What Does Social Support Do For Family Conflict And Family Role Overload Research Paper Examples

Gurbuz et al. (2013) says that work-family conflict is more pronounced in this decade due to the latest demographic trends and the social transformations in the business world. Currently, workers face challenges to balance work and family roles some of the conflicts that occur include inter-role conflict and work-family conflict due to interference between the demands of the family and work issues. The conflict in work and family lead to stress, lack of job satisfaction, absenteeism from work, life dissatisfaction, and poor work performance.
The fundamental objective of the research is to look into the role of workload on work-family conflict, a direct effect of organizational support, and the mediating role of role overload. The authors of the study test the hypotheses using a sample of 344 workers in a Turkish enterprise. The results of the study illustrate a negative relation between the perceived organizational support, family to work conflict, and work to family conflict. The role overload does not have a mediating role between perceived organizational support and work-family conflict.
The organization support theory posits that people develop a general outlook towards organizations ability to appreciate their contributions to the workplace and their well being. Researchers are yet to establish the antecedents and the repercussion of work-family conflict. Some of the researchers claim that perceived organizational support has a positive effect towards work-family conflict. Role overload according to Home (2010) has a psychological and behavioral outcome of the workers. Michel et.al (2011) use a Turkish society to explain the following: (1) impact of perceived organizational support, (2) model the effects of perceived organizational support, and (3) explain the mediating role of role overload. Most of the prior research has used North American and Western Europe samples while the authors of this study use a sample from Turkey since it has a societal culture that has a high power distance, applies a centralized system of decision making, limited delegation, avoid uncertainty, and collectivism. Turkish established firms adhere to the current trends in the popular cultures to have work-family conflict. Prior studies of work-family conflict assume that the two variables only reflect in Western societies and are not present in other non-Western countries.
The perceived organizational support explain the relationship between the workers and an enterprise. Some of the factors that influence employee behavior and attitudes are motives reflected on employees from organizations. The relationship between employee and organization conceptualized in a social exchange perspective where they gain rewards because of services rendered. Perceived organizational support according to Gurbuz et al. (2013), is the belief concerning the extent of an organization value their contribution and cares concerning their well-being. Researchers apply a social exchange theory to the various perspectives of a worker-organizational relationship. The author finds that employee organization is a social exchange relationship where an organization will offer its workers benefits in exchange for worker's loyalty and effort while in the workplace. An employee will reciprocate in terms of an organization positive attitude such as commitment, task performance, and citizenship behavior.
Some of the role stressors include role conflict, role overload, and role ambiguity. Role conflict has significant of the three since it explains worker's outcomes such as job satisfaction. Home (2010) describes role conflict as the degree for people to perceive themselves while they experience pressures when having work and family commitments. A worker with access role conflict has less job satisfaction since the role overload forces employees to concentrate on the resources in attempt to address overwhelming demands.
Many prior researchers concentrate on work-family conflict due to the changes in the demographic trends in the business world such as an increase in the number of female workers and dual career couples. Work-family conflict (WFC) occurs when work interferes with family life while Family-Work Family (FWC) occurs when family interferes with work. Scholars identify different variables as the antecedents of WFC such as role overload, perceived organizational support, job stress, ability to cope, gender differences, and work hours.
Gurbuz et.al (2013) argues that the worker that perceives high organizational support inclines to illustrate favorable work behaviors. Matthew et.al (2014) proposes that WFC and FWC have a negative effect the relationship between employee and the organization. A flexible work policy will affect a worker in a positive way. The author of the study claims of a significant relationship between WFC and the perceived organizational support and for that reason depicts the following hypotheses:

Hypotheses 1: perceived organizational support will have a negative relation to WFC.

Hypotheses 2: perceived organizational support will have a negative relation to FWC.
Hypotheses 3: role overload has a positive relation to WFC.
Hypotheses 4: role overload has a positive relation to FWC.
Hypotheses 5: perceived organizational support has a negative relation to role overload.
Hypotheses 6: role overload will mediate the relationship between POS and WFC.
Hypotheses7: role overload will mediate the relationship between POS and FWC.
The sample population of the study composes of 3000 employees in one of the SME in Ankara, Turkey. The work is mainly cross-sectional study with over 300 responses to ensure a high confidence level. Gurbuz uses a stratified random sampling to select workers from the SME survey. The total sample after removing the incomplete data is 344. Most of the respondents education is tertiary education while few respondents have a high school diploma. The mean tenure of the respondents is 13years while half of them have children. The authors of the study use a five-point Likert-type scale to measure the respondents’ variables other than demographic. The variables of a goodness of fit test include perceived organizational support, role overload, work-family conflict, and family-work conflict. The author uses four different manifest indicators to test the fit of the model. The POS scale determines differently sample items such as organization caring for the well-being of a worker. The role overload scale assesses job satisfaction of workers. The work-family conflict scales measure the amount of time that an employee job will be difficult for them to fulfill family responsibilities. The authors of the study analyze the data using Amos 6.0 and SPSS programs. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov analysis was to test on the normal distribution of the test. Next the authors performed a descriptive analysis to study the variables.
In the other phase of the analysis, the authors performed regression tests while in the last test they used a structural equation model on the variables to examine the consistency of data.. The participants report a high level of POS, moderate level of WFC, and low level of FWC.WFC and FWC have a negative correlation while there is a significant relationship between role overload and FWC. Gurbuz later employs a series of regression models to test meditational hypotheses in accordance with the statistical procedures. The test of mediation should meet the following criteria: the interdependent variable must affect the dependent variable. Independent variable should affect the mediator, mediator should affect the dependent variable, and the addition of a mediator will affect the independent and the dependent variable. One can see the establishment of full mediation once a dependent variable regress the dependent variable.
The theoretical implication depicts a social exchange theory and organizational theory where an employee with high organizational support inclines to show favorable work conditions. The study suggests that employees with high levels of support from an organization will have the inclination of less WFC and FWC.
There is a limitation of research concerning POS and WFC in the nonwestern regions since most of the research has taken place in the western countries. Turkey is a developing country with unique workplace attributes. The working conditions are arduous with high rates of unemployment as well as layoffs. The perceived organizational support fails to have a significant effect on role overload of employees that work in surveyed firms.
The practical implication of the study in SME will provide extensive evidence to the beneficial effects that provide support to the workers. The study shows that perceptions of support from an organization can reduce the FWC and WFC experience. A flexible work policy will make individuals to feel less on FWC and WFC. Enterprises should adhere to favorable policies such as fair treatment, showing appreciation, and fair treatment to influence workers in a positive way.
Some of the limitations of the studies is that it was cross-sectional in nature where it represents only one Turkish SME in total disregard of other organizations in the country or the city. A future research will use a longitudinal design to include large enterprises so that it can link variables to ensure a more reliable outcome. The perceptions of the study have a self-report perception since it uses a discriminatory method to gather data from single respondents. In future, researchers should collect data from, and multiple sources to eliminate bias. The research model incorporates POS and role overload as the antecedents while focusing on the mediation of role overload. In future, the research should test the mediating role of work-family conflict as it relates to job performance and the perceived organizational support.

References

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Gurbuz, S., Turunc, O., & Celik, M. (2013). The impact of perceived organizational support on work–family conflict: Does role overload have a mediating role?. Economic And Industrial Democracy, 34(1), 145-160.
Home, A. (2010). Predicting Role Conflict, Overload and Contagion in Adult Women University Students with Families and Jobs. Adult Education Quarterly, 48(2), 85-97.
Matthews, R. A., Winkel, D. E., & Wayne, J. H. (2014). A longitudinal examination of role overload and work–family conflict: The mediating role of interdomain transitions. Journal Of Organizational Behavior, 35(1), 72-91.
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