Identification of factors affecting work - family conflicts: a case study from an apparel industry

Abstract

Managing conflict between work-family roles is a critical challenge for individuals and organizations. In recent decades, there have been a considerable situation that have influenced causes and consequences of conflict between work and family. This refers to conflicting role pressures between job and family that are incompatible. Only few studies related to work-family conflicts (WFC) have been carried out in Sri Lanka, but such studies were not concentrated on apparel industries. This study was therefore carried out to find out the base for work-family conflict and to find out the factors which significantly influenced work-family conflict. The organizational context of the study was Hirdaramani Mercury Apparel (Pvt) Limited (HMAPL), Seethawaka. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and the sample size of the survey was 265 machine operators. The sampling method was stratified random sampling. Data were analyzed by using multiple regression and factor analysis. To carry out regression analysis, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) was carried out to convert the Likert scale data into continuous data. It was found that the observed data satisfied all necessary requirements for factor analysis (KMO statistics, reliability test and Bartlet test for true correlation matrix). The three factors related to WFC are time based conflict, strain based conflict and behavior based conflict. These factors are invariant on the type of orthogonal rotation and the method of factor extraction. WFC is significantly and positively influenced by work overload (WO) and interpersonal conflict with coworkers and supervisors (IPC) and of these two factors, the impact on WFC from WO is much higher than from IPC. The study found that (i) priority of work arrangement, (ii) dependent care support, (iii) work pressure, (iv) flexibility for work and (v) conflict with supervisors are the five common factors relate to the statistical properties of the selected 18 variables among the variables related to the two significant independent variables on WFC. These five factors are also invariant on the type of rotation and the method of factor extraction. The inferences derived from this study would make a novel contribution to Hirdaramani Mercury Apparel (Pvt) Limited, Seethawaka to minimize the matters regarding WFC with their employees. It is recommended to carry out similar studies at regular intervals not only at HMAPL, but also for other industries.