2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

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Bourg and Segal (1999) examined the impact of family-friendly policies and practices in
the military on the perceived conflict between enlisted soldiers’ family and unit. They concluded
“responsiveness to families on the part of the military will lessen the degree of conflict between
the two greedy institutions of the military and the family” (p. 647). They further noted that such
policies and practices can serve as a way for the organization (i.e., the military in their study) “to
send a message to soldiers and family members that the family is no longer viewed as a
competing outside influence” (p. 648).
The mere presence of family-friendly policies, however, is not enough (Behson, 2002;
Raabe & Gessner, 1988). That is, the employee’s perceptions of the workplace are more
important than the workplace itself in affecting attitudinal and behavioral organizational
responses (Allen, 2001; James & McIntyre, 1996). For example, two individuals working for the
same organization could perceive the family-friendliness of the work environment as being
completely different. The first employee may perceive there are available resources for him or
her to use to reduce the conflict felt between the demands of work and home. By having these
perceptions, he or she may be more likely to pursue these resources and receive their associated
benefits than if the perceptions were absent. Therefore, the employee would be less likely to
experience the detrimental effects associated with the conflict. The second employee, however,
may not feel there are adequate resources available, regardless of having the same actual
resource availability. He or she may not pursue, and therefore not get, resources that could be
beneficial in reducing work-life conflict. He or she therefore would more likely experience the
adverse effects of the work-life conflict.
This logic leads to the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 3a: Family-friendly work environment perceptions moderate the work-life
conflict-job performance relationship.
Hypothesis 3b: Family-friendly work environment perceptions moderate the work-life
conflict-collective efficacy perceptions relationship.
Hypothesis 3c: Family-friendly work environment perceptions moderate the work-life
conflict-turnover intentions relationship.
One of the concerns of family-friendly work environments is that they discriminate
against the single, childless employee (Rothausen, Gonzalez, Clarke, & O’Dell, 1998). When
employees leave work early to attend to a sick child or spouse, the remaining employees must
compensate for their absence. This could lead the remaining employees who do not have such
demands to feel resentment toward the absent employees, and possibly toward the organization.
Furthermore, by allowing employees with families to leave as needed (i.e., providing a familyfriendly
work environment), the remaining employees may be adversely affected in terms of
their performance. Few empirical studies, however, have tested the notion that family-friendly
work environments may have negative effects on employees with fewer family responsibilities or
demands.
Because a family-friendly work environment is intended to assist employees with
families, employees who are more likely to need a family-friendly work environment (i.e.,
employees with more family responsibilities) would benefit from that environment more so than
those who are less likely to need that environment. Behson (2002) noted, “organizational
policies, programs, and attitudes that specifically address the topic of work-family balance may
be of limited salience to ‘non-familied’ employees” (p. 67). So, whereas the policies may not be
detrimental to employees without families, they certainly may not be beneficial either. With this
in mind we propose that number of family responsibilities moderates the relationship between
45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003