This paper tested a new model of employee–organization relationships (EORs) by introducing types of work–life conflict as variables leading to EOR outcomes, and by investigating the possible effects of transformational leadership, procedural justice, and family-supportive workplace initiatives upon employees’ perceptions of work–life conflict and relationships with their employers. Data were collected from a survey of 396 U.S. employees. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was adopted to address the multilevel structure of collected data. Time-based work–life conflict, individualized consideration, and procedural justice were found to be associated with quality of EORs significantly. Fair work–life policy-making procedures also significantly predicted perceived levels of work–life conflict.
Organization–public relationship (OPR) management has been widely used as a useful framework for public relations research, teaching, and practice (e.g., Hon and Grunig, 1999, Huang, 2001 and Ledingham, 2003). Two extensively examined models of OPRs include (1) Broom, Casey, and Ritchey's (2000) model emphasizing perceptions, motives, needs, and behaviors as predictors of relationships and their consequences (p. 16), and (2) Grunig and Huang's (2000) model elaborating situational antecedents, relationship maintenance strategies, and relationship outcomes (p. 34). Nevertheless, the two models have not been extensively applied to employee publics (Freitag and Picherit-Duthler, 2004 and McCown, 2007). One important research direction that has not been fully developed is new models of relationships integrating variables that can impact the development of relationships between organizations and their strategic employees (Kim, 2007).
Managing work–life conflict has become a critical and highly salient challenge for employees and employers in the 21st century (Ellin, 2003). Public relations researchers have recognized the significance of work–life conflict for organizations and revealed the conflict as a critical gap in scholarship (Aldoory, Jiang, Toth, & Sha, 2008). Aldoory et al. qualitatively examined public relations professionals’ perceptions, narratives, and coping strategies. They called for studies that can quantify work–life conflict and further explore its potential contribution to public relations theory building.
Employees’ immediate supervisors’ supportive leadership behaviors may be one type of organizational responsiveness associated with work–life issues (Allen, 2001). Public relations scholars have suggested that leaders in effective organizations perform transformational leadership styles (Jin, 2010). Moreover, scholars have called for research examining the variables related to “managers’ behaviors” that could potentially mitigate work–life conflict (Friedman, Christensen, & DeGroot, 1998, p. 119). “Any organizational attempts to improve [work–life] issues will be neutralized if employees’ supervisors are not supportive of them” (Judge & Colquitt, 2004, p. 397). Thus, it is important to investigate supportive transformational leadership behaviors of employees’ direct supervisors as a possible non-content based and intangible structural solution in the workplace.
Employees rely on their perceptions of organizational justice to infer the extent to which they should hold their organizations responsible for the outcomes they receive (Folger & Cropanzano, 1998), for instance, their experiences of high levels of work–life conflict. Organizations with unfair procedures and policies probably contribute to the interference of work with nonwork life (Tepper, 2000). In addition, considerable research has documented the deleterious effects of unfairness on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, cooperativeness, citizenship behaviors, job performance, turnover, and stress (Schminke, Ambrose, & Cropanzano, 2000).
Family-supportive workplace initiatives have been examined as an important type of content based and tangible organizational responsiveness geared toward mitigating the negative consequences of high work–life conflict ( Aycan and Eskin, 2005 and Frone, 2003). One of the most widely esteemed magazines, Working Mother Magazine has consistently used childcare (e.g., company sponsored full-time centers on/near site), flexibility (e.g., access to work at home/telecommuting), and personal leave (e.g., job-guaranteed weeks off for childbirth) as the top three criteria in its yearly ranking of 100 best companies to work for.
To address the aforementioned gaps and issues in public relations research, this study elaborates a model of employee–organization relationships (EORs) by introducing time-based and strain-based work–life conflict as variables leading to EOR outcomes, and by investigating the possible effects of transformational leadership, organizational procedural justice, and family-supportive workplace initiatives upon employees’ perceived work–life conflict and relationships with their employers.
In summary, this study built and tested a new model of employee–organization relationships (EORs) by incorporating time-based and strain-based work–life conflict as two predictor variables leading to EOR outcomes, and by investigating the possible effects of three antecedents, i.e., transformational leadership, organizational procedural justice, and family-supportive workplace initiatives upon employees’ perceived work–life conflict and relationships with their employing organizations. All the theoretical constructs were conceptualized at the individual level, but data were collected by conducting a survey of 396 employees working in 44 U.S. organizations. The multilevel structure of gathered data was addressed by using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) as the major analytical approach.
Results of the random-coefficient regression models in HLM suggested that the amount of time-based work–life conflict that employees perceive significantly predicts their perceived quality of EORs. When employees’ immediate supervisors respect their subordinates as individuals with unique characters and needs and treat them differently but fairly, employees perceive high levels of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality. Moreover, employees when perceiving that they are treated fairly by their organizations develop quality relationships with their employers. This study also identifies fair formal procedures and policies used to make work–life decisions as a significant antecedent leading to high trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality that employees perceive. In addition, organizations’ fair formal procedures and policies used to make work–life decisions greatly affect employees’ perceptions of time-based and strain-based work–life conflict. Finally, this study concludes that time-based work–life conflict partially mediates the association between quality of EORs and fair formal procedures and policies used to make work–life decisions. These findings contribute significantly to theory, methodology, and practice in public relations today.
