How Work–Family Conflict and Work–Family Facilitation Affect Employee Innovation: A Moderated Mediation Model of Emotions and Work Flexibility

This paper aims to verify the effects of work–family conflict and work–family facilitation on employee innovation in the digital era. Based on resource conservation theory, this study regards the work–family relationship as a conditional resource. Employees who are in a state of lack of resources caused by work–family conflict will maintain existing resources by avoiding the consumption of further resources to perform innovation activities; employees who are in a state of sufficient resources are more willing to invest existing resources to obtain more resources. In this study, 405 employees from enterprises in the Chinese provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, Sichuan, and Guangdong, and in the municipality of Tianjin were selected as the research object. These enterprises are knowledge-based companies, and their employees frequently transfer knowledge at work. We collected questionnaires from the frontline employees of these companies. The results show that negative and positive emotions mediate the effect of work–family conflict and work–family facilitation on employee innovation. Moreover, work flexibility has a significant moderating effect on the mediating role of emotions between work–family facilitation and employee innovation behavior. In the digital era, when facing different work–family situations, employees need to pay attention to and dredge their negative emotions to avoid reducing their innovative behaviors due to self-abandonment; in parallel, they need to guide their positive emotions toward innovation, so as to promote their innovative consciousness and behavior. This paper expands the research perspective of employee innovation behavior.

Management research contributions to the COVID-19: a bibliometric literature review and analysis of the contributions from the Journal of Management & Organization

The COVID-19 health crisis triggered changes in the workplace. This paper explores the insights from scholarly work published in the Journal of Management and Organization (JMO) and systematizes this body of knowledge to build a scientific overview that looks at how the COVID-19 health crisis and its repercussions may be managed by organizations. We conducted a bibliometric investigation of JMO's most influential papers published from 1995 to June 2020 that offers insights into the management of the COVID-19 crisis. Our bibliometric investigation reveals six clusters: (1) conservation of resources theory, entrepreneurs, gender and work–family conflict; (2) corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and stakeholder salience; (3) family firms, innovation and research methods; (4) creativity, leadership and organizational change; (5) job satisfaction and psychological empowerment; and (6) team performance. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

COVID-19 and Work–Family Conflicts in Germany: Risks and Chances Across Gender and Parenthood

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected everyone’s daily life in one way or another, requiring a re-negotiation of existing strategies for work–life integration, not only for individuals but also within families and partnerships. To contribute to existing knowledge on work-life integration during COVID-19 in Germany, we look at gender and parenthood differences in the experiences of work-to-family (WFC) and family-to-work (FWC) conflicts. By accounting for employees’ previous conflict experiences, we were able to reveal the extent to which the current conditions contributed to differences in these conflicts. Moreover, we explored the relevance of demands and resources in the family and work spheres as a way to explain different levels of WFC and FWC across gender and parenthood. Our analyses are based on a sample of 660 employees from a German linked employer–employee panel study and a COVID-19 follow-up survey conducted in late 2020. Results revealed that work–family conflict experiences before the pandemic play an important role in current conflict perceptions. Whereas WFC were more likely to be accentuated during the pandemic, prior FWC experiences may have helped to mitigate conflicts under these new conditions. Work–family conflicts in general have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but this finding applied only to conflicts in the family-to-work direction. Although such increases were not limited to parents, they were particularly high in this group. Overall, gender differences in work–family conflicts were absent, but differences were found between mothers and fathers. The need to compensate for a lack of external childcare, as well as having to work from home, increased FWC, especially among fathers. This study suggests that FWC in particular became more important during the pandemic; however, parents were not the only ones who were disadvantaged when it came to work–life integration; childless individuals likewise struggled to balance the demands of work and private life.

Association of off-the-job training with work performance and work–family conflict among physicians: a cross-sectional study in China

ObjectivesTo determine whether experiences of off-the-job training in domestic (DT) and overseas study (OS) settings are associated with work performance and work–family conflict in physicians.Design, setting and participantsWe conducted a national cross-sectional survey in 77 public hospitals across seven provinces in China between July 2014 and April 2015. Participants were 3182 physicians.ExposureParticipants were categorised into four groups: none, DT only, OS only and DT and OS.Primary outcome measuresWork performance was assessed by work engagement, career attrition and patient-centred care. Work–family conflict was assessed by affecting care for family, feeling guilty towards family and receiving complaints from family.ResultsA total of 25.89% participants had experienced DT only, 8.71% OS only and 8.47% DT and OS. After adjustment for potential confounders, participants who had experiences of DT and OS compared with those with no training were more likely to report positive work performance (pride in work: OR=2.11, 95% CI: 1.43 to 3.10; enjoyment of work: OR=1.67, 95% CI: 1.11 to 2.51; turnover intention: OR=0.54, 95% CI: 0.38 to 0.77; early retirement: OR=0.63, 95% CI: 0.45 to 0.89; and exhaustion: OR=0.66, 95% CI: 0.45 to 0.98) and less work–family conflicts (feeling guilty towards family: OR=0.51, 95% CI: 0.35 to 0.74; and complaints from family: OR=0.66, 95% CI: 0.47 to 0.91). We found no obvious association between DT/OS experience with patient-centred care.ConclusionsPhysicians with DT and OS experiences are more likely to have better work performance and less work–family conflict than those without such experience. Physicians face increasing pressure to pursue continuing education and experience associated distress. Therefore, hospitals and government policy-makers should promote DT and OS.

Relationships between professional burnout and job demands, resources among workers in an industrial plant in Lithuania

Burnout can negatively affect both workers’ health and safety in an organization [1]. The current study was oriented to identify the main risk and protective factors, which might predict professional burnout among workers in an industrial plant in Lithuania using the Job demands-resources model [2, 3]. 249 industrial and 74 administrative workers from one organization filled out a self-administered questionnaire. Scales from COPSOQ II (Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire) were used in a cross-sectional survey. With reference to the research results, there were no significant differences in professional burnout between industrial and administrative workers. However, scores of work pace, safety climate, possibilities for development, influence at work, recognition and organizational justice were higher in a group of administrative employees as compared to their colleagues from the industrial departments. Moreover, different factors were found to predict employees’ physical, emotional and mental exhaustion: emotional demands predicted burnout in administrative workers’ group, while quantitative demands, work-family conflict, possibilities for development- among industrial workers. Organizational justice was the only protective factor to predict lower burnout in both groups of employees.