“Handle with care”: The mediating role of schedule i‐deals in the relationship between supervisors' own caregiving responsibilities and employee outcomes

• Author: Beatrice I.J.M. Van der Heijden,Jeroen De Jong,Mireia Las Heras,Yasin Rofcanin
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12160
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• Date: 01 July 2017

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

“Handle with care”: The mediating role of schedule

i‐deals in the relationship between supervisors'

own caregiving responsibilities and employee

outcomes

Mireia Las Heras

1

|Beatrice I.J.M. Van der Heijden

2,3,4

|

Jeroen De Jong

3

|Yasin Rofcanin

5

1

IESE Business School, Universidad de Navarra

2

Institute for Management Research, Radboud

University Nijmegen

3

Faculty of Management, Science, and

Technology, Open University of the

Netherlands

4

Kingston University, London, UK

5

School of Management, University of Bath

Correspondence

Mireia Las Heras, IESE Business School,

Universidad de Navarra, Pearson Avenue 21,

Barcelona 08034, Spain.

Email: mlasheras@iese.edu

Abstract

Drawing on theories of perspective‐taking and i‐deals, this study

explores the impact of supervisors' own caregiving responsibilities

for elders and parental status on subordinates' schedule i‐deals.

Moreover, we investigate the extent to which schedule i‐deals

mediate the relationship between supervisors' caregiving responsi-

bilities and two employee outcomes: satisfaction with work–family

balance and turnover intentions. Using a sample of 520 dyads

involving 137 supervisors and 520 employees, the results of multi-

level analysis show that supervisors' caregiving responsibilities for

elders is positively related to schedule i‐deals, but their parental

status is not. The findings also show that schedule i‐deals mediate

the effect of supervisors' caregiving responsibilities for elders on

subordinates' satisfaction with work–family balance and turnover

intentions. This research contributes to the i‐deals' literature by

focusing on the role of managers' own caregiving responsibilities

in facilitating the provision of schedule i‐deals to their subordinates

and by exploring the consequences of schedule i‐deals to gain an

understanding of the mutually beneficial nature of such deals. From

a practical point of view, supervisors and HR departments might

utilise schedule i‐deals to drive desirable employee outcomes, in

particular their caregiving responsibilities, and to engender a

family‐supportive organisational culture.

KEYWORDS

schedule i‐deals,supervisors' caregiving responsibilities for elders,

supervisors'parental status, turnoverintentions, work–familybalance

Received: 24 March 2015 Revised: 3 May 2017 Accepted: 3 May 2017

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12160

Hum Resour Manag J. 2017;27:335–349. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltdwileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 335