Factors affecting to work family conflict ai viet nam lubricants chemical JSC (vilube corporation)

RESEARCH PROJECT
(BMBR5103)

FACTORS AFFECTING TO
WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT
AT VIETNAM LUBRICANTS & CHEMICAL JSC
(VILUBE CORPORATION)

STUDENT’S FULL NAME

: TRAN MINH THAI

STUDENT ID

: CGS00018526

INTAKE

: September 2014

ADVISOR’S NAME & TITLE

: NGUYEN THE KHAI, DBA.

December 2015

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ADVISOR’S ASSESSMENT
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Advisor’s signature
KHAI NGUYEN, DBA.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................5 
ABBREVIATIONS.....................................................................................................6 
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLE .............................................................................7 
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................8 
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................9 
1. 

RESEARCH INTRODUCTION ...................................................................9 

2. 

VILUBE CORPORATION OVERVIEW AND INTRODUCTION..........10 

2.1.  Vilube and motul partnership: .....................................................................11 
2.2.  Goods & services .........................................................................................12 
2.3.  Manufacturing & production capacity & capability....................................13 
2.4.  Marketing objectives ...................................................................................13 
2.5.  Vilube corporation description ....................................................................14 
2.6.  Vilube company history & development .....................................................16 
2.7.  Vilube company organization chart.............................................................16 
2.8.  Vilube strategic focus & plan ......................................................................17 
2.9.  Mission and Vision: .....................................................................................18 
2.10. 

Vilube’s economic recovery risks ............................................................18 

2.11. 

Regulatory ................................................................................................20 

2.12. 

Industry analysis/trends ............................................................................21 

CHAPTER II: LITTERATURE REVIEW ...............................................................23 
1. 

WORK – FAMILY CONFLICT .................................................................23 

2. 

OVERALL JOB SATISFACTION .............................................................29 

3. 

CAREER COMMITMENT .........................................................................34 

4. 

PERSON – ENVIRONMENT FIT .............................................................36 

5. 

SUPERVISORY SUPPORT .......................................................................36 

CHARPTER III: RESEARCH HYPOTHESES AND MODEL ..............................39 
1. 

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES ......................................................................39 

1.1.  Instruments ..................................................................................................39 
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1.2.  Research Participants...................................................................................45 
1.3.  Procedure For Data Collection And Analyze ..............................................45 

2. 

RESEARCH MODEL .................................................................................47 

2.1.  Dependent Variables....................................................................................47 
2.2.  Independent Variables .................................................................................47 
2.3.  Measure of variable: ....................................................................................48 
CHARPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND REPORT ............................................49 
1. 

DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESPONDENTS ......49 

2. 

RELIABILITY STATISTICS .....................................................................51 

3. 

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ....................................................................52 

4. 

CORRELATION STATISTICS ..................................................................53 

5. 

Hypotheses Testing Results .........................................................................54 

CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS ............................................56 
1. 

DISCUSSION ..............................................................................................56 

1.1.  Organizational culture: ................................................................................56 
1.2.  Supervisor support: ......................................................................................56 
1.3.  Family-oriented benefits:.............................................................................56 
2. 

SIGNIFICANT OF THE RESEARCH .......................................................57 

3. 

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY & RECOMMENDATION .....................57 

4. 

CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................58 

REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................60 
APPENDIX 1 ............................................................................................................63 
APPENDIX 2 ............................................................................................................68 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Nowadays, in the modern life, most of people are enjoying the work and family
life after work. This will be satisfied with the current position and that's what we are
looking for. We spend all most of the time at work every day, so do not "lock"
ourselves with a job does not bring you to enjoy the family life with happiness and

interesting life. On that really is the basic of work and life, we perceive the
importance of the organization which what we are in researching to find the way to
improve the balancing between work and family life.
Take of this chance, I would like to give my sincerely thanks to Dr. Nguyen The
Khai – who had instructed of Business Research Methods and gave us valuable
lessons through his board knowledge to help me to complete this research. In the
end of the course, we finally find it is a very interesting subject which given us
quite essential knowledge and touch our inspiration for researching any problems
that may happen in our work and in our daily life.
I would like to give so much thanks to my colleagues – MBAOUM0914 – K15C
– who had helped me to complete the discussion on work – family conflict and
helping together with any misunderstandings about the lessons through BRM
subject.
I would like to give great thanks to my family for supporting me during the MBA
program which almost comes to the end.
Lastly, I would like to give my especially thanks to my wife who had very
special given the right engine and energy for me to make life easier and more joyful
during the time of my MBA course.
Within the limited knowledge and the time allowance, the research project may
contain mistakes; therefore, I do hope to receive the valuable comments from the
instructor and all for further understanding and development.
Thank you so much.

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ABBREVIATIONS
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VILUBE

: Vietnam Lubricants & Chemical JSC (Vilube Corporation)

-

MOTUL

: Motul Corporation (Lubricants industry – in France)

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AO

: Automotive Oils

-

IO

: Industrial Oils

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WFC

: Work – Family Conflict

-

OJS

: Overall Job Satisfaction

-

CC

: Career Commitment

-

PEF

: Person – Environment Fit

-

SS

: Supervisory Support

-

AOP

: Annual Operating Plan

-

R&D

: Research and Development

-

HCMC

: Ho Chi Minh City

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLE
Figure 01:

Vilube Factory at Nha Be District, HCMC

Figure 02:

Lubricant products of Vilube Corporation

Figure 03:

Production Processing at Vilube Factory – Nha Be District

Figure 04:

Vilube Corporation’s events – Moto-show

Figure 05:

Vilube organization chart

Figure 06:

Vilube strategy imaging

Figure 07:

Research Model

Figure 08:

Measure of variable

Figure 09:

Reliability statistics table – Cronbach’s Alpha

Figure 10:

Descriptive statistics table

Figure 11:

Correlation statistics

Figure 12:

Hypotheses Testing Results

Figure 13:

Coefficients

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ABSTRACT
The Work – Family Conflict determines the success or failure of Vilube
Corporation’s purposes and defines employees’ performance with their satisfactions
on job and asking how employees balance work and life through Vilube
Corporation.
The growing interest in understanding fully the interface of work and family
roles and Vilube’s employees’ antecedents has stimulated the development of a
predictive model of work-family conflict in this research. A model is developed on
predictors of work-family conflict which suggests that the predictors could be jobrelated: Overall job satisfaction, Career commitment, Person – Environment fit and
Supervisory support. This present model is based on the researching the scale of
work – family conflict of Kopelman, Greenhaus, and Connolly – 1983.
The issue of work and family interaction attracts a lot of attention in the
academic field. In this research, I devoted all my energy into the exploration of the
mystery of how people manage themselves to live in the work domain and family
domain at the same time. Through the discovery of influence of work-family
linkage, people may know to adjust themselves between the work life and family
life. People can try to change their linkage patterns and organization can be
understood more on the impacted factors and find the way to improve to support
employees in order to reduce their work-family conflict.
This study investigated the relationship between Work-Family Conflict with
Overall job satisfaction, Career commitment, Person – Environment fit and
Supervisory Support in Vilube Corporation Organization.

Keywords: Work-family conflict, Overall job satisfaction, Career commitment,
Person – Environment fit, Supervisory support.

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1. RESEARCH INTRODUCTION
Attainment of a high level performance through human productivity and
efficiency has always been a Vilube organizational goal of high priority. In order to
do that highly satisfied work force and the balancing of work and family life is an
absolutely necessity for achieving a high level of performance advancement of an
organization. Balancing work and life leads to extend more effort to job
performance, then works harder and better. Thus, every organization tries to create
good programs to control and operate the well-being of the organization to lead
people to do all their efforts and be worked for company in long time period and
build employees’ life with balancing, lot of happiness with success and feel
comfortable in working conditions.
An employee's who balance between work and family with his job is the result of
a combination of factors overall job satisfaction, career commitment and personenvironment fit, with supervisory support through the Vilube organization.
Management's role in enhancing employees' balancing work-family conflict is to
make sure the work environment is positive, morale is high and employees have the
resources they need to accomplish the tasks they have been assigned with best
career commitment in the organization. In order to help the management team have
an overview of the effects of overall job satisfaction, career commitment and person
– environment fit, with supervisory support on work – family conflict, this study
assess the validity of the relationship among them in Vilube corporation working
environment. After that management team will define the strategies to satisfy
employees, aims to enhance the employee’s performance and commitment.
Therefore, the specific objectives of this study are:



To assess whether there is a positive relationship between Overall Job
Satisfaction and the Work – Family Conflict.

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

To assess whether there is a positive relationship between Career Commitment
and the Work – Family Conflict.



To assess whether there is a positive relationship between Person –
Environment Fit and the Work – Family Conflict.



To assess whether there is a positive relationship between Supervisory Support
and the Work – Family Conflict.
This study is structured into six sections. Section 1, comprises of an introduction

to the research study. The problem statement briefly outlines the constructs and
reasons for this study. Research constructs theory and the relation among them are
discussed in the literature review of section 2. Next, in the section 3, research
methods are discussed. Section 4 deals mainly with the statistical analysis of the
empirical results of this study. The aim of the study is stated, after which the
method is explained in depth. Further, data analysis is presented, after which the

results are discussed. Section 5 deals with the conclusion to this study. Section 6,
concludes with a discussion of limitations and recommendations suggested.
2. VILUBE CORPORATION OVERVIEW AND INTRODUCTION

Figure 1: Vilube Factory at Nha Be District, HCMC

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Officially established in 1994, Vietnam Lubricants and Chemicals Joint Stock
Corporation-Vilube has been known by domestic and foreign consumers as one of
the leading lubricant producer in Vietnam.
Awards: High Quality Vietnam Goods Awards, Gold Stars Awards, Strong
Brand Awards. VILUBE Office is now located on eleventh floor of Tuildonai
Building at 119 Dien Bien Phu Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. In 2001,
VILUBE decided to invest in building a lubricant blending at 190 Nguyen Van Tao
St, Hamlet 1, Long Thoi Village, Nha Be Dist. HCMC.
Best-Equipped Laboratory:
VILUBE Laboratory is now seen as the best-equipped and most modern in
Vietnam's lubricant market. Test result in laboratory is compared to a specification
of each grade of lubricants products that meet all the standards will be filled after
getting approval from Quality Department.
High Standard:
This procedure has helped the factory to closely control and manage products
from VILUBE Factory so as to meet the high standards required by the group.
2.1.

Vilube and motul partnership:

In 2008 VILUBE officially became a member of Motul Asia Pacific. Vilube now

is 100% foreign investment company owned by Motul (France).
Motul is a world-class French company with more than 150 years of experience
specializing in hi-tech lubricant which is specifically used for racing vehicles in the
most extreme and challenging condition.
Towards people: In recent years, Vilube has placed special importance in
training young, enthusiastic, dynamic, highly-skilled and creative staffs. Up to now,
the company consists of highly-trained staffs, including engineers, all of them with
thorough technical knowledge and good management skills.

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Toward quality: Before any single product reaches consumer's hand, Vilube
ensures that it has passed the quality checking process.
Base oils, additives and finished oils samples tested are stored in retain sample
room in accordance with regulated time which is based on different products.
All filling lines have automatic checking parts to remove containers which do not
meet the standard of weight. This is to guarantee accurate volume of the products.
Towards environment: At Vilube, not only does the group's board of directors
pay special attention to product quality and the factory's production capability but
they also take into account Health-Safety & Environment (or HSE in short).
The factory's environmental protection project is highly appreciated by local
authorities with better-than-regulated periodic supervision evaluation.
2.2.

Goods & services

Figure 2: Lubricant products of Vilube Corporation

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2.3.

Manufacturing & production capacity & capability

Figure 3: Production Processing at Vilube Factory – Nha Be District
2.4.

Marketing objectives

Marketing Objectives: To be a TOP CHOICE BRAND among Local Lubricant
Brands focusing on Commercial Vehicle Oils and Commercial Industrial Oils.
Imaging our product in the eyes of the consumer:
Products:
High – tech lubricant oils in Automotive and Industrial field.
Multi – channel marketing will be used to offer Vilube products.
Moto-show is the hot events in Vietnam which best moto riders, famous moto –
stunter from America – Ms. Leah Peterson.

Figure 4: Vilube Corporation’s events – Moto-show

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2.5.

Vilube corporation description

Vietnam Lubricants & Chemical Joint Stock Company: The investment in

Vietnam Lubricants and Chemical JSC, marks MOTUL's commitment to its
customers and partners in Asia – Pacific. Originally established in 1994 as Toan
Tam Co., ltd; Vilube operates its own blending facilities near Hiep Phuoc Industrial
Park in the Nha Be District, in Ho Chi Minh City.
Vilube has come a long way since its early days of blending for the oil majors:
Caltex, Esso and Mobil. Through its own efforts, it succeeded in winning the award
of "High Quality Vietnamese Product" for 2 consecutive years in 2005 and 2006.
Vilube was also the first Vietnamese lubricant company to receive the Japanese
Automobile Standard Organization (JASO) certificates for its motorcycle oils. With
such experience and achievements, Vilube has proven its dedication to the
production of quality automotive oils. Vilube is headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City
and has 4 branches located strategically across Vietnam's economic hub; Hanoi
(Northern region), Da Nang (Central region), Can Tho (Mekong Delta) and in Ho
Chi Minh City.
Vilube was the natural choice
As an already well-recognized premium and high technology automotive oil
supplier in the region, MOTUL wanted to increase its presence in the Asia – Pacific
region. Being a player in such a fast developing region implies a very fast reaction
to customer demands and needs.
A suitable production base needed to be founded to service its growing number
of customers in the region: a base enabling a consistent level of quality, a high
flexibility, and securing R&D confidentiality. Production control and flexibility
were essential to enable MOTUL to serve its customers and grow its presence.
Vilube was the natural choice; Located through this investment in the growing
domestic market of Vietnam with a young workforce and a developing working
class, MOTUL could access Vilube's production facility as a production base for
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exports and gain a foothold for itself in this fast-growing market. Most of all,

MOTUL found a very willing, eager, hard-working and capable workforce that
already had a deeply entrenched quality culture.
Customers who have placed their confidence in MOTUL will never be
disappointed MOTUL's products will always have a consistent quality regardless of
their place of production. MOTUL stands for high – technology, quality, and a high
performance. This reputation is maintained within Vilube through regular training
of the working teams, careful screening of raw materials, selection of prime
accredited suppliers and through work culture.
Vilube is now are member of Motul – one of the famous lubricant oil products in
the world which people and OEMs know much for the best racing car – F1 – the
newest products in Vietnam market. Factory in Vietnam can maximize the
production capacity fully per year is 40K tons of lubricant oils.
We are installed more new Motultech line and maximize production capacity for
Industrial oils in markets. The new Flexspout Cap lining is on operations as well as
efficiency improvement to the better and qualify Motul products in its facilities in
Vietnam. As per leading by the strong team at Factory, we are continuously
improving the Factory with full purpose of building talent, environment and Human
sustainability.
Beside the slope of development, Factory team is building the manufacturing
capacity which included Overall Equipment Effectiveness improvement, Machine
capacity improvement and Production capacity improvement. Bottlenecks are
clarifying and solutions to be solved out by years. Step changes will be applied for
the rest of development.
Re-organization and factory re-structure are critical projects for the time of
development. We are in changes and strategic each year for improvement. Set the
systematic program, put into operations and control. We have strong Sales &
marketing team through Vietnam country and included Thailand, Lao and
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Cambodia markets. With the best experiences in many years on lubricant oils & gas
field, the team will strongly go through the market shares and launching our
products in markets. Marketing strategy is now focusing on the automotive oils and
Industrial oils, which fulfil the needs of markets on the industrial operations.
2.6.

Vilube company history & development

2.7.

Vilube company organization chart

Figure 5: Vilube organization chart

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2.8.

Vilube strategic focus & plan

The Strategic Focus and Plan sets the strategic direction for the entire Vilube
organization, a direction with which proposed actions of the marketing plan must be
consistent.
This section may or may not be included in the marketing plan, depending on the
plan’s intended audience.
The components of this section of the marketing plan consist of the
mission/vision, goals, and core competency/sustainable competitive advantage.
Core competency

Vilube strategy – 5-Year plan

Figure 6: Vilube strategy imaging

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2.9.

Mission and Vision:

MISSION:
Distributing:
Motul Brand: To be among TOP FIVE PLAYERS in term of MARKET
SHARE focusing on Motor Cycle Oils and Passenger Car Motor Oils in Vietnam by
2020.
Vilube Brand: To be a TOP CHOICE BRAND among Local Lubricant Brands
focusing on Commercial Vehicle Oils and Commercial Industrial Oils.
Manufacturing: To be the most efficient Local Lubricating Oil Blending Plant
(LOBP) in Vietnam by 2020.
VISION: MOTUL affirms as a High-Technology lubricant brand with full range
of product lines to satisfy Automotive Oils market demand.
Co-branded brand target to regain market shares from international brand and
will be a key driver to switch the whole volume and distributor system of Vilube to
Motul brand. VILUBE Brands are targeted defending its market shares and sales
volumes by leveraging international values from MOTUL.
2.10. Vilube’s economic recovery risks
- Firstly, the macroeconomic policy caught in dilemma. There is little space for
fiscal policy due both to high national debt resulted from the stimulating plan in the
2008 financial crisis, and to the enormous size of balance sheet of the Fed and the

European Central Bank. Many countries have to cut public expenditures and
implement the fiscal austerity plan to deal with the financial pressure. Moreover,
because of the money injected to the financial system did not flow to enterprises,
the risks of property and financial bubbles are increasing.
- Secondly, the current US dollar-dominated international monetary system has
led to the global economic imbalances. The USD alone does not only fail to resolve
the “Triffin dilemma”, but also causes cyclical depreciation of USD and current

18


account deficits. The United States has a unique “wealth-generating mechanism” in
the world, but it has become a well-known “problem-generating mechanism”.
- Thirdly, the higher proportion of capital required for commercial banks could
affect the world economy and the banking industry. Recently, the Basel Committee
has announced the Basel Accord Ⅲ that aims to strengthen the banking system
through higher capital requirement for the banking sector. The agreement provides
that by January 1st of 2015, commercial banks are required to raise the capital
adequacy ratio from 4% to 6%. The proportion of the “core” capital composed of
common shares to banking risk assets is required to rise from 2% to 4.5%. This is
the largest financial reform over the last few decades designed for banks to reduce
highly risky business and to ensure the health and stability of the banking sector.
- Fourthly, the current world trade protectionism impedes the free movement of
goods and the development of economic globalization. Free trade will usually be a
strong driving force of global economic recovery during the economic crisis.
However, based on the World Trade Organization 2009 Bulletin, the number of
non-tariff barriers has risen by 17%, from 1272 in 2008 to 1489 in 2009. As the
international financial crisis spreads and deepens, trade protectionism is becoming
increasingly serious. In addition, some countries have depreciated their currencies
to boost exports, and other countries have asked them for currency revaluation

through political pressure. I think this is also a kind of protectionist practices.
And there are four developing opportunities for the current world economy:
- First of all, the current world economy has got rid of negative impact of the
global financial crisis. Comparing with most developed economies that have
experienced a slight recovery, developing countries have achieved relatively faster
economic growth. The emerging economies become the engine of the global
economic development.

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- Secondly, international trade and foreign direct investment have been rapidly
recovered. In particular, international trade has presented faster growth, with rising
trade prices and larger amount of foreign direct investment in 2010.
- Thirdly, financial control and risk management have been strengthened. On
21st July 2010, US President Barack Obama launched the 2010 Wall Street reform
and Consumer Protection Act, with two central ideas of systemic financial risk
control and financial consumer protection. EU plans to establish three authorities in
2011, responsible for supervising banks, financial transactions and insurance risks.
Systemic Risk Management Board is about to be established as well to supervise
systemic financial risks.
- Finally, the reform of global economic governance has been launched and the
G20 has become an important platform for international economic coordination.
The G20 has a broader scale of members, with the participant of China, India,
Brazil and some other countries, comparing with the G-7. There are three major
problems within the current global governance structure. Firstly, there is no enough
voice from the emerging economies which is incompatible with their increasing
international economic positions and influences. The second is the unbalanced
global distribution of benefits. Thirdly, regarding the global climate change issues,
disagreements exist between the developing and developed countries.

2.11. Regulatory
The Lubricant products have been drafted based on the following principles:
-

Adopting the most appropriate licensing regime by having regard to

the existing level of competition within each petroleum products market as
well as existing agreements with the Government.
-

Protecting the interests of consumers by regulating prices, if and when

required until fair competition is established as well as the formulation of
quality, safety, operational, environmental and emergency standards.

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-

Creating a level playing field and facilitating workable competition by

establishing non-discriminatory regulated access to essential infrastructure
facilities as well as regulating wholesale & retail markets.
-

Making rules in relation to the importation, exportation, refining,

blending, production, storage, wholesaling, distribution, transportation and
retailing of lubricant resources/products.

-

Issuing of licenses.

-

Price regulation.

-

Setting and enforcing standards for petroleum products.

-

Regulating access to certain essential infrastructure facilities and.

-

Advising the government on related matters.

2.12. Industry analysis/trends
Booms and Recessions in the Market of Oils and Lubricants:
Global market of crude oil industries has always been not as stable, as it has
already seen in past years we have witness many fluctuations in terms of prices and
demands from all over the world, especially in countries like Canada, Japan, China
and United States where market of crude oil is very high as most of the cars, jets
and earth moving machineries are being manufactured in these countries and most
of the developing programs are also being taking place in such modern and
developed countries.
But somehow the stats shows that 2016 would be different from past years as it

could be the year in which Global Market would remain stable and balanced,
however the global economy is sucking every country causing a heap of an
uncertainty for oil industries worldwide.
Especially for not so developed countries and mostly under developing countries
which increases the demand for synthetics.

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How synthetic oils are different?
As Synthetic oil are little cheap in prices then modified petroleum special
compounds as it’s consisting chemical compounds, which are artificially made from
crude oil.
But the demand is somehow segmented on the basis of requirement by their
machineries and manufacturers as most of the aircrafts, which consisting jet engines
can easily work on synthetic crude oil where aircrafts with having piston engines
works only on refined petroleum.
This segmentation is also seen and analyzed on different territories of the world
and after the research and witnessing stats and analyzed data shows the result that
countries of Asia Pacific, Europe and North-America uses hydraulic fluids, chainsaw and turbine oils for the use of consumer automotive and for commercial
purpose they use Bio Lubricant.
And this study helps in forecasting the results for 2015 to 2020 for the lubricant
industries of the world, which also generates competition in synthetic lubricant
industries and bio based oil markets.

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CHAPTER II: LITTERATURE REVIEW
1. WORK – FAMILY CONFLICT

Changes in the workplace and demography of employees have made studying the
relationship between work and family more important. Research that examines
work-family conflict has advanced over the last few decades and has led to the
development of theoretical models, empirical studies, and organization-sponsored
work-family initiatives.
As organizations attempt to help employees manage the balance between work
and family demands, there is a growing body of research on the topic of workfamily conflict. Besides the rapid increase of married women entering the work
force while continuing to maintain the majority of the family and household
responsibilities (Jackson, Tal, & Sullivan, 2003), the interest in the topic has also in
large measures been fueled by the recognition that work-family concerns are highly
salient for the well-being of employees. Empirical evidence also confirms that
work-family conflict is often a severe stress factor at work leading to various
negative outcomes, including impaired well-being (Karatepe & Tekinkus, 2006).
This research is being identified work-family conflict as one of the major
stressors in the workplace in the Vilube Corporation. In this organization, time in
employment increased for many, as did the non-work demands resulting from the
continued change in family structures and the continued rise in the percentage of
employees with child care, elder care or both. Men have assumed more family
responsibilities, in part due to high rates of divorce resulting in increased
involvement in single parenting (Gill & Davidson, 2001). As a result, many men,
like women, are beginning to experience increased levels of stress and conflict as
they juggle work and parenting responsibilities (Tennant & Sperry, 2003).
The concept of work-family conflict has been explained by Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn,
Snoek, & Rosenthall (1964) using the role theory framework. They proposed that
the major determinant of an individual’s behavior is the expectation of behavior that
23


others have for him or her. The role theory predicts that the expectation surrounding
each of these different roles a person performs can generate inter-role conflict when

they involve pressure to dominate the time of the focal person to satisfy all
expectations of his or her work and family roles since each role requires time,
energy and commitment. Using this framework, Kahn et al. (1964) defined work
family conflict as a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from work
and family spheres are mutually incompatible. Such incompatibility is indicated by
the fact that participation in the work role is made more difficult by virtue of
participation in the family role and vice versa.
Besides the negative influence of participation in several roles, the social identity
theory proposes that people can invest in several roles and achieve work-family
balance by ensuring that conflicting identities in their multiple roles are separated,
or by applying consistent personal values across identities (Lobel, 1991).

By

ordering these various identities on the basis of salience to the individual, this
conflict can be resolved. For example, when roles with higher salience receive a
higher level of time investment by the individual because they are more central to
that person’s self-image, effort and identity is kept in a state of equilibrium and
conflict may be avoided. The enrichment argument suggests that a greater number
of role commitments provide benefits to individuals rather than draining them
(Rothbard, 2001). There are several resources derived from one's work role, such as
income, job autonomy, and social support from co-workers and/or supervisor, that
can positively influence one's experiences and well-being in the family domain.
Similarly, individuals' home and family lives can also strengthen or enrich the
quality of their work lives by providing a variety of supportive resources to draw
upon.
It is evident that our work lives can either enhance or detract from our family
lives. In the same manner, our family lives can have positive or negative influences
on our work attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes. For example, extensive and
inflexible work hours, over-involvement in work, and job stress may produce

24


distress within the family domain, as well as withdrawal from family
responsibilities, and adversely affect one's overall quality of life. Similarly,
extensive care-giving responsibilities and intensive involvement with family
activities can limit individuals' career choices and aspirations and negatively affect
their work involvement, job satisfaction, and intention to continue their
employment. Although researchers argue that both depletion and enrichment
processes operate simultaneously for employees who assume both roles (Ohlott,
Graves, & Ruderman 2004; Ruderman et al. 2002; Wadsworth & Owens, 2007),
work-family interference still must be managed because the existence of
enhancement does not eliminate role conflict.
Work-family conflict has been conceptualized by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985)
on the basis of source of conflict. They divided work-family conflict into three
types of conflict, namely, time-based, strain-based and behavior-based conflicts.
Time-based conflict refers to the conflict that arises when the time devoted to one
role makes it difficult for the individual to participate in the other role. An example
might be where a parent-teacher meeting conflicts with an important meeting at
work. (e.g., requiring employees to work late with little notice might make it
difficult for employees to meet family obligations, like picking up a child at
daycare). According to Buck, Lee, MacDermid and Smith (2000), the notion of
time-based work family conflicts is derived from the scarcity model which suggests
that human energy is in limited quantity, although research (Nordenmark, 2002)
seems to also support the expansion model which argues that alternative resources
provided by multiple roles outweigh the possible stressful effects of multiple role
engagements.
Overall, this research is recognizing that work-family conflict is a complex,
multi-dimensional construct. Work – Family Conflict is conceptualized as a
construct with dual direction (work-to-family and family-to-work), multiple forms

(time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based) and specific to multiple life roles
(e.g., spouse, parental, elder care, home care, and leisure). Acknowledging the
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