The purpose of this study was to create a model of factors affecting work-family conflict and its related indicators. To accomplish this, the study primarily relied on the meta-synthesis method to identify the factors impacting work-family conflict and the indicators representing this concept. Next, FTISM was to utilized to determine the level partitions of both the factors and indicators and to clarify the relationships established between them. In the light of Sushil’s (2012) method, there were causal (cause-effect) relationships, which were then interpreted. The factors that affected work-family conflict were then divided into four dimensions including 22 criteria, and 202 sub-criteria. The dimensions were “occupational”, “familial” “individual”, and “environmental.” The criteria falling under the “occupational” dimension were “the pressure of occupational demands”, “time pressure at work”, “occupational welfare and support schemes”, “dynamic inter-role demands”, “occupational risks and conflicts”, “the importance of the occupational role”, “a supportive leadership style”, “passion for work and the organization”, and “a human-centered organizational architecture.”
Meanwhile, the criteria of the “familial” dimension were “quality of family life”, “caregiving and nursing courses”, “time pressure imposed by family”, and “pressure of family expectations.” The “individual” dimension included such criteria as “background characteristics”, “locus of control”, “spiritual intelligence”, “psychological growth”, “inability to self-organize”, “adaptive behavior.” The criteria representing the “environmental” dimension were “social conditions”, “cultural conditions”, and “economic insecurity.”
Corroborating the findings of Zayed et al. (2021), this study showed significant relationships between work-family conflict and such workplace feature as skills, work demands, the authority to make decisions, and supervisors’ and coworkers’ support. Radico et al. (2021) emphasized overwork, while Ibrahim et al. (2021 underscored work-related factors, family, and financial affairs, as the elements contributing to work-family conflict. Xu et al. (2020) showed that a delightful atmosphere could reduce work-family conflict. Shin et al. (2020) stated that job insecurity and workaholism left significantly positive impacts on work-family conflict. Labrague et al. (2020) observed such effective factors as age, education level, facilities, and hospital nurses’ conditions.
Organizational support (Zhou et al., 2020), as well as support at home and at work (Pluut et al., 2018), affected work-family conflict. Similarly, Bhalla (2017) found work-family conflict could be impacted by such factors as gender differences, parents’ status, more time spent on work, role overload, an unsupportive occupational culture, a lack of social support for family, customers' misbehavior. Pothupitiya & Ratnayaka (2017) stated that time spent of activities, pressure, and perceived gender roles had significantly positive effects on work-family conflict, and that spousal support and the supervisor’s support left considerably negative impacts on work-family conflict. Gamor et al. (2017) observed five factors (occupation, organizational commitment, spousal support, and family demands) affected work-family conflict. As Akkas et al. (2015) found, along with working hours, the key effective factors affecting work-family conflict were job inflexibility, overwork, taking care of children, children’s age, caregiving, responsibility, workplace discrimination, insufficient support from the supervisor, a despotic leadership style, insufficient support from family, and a lack of spousal support.
Given the studies conducted, work-family conflict indicators were divided into 6 dimensions and 51 criteria. The dimensions were “doubt, hesitation, and caution”, “anxiety” and “distress”, “a sense of emptiness”, “physical health issues”, “occupational problems”, and “family problems.” In line with this observation, Ademuyiwa et al. (2021) mentioned tension and job stress, emotional exhaustion, anger and furiousness, inability to respond to occupational and familial needs, reduced work participation, premature retirement, reduced productivity at work, a decline in marital and familial satisfaction, a decrease in quality of life, a reduced level of productivity at home, a decline in family belonging, failure to spent enough time on family, and ineffectiveness at home due to work responsibilities.
O’Neill et al. (2020) enumerated tension and job stress, job dissatisfaction, intention to leave work, reduced performance, increased absenteeism, and tardiness as the important indicators. Other studies emphasized distrust in others (Muasya, 2020), organizational silence (Polat et al., 2018), perceived pressure (Kleiner et al., 2017), perceived role conflict and emotional exhaustion (Jensen et al., 2016), organizational pessimism (Ju et al., 2015), and isolation (Demsky et al., 2014). Kengatharan (2015) found that the indicators of work-family conflict were depression, psychological distress, anger, poor appetite, stomach upset, headache, hypertension, heavy drinking, cigarette use, job dissatisfaction, absenteeism, declining performance, tardiness, and reduced satisfaction with marital life and family life.
To measure the influence of the factors on work-family conflict the ISM method was used. Analyzing the degree of influence of the factors on work-family conflict revealed the “occupational” factors left the highest degree of impact, whereas the “individual” factors were the least effective. Furthermore, as the model clarified, the “occupational” and “individual” factors inversely affected work-family conflict, although “familial” and “environmental” factors directly affected work-family conflict. The analysis of the results at this stage also pointed to the significance of the outer loadings, the confirmation of the convergence and divergence validity of the model (through examining paired correlations), and the GoF of the model.
Next, the FTISM method and ISM helped to explore the relationships between the factors affecting work-family conflict and its indicators. Primarily, the effective factors and the indicators were divided into four groups via the MICMAC analysis: linkage, dependent, autonomous, and independent. The independent variables were “the pressure of occupational demands”, “time pressure at work”, “occupational welfare and support schemes”, “dynamic inter-role demands”, “the importance of the occupational role”, “a supportive leadership style”, “a human-centered organizational architecture”, “background characteristics”, “social conditions”, “cultural conditions”, and “economic insecurity.” The independent variables had a high degree of driving power but a low level of dependency power. As such, they gave much influence but received low influence.
Meanwhile, the linkage variables were “occupational risks and conflicts”, “quality of family life”, “time pressure imposed by family”, “pressure of family expectations”, “psychological growth”, “inability to self-organize”, “anxiety and distress”, “a sense of emptiness”, “occupational problems”, and “family problems.” The linkage variables involved strong degrees of both driving power and dependency power. As such, they gave and received considerable influence, and even a small amount of change in such variables could lead to major changes in the system.
The dependent variables were “physical health issues”, “doubt, hesitation, and caution”, “passion for work and the organization”, “locus of control”, “adaptive behavior”, and “spiritual intelligence.” These variables had a low degree of driving power but a high amount of dependency power. Therefore, they were not hugely influential but they were majorly influenced. Finally, the only autonomous variable was “caregiving and nursing courses.” This autonomous variable involved both a low driving power and a low dependency power and was somehow detached from the system. Clearly, a change in this variable would not affect the system much.
After the factors affecting work-family conflict and its indicators, the crisp MICMAC analysis was used to re-group the factors and the indicators into four set of variables, namely autonomous, dependent, independent, and linkage. After this re-grouping, the independent variables were “dynamic inter-role demands”, “background characteristics”, “the pressure of occupational demands”, “a human-centered organizational architecture”, “social conditions”, “the importance of the occupational role”, and “economic insecurity.”
Meanwhile, the linkage variables included “occupational risks and conflicts”, “occupational welfare and support schemes”, “time pressure at work”, “a supportive leadership style”, “pressure of family expectations”, “occupational problems”, “time pressure imposed by family”, “quality of family life”, “anxiety and distress”, and “physical health issues.” The group of dependent variables also included “doubt, hesitation, and caution”, “a sense of emptiness”, “passion for work and the organization”, “locus of control”, “inability to self-organize”, “spiritual intelligence”, “adaptive behavior”, “psychological growth”, and “family problems.” Ultimately, the autonomous variables were “caregiving and nursing courses” and “cultural conditions.”
Comparing the grouping of the fuzzy MICMAC analysis with that of the crisp MICMAC analysis showed some differences existing between them. More specifically, although the number of the linkage variables did not change in the crisp MICMAC analysis, the variables of the autonomous and dependent variables increased in number, and the number of the independent variables was reduced. Next, the level partitioning was conducted and the factors and indicators were broken into eight levels: (a) the first level: “quality of family life”, “psychological growth”, “adaptive behavior”, “a sense of emptiness”, and “family problems”; (b) the second level: “inability to self-organize” and “physical health issues”; (c) the third level: “locus of control” and “spiritual intelligence”; (d) the fourth level: “passion for work and the organization”, “time pressure imposed by family”, “pressure of family expectations”, “doubt, hesitation, and caution”, “anxiety and distress”, and “occupational problems”; (e) the fifth level: “occupational welfare and support schemes”, “a supportive leadership style”, “caregiving and nursing courses”, and “cultural conditions”; (f) the sixth level: “time pressure at work” and “occupational risks and conflicts”; (g) the seventh level: “background characteristics”, “the importance of the occupational role”, “dynamic inter-role demands”, “social conditions”, and “economic insecurity”; and (h) the eighth level: “the pressure of occupational demands” and “a human-centered organizational architecture.”
Finally, in the light of the model derived from the experts’ opinions, it was clarified that there were relationships between the factors and the indicators. However, because the method used would require highly relevant reasons behind the relationships, some of the relationships were removed from the final model. The reason such relationships were omitted was that they could not be scientifically and logically justified. Furthermore, in line with the categorization proposed by Sushil (2012), the present study’s findings fell under the “cause-effect” category. Because the contextual conditions were put into a distinct set, and because this study specifically focused on cause-effect relationships, environmental factors (social conditions, cultural conditions, and economic insecurity) were considered to be contextual conditions and were not included in the interpretation of the relationships. The final model also demonstrated that the underlying factors left stronger degrees of influence on the factors at higher levels. Figure 5 illustrates a representation of the relationships between the factors and the indicators.
Furthermore, in the ISM, the relationships between the factors and the indicators were specified, regardless of which elements were factors or indicators. In fact, all of the factors or indicators were evaluated by the experts through paired comparisons and were then level-partitioned. The final model was constructed based on the cause-effect relationships between the factors and indicators, as a result of which some of these elements were at the topmost level of the model as they received a high degree of influence.
As the model shows, “the pressure of occupational demands” and “a human-centered organizational architecture” left the strongest degrees of influence. This finding implied that a mere focus on work while ignoring human values could be a starting point for the emergence of work-family conflict. Meanwhile, the more this problem moved upward, the more it could cause psychical health problems and psychological issues, as well as family and behavioral problems.
Banks usually involve high degrees of “the pressure of occupational demands” and “time pressure at work.” Continued pressure, without considering employees’ characteristics, could destroy human values, invoke a sense of emptiness, and give rise to work-family conflict. As these problems persist, the individual must deal with increasing difficulties. More seriously, work-family conflict could bring about negative consequences for individuals, families, and society, such as turnover, declining talent quality, a negative image of organizations, and in extreme conditions such as bankruptcy and demolition of businesses/organizations.
For this reason, gaining awareness of the effective factors and indicators, as well as interpreting the relationships between them (as in the model proposed), can help employees to have a clearer understanding of work-family conflict. Generally speaking, managers and policy-makers, when formulating goals and plans, must prioritize decisions and preventive measures to combat this serious problem. Managers’ and policy-makers’ acknowledgement of this problem will help employees to foster a sense of value for and responsibility toward their organizations and their jobs. Delegating authorities to employees will encourage them to make better personal plans and strike a balance between their responsibilities. A set of such considerations could reduce work-family conflict and prevent competent employees from leaving the organization.