The Conflict Between Work and Family Roles: the Effects on Managers’ Reliance on Information Sources in Dealing With Significant Workplace Events

Decisions made by managers in response to common workplace events often have important consequences. These decisions can include dealing with issues related to personnel, resources or procedures. A logic-based decision-making process requiring substantial information search and analysis can be very complex and time consuming. Managers frequently face conflicting demands for time and cognitive resources from their family and their occupational roles that adversely affect their ability to perform both roles effectively. Adverse effects of these conflicting roles that impede the decision-making processes can result from reduced time, energy and attention available to properly gather and analyze information for each major business or family decision and by increasing the number of major decisions to be made. This study assessed the effect of conflict between family and work roles on the information search behavior in a sample of credit union executives. The study found evidence of significant relationships between the amount of work-family and family-work conflict and the effect certain personal and impersonal information sources had on the actions these executives took in dealing with events that were both important and commonly encountered in the workplace. The significant relationships were primarily positive, contrary to expectations and were more frequently related to impersonal information sources.