How Polychronicity Moderates Relationships between Work-Family Conflict and Work Outcomes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 48-54).Work-family conflict (WFC) occurs when one‟s work and family responsibilities interfere with each other. Past research has shown WFC to negatively impact an individual‟s work outcomes in a number of ways. For example, WFC has been shown to be negatively correlated with job satisfaction and positively correlated with job burnout. A limited amount of research has examined individual differences in how WFC relates to work outcomes, however. The current study utilized polychronicity, an individual difference variable that involves a preference for multitasking, as a moderator between WFC and work outcomes. It was theorized that those high in polychronicity (having a strong preference for engaging in multiple tasks at the same time) may be better equipped to handle a great deal of multitasking between work and family responsibilities. Thus, it was hypothesized that those high in polychronicity would experience weaker relationships between WFC and work outcomes, compared to those low in polychronicity (preferring to focus on one task at a time).\ud The present study‟s sample included 341 university undergraduate students and 257 respondents from the Amazon Mechanical Turk service who all completed an online survey. Respondents were required to be employed and working at least part-time, be at least 18 years of age and live in the United States. The results indicated that polychronicity significantly moderated the relationship between WFC and job satisfaction, such that the negative correlation between WFC and job satisfaction was significantly weaker at high levels of polychronicity compared to low levels of polychronicity. Also, polychronicity was found to significantly moderate the relationship between WFC and employee engagement. The nature of this interaction was such that WFC had a positive relationship with employee engagement among those high in polychronicity and a negative relationship among those low in polychronicity.\ud The present study extends the application of polychronicity to the area of WFC, as no research had previously done. The findings suggest that a preference for multitasking may help mitigate the negative work-related outcomes that can commonly be experienced when an individual is faced with high amounts of WFC. Future research could explore how polychronicity may moderate the relationship between WFC and other work-related constructs, such as job performance or turnover intentions