How do flexible work arrangements alleviate work-family-conflict? The roles of flexibility i-deals and family-supportive cultures

Abstract

Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) are becoming common in emerging economies, though it is not clear if and how employees benefit from them in terms of their work-family balance and well-being. In contrast to previous work that used structural-functional explanations, we argue that FWA implementation should be depicted within its socio-political and socio-cultural context. We used survey data collected from 213 professionals in Istanbul, Turkey to examine the roles of flexibility i-deals and perceived family-supportive culture in the relationship between FWA availability and these employee outcomes. Results supported the hypothesis that i-deals mediate the relationship between FWAs and work-to-family conflict. Furthermore, perceived family supportive cultures predicted both work-to-family and family-to-work conflict and moderated the relationship between i-deals and family-to-work conflict. Finally work-to-family conflict mediated the relationship of flexibility i-deals and family supportive cultures with perceived general health. These finding are discussed for their implications for employees who are trying to balance their work and family lives and for organizations who are considering implementing FWAs.

Keywords:

• Flexible work arrangements
• idiosyncratic deals
• family-supportive culture
• work-family conflict
• employee health

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Gökçe Güner and Merve Kumas for their support in data collection.

Notes

1. An examination of bivariate correlations between the availability of individual flexible work arrangements and flexibility i-deals shows that they are also positive and significant (r = .34, for flextime; r = .27 for telecommuting; r = .25, for part-time work). However, these correlations are somewhat lower than the correlation of the overall index of FWA availability with flexibility i-deals (r = .40). The correlations of FWA availability index as well as the individual FWAs with the three dimensions of flexibility i-deals (flextime i-deals, location i-deals, time reduction i-deals) were also all positive and significant, ranging between .16 and .42.

2. An examination of bivariate correlations between the availability of individual flexible work arrangements and work-to-family conflict (r = −.08, for flextime; r = −.07 for telecommuting; r = −.06, for part-time work), family-to-conflict (r = .04, for flextime; r = .02 for telecommuting; r = −.21, for part-time work) and general health (r = .01, for flextime; r = .12 for telecommuting; r = .14, for part-time work) shows that they are also nonsignificant except for the negative relationship between the availability of part-time work and family-to-work conflict.