The impact of family roles on employee’s attitudes and behaviors

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine two important family roles, financial and caregiver, and their impact on four relevant outcome variables: absenteeism, partial absences, employee performance, and life satisfaction; they also explore the intervening impact of core self-evaluations (CSE) among these relationships. Design/methodology/approach – Data are collected using a questionnaire and actual employee performance data. Hypotheses were assessed in a structural model using LISREL. Findings – The results demonstrate the impact of family roles on important outcomes, such as absenteeism and life satisfaction, as well as limited support of the moderating impact of CSE. Further, life satisfaction was significantly impacted by family roles and influenced job performance. Research limitations/implications – Although the measures were self-reported, actual job performance data were collected from company records; such a design should limit the risk of common method variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Practical implications – Two family roles were shown to impact life satisfaction and these were positively moderated by CSE. Therefore, organization can develop family-friendly programs and policies to support employee’s multiple family roles in an effort to increase employee’s levels of life satisfaction and job performance. Incorporating CSE in the hiring process or providing employees with the skills and abilities to enhance their level of CSE should impact job performance. Originality/value – The study contributes by assessing family roles using gender-neutral measures that assess level of role engagement. It also incorporates a dispositional variable, CSE, and its relation to family roles and job performance.