. Furthermore, all of the recovery strategies decreased specific worknonwork
interference. Psychological detachment decreased the interference between the workspouse
relationship and the work-religion/spirituality relationship. Relaxation predicted the
decrease of interference between the following relationships: work-parent, work-spouse, and
work-domestic. Mastery and control only significantly predicted the decrease of interference
between the work-parent relationship and between the work-domestic activities respectively.
Various recommendations were made for tertiary education institutions as well as for future
research. Tertiary education institutions should manage high job demands by examining
employees’ workload and job descriptions. Managers could possibly diminish work pressure and
emotional demands by means of courses/workshops pertaining to self-management, time and
organisational skills, emotional intelligence and/or coping with emotions. Tertiary education
institutions should also focus on supporting employees who experience work-nonwork
interferences and manage it effectively. In addition, the awareness of recovery and various
recovery strategies should be promoted. Recommendations for future research include expanding
the research to other occupational groups, longitudinal research designs, obtaining various
opinions and perspectives of individuals also involved in the work-nonwork dyad and the study
of the positive interaction between the work and nonwork roles. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/8418 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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