2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

192
that work-life conflict can be detrimental to the group, even if it is not directly through decreased
performance of individual team members.
Our hypotheses that perceptions of a family-friendly work environment would moderate
the relationship between work-life conflict and organizational outcomes were based on social
exchange and equity theories. Disappointedly, only one of our hypotheses was partially
supported. Specifically, perceptions of a family-friendly work environment moderated the
relationship between work-life conflict and physical training scores. Surprisingly, however, the
nature of the interaction between work-life conflict and family-friendly work environment for
physical training scores was in the opposite direction as predicted. That is, higher work-life
conflict was related to higher physical training scores in general and especially when perceptions
of family-friendly work environment were high. One possible explanation for why we observed
this anti-buffering effect has to do with the nature of the performance measure, physical training.
Namely, physical fitness training is mandatory training that usually occurs early in the morning,
three times a week. Thus, while having a routine physical fitness training program no doubt will
lead to higher physical fitness scores, the time the training is conducted is also likely to interfere
with taking care of family responsibilities that occur in the morning, such as helping to get
children fed, dressed, and transported to daycare or school.
We hypothesized a direct relationship between family-friendly environment perceptions
and performance and organizational outcomes. These hypotheses were generally supported.
Family-friendly work environment perceptions were related to individual job performance (i.e.,
physical training scores), perceptions of future combat performance, and turnover intentions. We
also found that perceptions of a family-friendly work environment moderated the relationship
between work-life conflict and physical training. In other words, regardless of the level of worklife
conflict, employees who perceived their organization to have a family-friendly work
environment also reported higher physical training scores. These results suggest that perceptions
of a family-friendly work environment are important regardless of the level of work-life conflict.
Researchers have suggested that family-friendly work policies might benefit only those
employees with family demands or responsibilities, while penalizing those without such
demands (Jenner, 1994). We examined this by testing if the number of family responsibilities an
employee has moderates the relationship between perceptions of family-friendly work
environment and organizational outcomes. This hypothesis was only partially supported;
employees with more family responsibilities had higher marksmanship scores if they perceived
their environment to be family-friendly compared to employees with fewer family
responsibilities. More importantly, perceived family-friendly environments did not hinder the
performance of individuals with fewer family responsibilities. Contrary to Jenner’s (1994)
speculation, these results suggest that individuals who do not directly benefit from perceived
family-friendly environments are not hindered by them either. It is possible that even employees
without family responsibilities or demands nevertheless will still support family-friendly work
environments with the expectation that when they have families that they too will benefit from
them.
Limitations
There were several limitations to the current study. These results are based on a military
sample, and therefore they may not generalize to a civilian population. Furthermore, the military
units studied were stationed overseas where life stressors may have been higher than that of a
stateside sample, such as higher likelihood of deployments, separation from personal support
networks (e.g., parents), and everyday cultural differences. Finally, turnover is viewed
45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003