Work-family Conflict Articol

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EXAMINING THE EFFECTS OF WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT.

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON SICKNESS PRESENTEEISM

CRISTIANA CTLINA CICEINational School of Political Studies and Public Administration,

College of Communication and Public Relations

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between work-family conflict and attendance

dynamics, having in view the case of sickness presenteeism. We presume that the negative

interference of work with family can predict if employees attend work when ill. Theresearch was conducted on a convenience sample of composed of 126 employees (M=41.6,

SD=5.50), working in public and private Romanian organizations. The majority of the

participants were from dual-earner couples and over a half had dependent care

responsibilities. Work-family conflict was assessed using 9 items measuring the

interference between work and family from Carlson, Kacmar and Williams (2000)multidimensional WFC scale and one item measure of sickness presenteeism (Aronsson,

Gustafsson, & Dallner, 2000). Results indicated that work-family conflict predicted

sickness presenteeism, but in a small extent. The generalization of results must be made

with cautions, due to the small sample size, and other research limitations, including the

cross-sectional design of the study, sample composition and the use of self-report measures.

Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords: work-family conflict, sickness presenteeism, health, attendance dynamics.

1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

According to Carlson, Kacmar and Williams (2000) workfamily conflict(WFC) represents a topic that is intensively investigated in contemporaryorganizational behavior research, for practitioners, as well as academics, the

management of the two domains interface gaining its centrality (Rothbard &Dumas, 2006). Amstad, Meier, Fasel, Elfering, and Semmer (2011) indicate that

workfamily conflict is frequently perceived as a potential stressor that impactswell-being and behavior.

* Corresponding author: Cristiana Ctlina CiceiEmail: [email protected]

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Starting from the canonical definition introduced by Greenhaus and Beutell(1985), Bellavia and Frone (2005) assert the bidirectional nature of WFC; thus, twodirections can be traced: family interfering with work (family-work conflict) andwork interfering with family (work-family conflict) (Bellavia & Frone, 2005).Also, as Brough and ODriscoll (2005) indicate, three distinct forms of WFC wereintroduced by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), namely time, strain and behaviour-

based conflict (Brough & ODriscoll, 2005).According to Frone (2003), the possible consequences of WFC have been

examined in an increasing number of studies. Allen, Herst, Bruck and Sutton(2000) introduced an effective taxonomy that distinguished between: work-related(e.g. job satisfaction and performance, commitment, turnover and absenteeism),non-work related (such as family, marital, or life satisfaction), and stress related

(including somatic symptoms, general psychological strain, burnout) work-familyconflict outcomes.

Focusing on the last class of effects, meta-analytic studies indicate a weightedmean correlation of .29 between WFC and physical symptoms or somaticcomplaints (Allen et al., 2000), and of .28 between WIF and health problems(Amstad et al., 2011). Work-family conflict can also be associated with health-related attendance dynamics, in their study, Jansen, Kant, van Amelsvoort,Kristensen, Swaen and Nijhuis (2006) indicating that WFC is linked to sicknessabsenteeism.

Although it represents a recent subject of research, information regarding itsantecedents being scarce (Bckerman & Laukkanen, 2010), sickness presenteeism(SP) can be considered a topic with arising popularity (Biron & Saksvik, 2009).According to Hemp (2004), although less visible, presenteeism seems to implyhigher costs than absenteeism. Also, Hansen and Andersen (2008) provide

evidences that sickness presenteeism can have the same occurrence as sicknessabsenteeism.

Johns (2010, p. 521) defines sickness presenteeism as attending work whileill, suggesting to embed work attitudes and experiences (Johns, 2010, p. 535), inthe SP research.

In their empirical study, Aronsson, Gustafsson, and Dallner (2000) indicatethat middle-aged employees and parents can experience increased sickness

presenteeism, women exhibiting mildly elevated SP rates than men (Aronsson etal., 2000). Bckerman and Laukkanen (2010) provide evidence that among others,

regular overtime, working full-time, and more than 48 hours/week can enhance SP.In addition, research indicated that high job demands can encompass in timepresenteeism (Demerouti, Le Blanc, Bakker, Schaufeli, & Hox, 2009).

Having in view these findings, we can observe that SP can be associated withdemographic and work-related factors that are pellicular to work-family conflict.

Among other work experiences, Johns (2011) examined work-family conflictand the connections with sickness presenteeism. WFC predicted subjective (=.23,

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work despite feeling that you really should have taken sick leave due to your stateof health?(p. 504). The responses were made on a four point scale, ranging fromNo, never to Yes, more than 5 times (Aronsson et al., 2000). We dichotomizedthe responses in view of conducting logistic regression.

3.3.PROCEDURE

The employees were contacted and informed about the topic of the research;those who agreed to participate filled in an online survey regarding work-familyconflict that contained the WFC and SP measures. They were briefed regarding theanonymity and confidentiality of the results. The data were collected and a logisticregression was conducted using SPSS 16.00. However, we must mention that,

having in view the statistical properties of logistic regression, the generalization ofthe results must be made with cautions. More precisely, logistic regression requiresa much larger sample size than linear regression (Popa, 2010, p. 187), the numberof participants ranging from 50 to at least 10 subjects/predictor, some authorsconsidering the sample size to be of a minimum of 150 subjects (Popa, 2010, p.187).

4. RESULTS

In order to examine if work-family conflict predicts sickness presenteeism,

logistic regression analysis was performed, the dependent variable beingdichotomized. We followed Aronsson et al. (2000, p. 504) coding procedure inorder to examine the occurrence of sickness presenteeism (0 = No, never/Yes,once, 1 = Yes, 25 times/Yes, more than 5). For work-family conflict, means andstandard deviations were calculated (M=3.08, SD=.77).

The regression model tested was significant (2 =17.55, p.68) indicates that the predictionmodel fits the research data (Table 2).

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Table 2. Hosmer & Lemeshow test

Step Chi-square df Sig.

1 5.692 8 .682

The classification table presents the correspondence between the observedvalues of the criterion and those predicted by the model (Table 3). As it can beobserved, the total percentage of right classification is of 70.6% (52.8% for the

absence of sickness presenteeism and 83.6% for SP occurrence).

Table 3. Classification model

Observed Predicted

Sickness presenteeism Percentage Correct

No Yes

Step 0 Sickness presenteeism

No 28 25 52.8

Yes 12 61 83.6

Overall Percentage 70.6

Results indicate that WFC can be considered a predictor of SP (Wald=14.52,p


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CONCLUSIONS

The current study is an exploratory one, examining the role of work-familyconflict in predicting sickness presenteeism. The hypothesis of the study wassupported; employees that experienced interference between work and familyreported coming to work despite illness. Thus, the results highlight the impact ofwork-family conflict on health-related attendance dynamics (Johns, 2011).

Starting from these results, a number of practical implications can be traced.First, for example, by providing family-friendly benefits as flexible workingarrangements, which can enhance control in dealing with various work and familydemands (Allen, 2001), organizations can reduce deleterious presenteeismcultures (Johns, 2010) and foster family-supportive environments (Allen, 2001).Also, by redesigning job demands as Demerouti et al. (2009, p. 64) suggest,presenteeism, but also work-family conflict, can be decreased.

However, we must notice that the explained variance in the logistic regressionindicates a weak prediction and the percent of right classification can be improved,when examining the absence of SP. Thus, some strong limitations of the researchmust be highlighted.

The first weakness relies in the sample size, which can be considered unfittedfor logistic regression (Popa, 2010). Thus, the results of the study must beinterpreted with cautions. Secondly, according to Geurts and Demerouti (2003) a

large majority of WFC studies are based on cross-sectional design, and self-reportmeasures. The current study does not surpass this methodological weakness, andwe suggest that further studies should adopt a longitudinal design and preferablybased on objective reports.

Also, as Geurts and Demerouti (2003) draw attention, the samples used in

WFC research are traditionally composed of women and white-collar employees.The structure of the current sample reflects this limitation, and more studies should

be conducted having in view more balanced and occupationally diverse sampling.Other limitations rely in not controlling for the effects of general health, which wasstrongly associated with presenteeism (Johns, 2011) and measuring presenteeismwith a single, self-report, item.

Future research directions might consist in examining the relationship

between WFC and SP having in view gender and occupational differences, but alsothe forms of WFC (especially strain-based and time-based conflict).

Also, focusing on the suggestion that presenteeism and absenteeism should beexamined concurrently (Johns, 2010, p. 534), and having in view that family-workconflict was related to the number of days of absenteeism, but also with

presenteeism productivity loss (Johns, 2011, p. 494), future studies could explorethe role of work-family conflict and family-work conflict in predicting sickness

absenteeism and sickness presenteeism.Received at: 23.12.2011, Accepted for publication on: 14.01.2012

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Work-family Conflict Articol