The Differential Effect of Gender on the Way Conflict Between Work and Family Roles Affects Managers’ Reliance on Information Sources in Dealing With Significant Workplace Events

Prior studies have assessed the effects of work-family conflict on the individual. These studies have investigated how items such as emotions,job satisfaction and turnover are affected by this conflict Few studies have investigated how this conflict may affect managerial behavior. This study investigates how this conflict may affect male and female managers differently in the way they utilize information in resolving significant workplace events. Hypotheses that predicted female managers would exhibit less information seeking behavior in resolving these events were tested. These hypotheses were based on the premise that female managers would likely have a more demanding family role that would create more cognitive busyness and impede information search behavior. The study found that, contrary to expectations, most relationships between conflict and information search for both genders, measured by the perceived usefulness of various information sources, were positive and not negative. However, the perceived usefulness of these information sources was very different for males and females. Full Journa