Identifying latent profiles in work‐to‐family conflict and family‐to‐work conflict

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21312
• Author: Yunsoo Lee
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• Date: 01 September 2018

QUANTITATIVE STUDY

Identifying latent profiles in work-to-family

conflict and family-to-work conflict

Yunsoo Lee

Department of Learning & Performance

Systems, Workforce Education and

Development, Pennsylvania State University,

State College, Pennsylvania

Correspondence

Yunsoo Lee, Department of Learning &

Performance Systems, Workforce Education

and Development, Pennsylvania State

University, University Park, State College,

PA 16802.

Email: leoyunsoolee@gmail.com

From the perspective of a person-centered approach, the purpose

of this study is to identify and analyze latent profiles of employees

according to the employees' levels of work-to-family conflict

(WFC) and family-to-work conflict using latent-profile analysis. This

study utilized work, family, and health study (WFHS) data compiled

from 823 employees at select Fortune 500 information technology

(IT) companies. The data were examined using multinomial logistic

regression analysis to determine whether individuals could be

grouped into certain profiles according to their demographic char-

acteristics. The group differences in the outcome variables of the

WFC were also considered using the analysis of variance tech-

nique. The results suggest that HR/HRD professionals should con-

sider how various types and intensities of conflicts combine to

influence employees and should deploy this information when

designing strategies and interventions to reduce WFCs.

KEYWORDS

family-to-work conflict, latent-profile analysis, person-centered

approach, work-to-family conflict

1|INTRODUCTION

Work–family balance is a critical concept in the field of human resource development (Grzywacz & Carlson, 2007;

Pitt-Catsouphes, Matz-Costa, & MacDermid, 2007) that many scholars (e.g., Greenhaus, Allen, & Spector, 2006;

Greenhaus, Collins, & Shaw, 2003; Voydanoff, 2005) have sought to define. Greenhaus et al. (2003), for example,

defined work–family balance as “the extent to which individuals are equally engaged in and equally satisfied with

work and family roles”(p. 513). Work–family balance has been widely perceived as “the absence [or low levels] of

work-family conflict, or the frequency and intensity in which work interferes with family or family interferes with

work”(Grzywacz & Carlson, 2007, p. 457). Indeed, many scholars have focused on using work-to-family conflict

(WFC; see Lim, Morris, & McMillan, 2011) to measure work–family balance (e.g., Grzywacz & Carlson, 2007). Accord-

ing to meta-analyses, gender, tenure, marital status, and the presence of children are associated with WFC (see

Byron, 2005; Michel, Kotrba, Mitchelson, Clark, & Baltes, 2011). Moreover, WFC has been found to be negatively

related to work–life satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior, while it is positively related to turnover

intentions and exhaustion (see Amstad, Meier, Fasel, Elfering, & Semmer, 2011). These research results suggest that

DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21312

Human Resource Development Quarterly. 2018;29:203–217. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrdq © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 203