2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

family-friendly work environment perceptions and performance. Specifically, individuals with
more family responsibilities will benefit more from positive family-friendly work environment
perceptions than those with fewer family responsibilities. We therefore propose the following
hypotheses:
Hypothesis 4a: Number of family responsibilities moderates the relationship between
family-friendly work environment perceptions and job performance.
Hypothesis 4b: Number of family responsibilities moderates the relationship between
family-friendly work environment perceptions and collective efficacy perceptions.
Hypothesis 4c: Number of family responsibilities moderates negative relationship
between family-friendly work environment perceptions and turnover intentions.
CURRENT STUDY
Work stressors, work-life conflict, and family-friendly work environments are issues that
are salient to military and civilian workers alike. First, the military population is similar to many
civilian organizations in that it has excessive work stressors such as long hours, lack of
predictable schedule, and high levels of perceived overload (Castro & Adler, 1999). Second, like
many civilian organizations (Allen, 2001), family-friendly policies are a standard policy in the
military (Department of Defense, 1996). Finally, the military has been described as a reflection
of the civilian society (Martin, Rosen, & Sparacino, 2000), and thus shares similar
interrelationships between work and family.
The current study investigated how family-friendly work environments act as a buffering
mechanism in the stressor-strain relationship. Specifically, we examined employees’ perceptions
of family-friendly work environments and how these perceptions directly and indirectly affected
both subjective and objective measures of performance.
METHOD
Participants
The participants in the study were soldiers (N=230) stationed in Europe. All participants
were active duty US Army personnel with an average of 8 years in the military. There were
61.4% non-commissioned officers, 31.3% junior-enlisted soldiers, and 7.4% commissioned
officers. The sample was predominantly male (84.8%) and the largest ethnic group was White
(51.8%), followed by African-American (27.9%), Hispanic (10.6%) and other (9.8%). In terms
of marital status, 64.6% of the participants were married, 24.5% had never been married (single),
and 11.0% were separated or divorced. Approximately half of the sample (51.1%) had children
living at home.
Procedure
This paper is part of a larger study examining the effects of workload on individual and
organizational outcomes. Military personnel in 10 units stationed in Germany and Italy were
surveyed every three months for two years. Questionnaires were administered on-site at the
military unit by research principal investigators or trained research assistants with follow-up data
collections to obtain data from absent personnel. We only included data obtained from January
2001 to May 2001 because questionnaires during this time period included scales that assessed
perceptions of family-friendly work environment. In addition to the survey items, research staff
also collected actual performance measures by visiting the units approximately three months
after the data collection and collecting physical training scores and marksmanship scores that
coincided with the survey data. Data from participants were only included if complete surveys
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45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003