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Psycap, Wfc, Outcomes

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Assessing the Moderating Role of Psychological Capital on Work-Family Conflict and Its Outcomes

Amna Binte Shehzad Malik
Ahmed Bin Shehzad Malik
Kaniz Fatima and Asbah Shujaat

University of Central Punjab

Author Note
Research Article written by students of BBA at Faculty of Management Studies, University of Central Punjab, for the completion of Research Methodology course under the instruction of Inam-ul-haq, Assistant Professor at University of Central Punjab
Any correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Ahmed Bin Shehzad Malik. Email: ahmed.shehzad5@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION
The success of any organization is highly dependent on how its employees work and perform tasks (Lambert, 1990). For quite some time, employees have been facing difficulties in the form of work-family conflict because they are unable to fulfill the roles of their work life and family life properly. Work-family conflict affects the productivity of an employee which, consequently, has impact on the outcomes for the organization.
The recent explosion of interest in the work-family interface has given rise to a number of concepts that try to explain these two major fields of life in terms of work-family balance, accommodation, compensation, spillover, work-family enrichment and work-family integration etc. (Barnett, 1998; Edwards & Rothbard, 2000; Friedman & Greenhaus, 2000; Greenhaus &Beutell, 1985; Lambert, 1990). One term commonly used and cited in these research works is work-family conflict. The relationship between employees’ work lives and their non-work matters has undergone inquiry several times (Kanter, 1977; Voydanoff, 1990) and it is identified that inter-role conflict is a major source of strain among people (Katz & Kahn, 1978).
Recent studies have suggested that work-family conflict to be a bi-directional construct characterizes two distinct types of conflict i.e. work-family and family-work conflict (Adams, King, & King, 1996; Netemeyer, Boles & McMurrian, 1996; O'Driscoll, Ilgen, & Hildreth, 1992). Our research is focused on the one dimension of conflict i.e., work-family conflict, representing workplace issues interfering with matters at home (e.g. taking work home).
Job stress is due to stressors (individuals and organizational) which leads to negative physical, psychological or physiological reactions (Kahn & Byosiere, 1992). Stress is a reaction which arises due to the outcome of any action, state of affairs or circumstances that impose particular demands on a person (Defrank & Lvancevich, 1998). Job satisfaction has been linked to several important organizational outcomes, such as organizational commitment (e.g., Carson, Carson, Roe, 2006), intentions to quit, support for organizational change (Greenhaus, Parasuraman, Granrose, Rabinowitz, & Beutell, 1989). In recent times, researchers have recommended that key determinant of job satisfaction is work-family conflict (Powell & Mainiero, 1992).
The purpose of our research is to develop and test the conceptual model of effects of work-family inconsistency or conflict on work outcomes such as job satisfaction, job stress and intention to quit and examine the role of psychological capital as a moderator for these relationships. There is an actual need to take work-family conflict into consideration in models of job satisfaction, turnover intentions and stress and identify which psychological resources can moderate them based on the Conservation of Resource Theory (McPadden 2006). This research relates that work and family conflict increases stress like job and family frustration, affects physical health and increased the intention to leave the job (McPadden, 2006). Our model is of considerable importance because workforce and the resulting confront faced by employees is making lives difficult to manage and need balancing of work and family lives (Stephens & Sommer, 1996). Managers and employees will benefit from this research by finding out predictors that lead to many problems that they face at workplace and at home and how their psychological capacity can help them tackle them.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Research suggests that the relationship between work life and family life can become quite unstable if both start conflicting with each other. Huge amount of workload disrupts the family life and this causes the person to show less support to one’s family (Adams et al., 1996). It has also been found that work-family conflict causes considerable job frustration, parental suffering and psychological imbalance. Less satisfaction (marital dissatisfaction, parental sorrow, psychological and physical problems) have also been found to be the outcomes of work-family conflict. Work-family conflict consistently affects employees. Therefore, organizations should give proper attention to solve this problem (Kinnunen, Geurts &Mauno, 2004).
Work-family conflict can be defined as “a form of variation in which the pressure of the role from the work and family are jointly mismatched at some level” (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Work-family conflict is the major cause of health problems (Hammer, Per Øystein, Nytrø, Torvatn, Bayazit, 2004). Supportive and helpful home environment results in less interference of family with work conflict levels. Family ignorance results in high level of work conflicts of all types. Research suggests individuals can manage and bring positive change within family domain quite easily as compared to work environment (Rotondo, Carlson & Kincaid, 2003). Emotional fatigue and job satisfaction both are direct outcomes of work-family conflict (Boles, Johnston, Hair, 1997). It is revealed that diverse aspects of work-family conflict are associated to different traits indicators (Bruck &Allen, 2003). The link between work and family can be at the same time remarked by conflict and support (Adams et al., 1996). Research suggests that work-family conflict and balance is a result of exhaustion (depletion argument)though, a few exceptions also exist (Kirchmiyer, 1992).
Job stress.Defrank & lvancevich (1998) definedstress as ‘‘a response which occurs due to the result of any action, state of affairs or occasion thatcreates particular demands on a person”.Job stress can be divided into good or bad. Not so frequently, stress provides extra energy, awareness and reinforcement to people which they need. This fine kind of stress can be described as eustress. Unfortunately, job stress is mostly not supportive and cooperative in nature. In fact, job stress results in harmful physical and emotional reactions. This happens when the requirements of a job do not match the capabilities, resources or needs of the employee. Whenstress isnot managed effectively, it can be destructive (Hammer et al., 2004).It has been found that stress increases the risk of developing health problems such as cardiovascular disease and anxiety disorders. Job stress can be is considered in terms of stressors and stress responses. Those events and objects that pressurize or challenge employees are called stressors. Sometimes, employees become dissatisfied with their jobs and feel that it would be better to leave that profession all together where they are faced with excessive work demand and long working hours (Brockman, 1992; Hagan & Kay, 1995). It is also suggested that these stressful conditions not only spoil employees’ general well-being but may also influence their ability to balance their job and family (Wallace, 1999, 2001; Brockman, 1992; Hagan & Kay, 1995). Because of stress during the job, individuals in the organizations cannot give proper attention to their work domain (Cooper, Dewe & O’Driscoll, 2001; Thoits, 1995). Studied forms of stress are job demands such as time (pressure demands), problem-solving demands and monitoring demands (Jackson, Wall, Martin, & Davids, 1993; Beehr& Kenny, 2001), work load (the extent to which the demands of the job are felt to be excessive) (Wallace, 1999), environmental conditions, work roles, clashes with coworkers and career concerns (Cooper et al., 2001).Job stress reduces the health and well-being of employees. All this effects the organizations as well, in the way that, they have to tolerate cost of billions of dollars due to low productivity and high absenteeism. To cope with job stress, more commonly studied coping resources include social and personal characteristics that employees may draw upon in response to stressful conditions that are social support and job control. Social support may be received from different sources, e.g., coworkers, family, and friends (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978).There are many causes of job stress. These include work overload, role conflict, hostile and incompetent bosses, lack of person fit with a job, lack of recognition,lack of a clear job description, fear, uncertainty and doubt about growth opportunities (Westman, 2001). The decade of 90s has included some additional stressful situations which are also considered as a source of job stress for the employees. These include technological change, increasingly diverse workforce, downsizing, and violent behavior (Defrank&Lvancevich, 1998).
It has been analyzed that norms of an organization are what lead to improved job performance and societal relations. Work-family conflict is an important source of job stress. The relation and interference between job performance and work-family conflict are also considerably linked to job stress (Hammer et al., 2004). Excessive stress can be a vital cause of low employee morale, decrease in outcomes and job dissatisfaction. Work-family conflict has been seen to be one of the reasons for stress (Casper, Bordeaux, Lockwood, Lambert, 2007). Throughout the literature on work-to-family conflict, however, it has been argued that long work hours, over time and routine schedules aggravate work-family tensions (MacDermid, Williams, Marks, Heilbrum, 1994). Regardless of the identification of the lively interaction between various life domains, it is suggested that job stress bound employee focus to what is happening in the work field and forget about its impact on other fields of life like family lives (Cooper et al., 2001; Thoits, 1995).It is signified that parental demands are linked to work-family conflict, which afterwards causes life strain, thus representing connectivityamong parental demands, work-family conflicts, and life strain (Matsui, Kakuyama, Onglatco & Ogutu, 1995).Work-family conflicts are extensively linked to work time, which in turn are the causes of job stress (Major, Klein, Ehrhart, 2002). Family conflict (interference between work and family roles) and work burden have an impact on two kinds of satisfaction (job and marital) which results in job stress. Stress based conflicts emphasized that how one role makes difficult to fulfill other one in the state of stress (Greenhaus &Buetell, 1985)
Hypothesis 1a, Work-family conflict is positively related to job stress.
Hypothesis 1b, Work-family conflict is negatively related to job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 1c, Work-family conflict is positively related to intention to quit.
Psychological capital.Positive organizational behavior (POB) has always been the pretext for development towards the concept of psychological capital (PsyCap). POB is, in effect, about having a strong positive sense of everything around and having the capacity to go through psychological transformation in order to continuously improve and perform better at job (Luthans, 2002). But according to Wright (2003) POBis not just about increasing productivity at organizational level, but means beyond that. POB is about happier, healthier and motivated employees, and these are linked to achieving qualities of PsyCap (Luthans & Youssef, 2007). Avey, Luthans, Smith & Palmer (2010) further explored PsyCap and found it to be effective in enhancing positive well-being of employees.
PsyCap is a comparatively new concept introduced in the field of psychology and organizational behavior. Luthans, Avolio, Avey & Norman (2007) defined psychological capital as a state of positive psychological development at an individual level. It has four major characteristics namely self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience. Here it is worthwhile to note that PsyCap is about “who you are” and “what you can become” rather than going into the older contexts of human capital or social capital (Luthans, Avey, Avolio, Norman & Combs, 2006).
Lazarus & Folkman (1984) suggested that PsyCap plays a vital role when people are faced with stress and how well they cope with it. Positivity and supportive attitude have been seen in employees with a higher level of PsyCap (Luthans et al., 2007). Employees’ positive PsyCap has direct relation with positive emotions and ability to counter potentialdysfunctional attitudes and behaviors. Avey, Wernsing & Luthans (2008) found out that it also helps combat negative reactions such as cynicism and deviance, often associated with work-family conflict. Avey, Luthans & Jensen (2009) tested the mediating effects of PsyCap for the relationship between job stress and the resulting dysfunctional effects. Keeping all this in view, PsyCap and its facets need to be assessed for their moderating effect on the relationship between job stress and work-family conflict.
Hypothesis 2a, Psychological capital moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job stress
Hypothesis 2b, Psychological capital moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction
Hypothesis 2c, Psychological capital moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and intention to quit.
Self-efficacy. Luthans (2007) elaborated on the concept of self-efficacy and characterized it as traits of self-confidence. Individual should believe in himself that he has the ability to take up anything and successfully accomplish what he works for. Bandura(1997) suggests enactive mastery, modeling and vicarious learning, social persuasion and positive feedback, and physiological and psychological arousal as some of the methods of practicing self-efficacy. Self-efficacy has been check for its mediating effect on work-family conflict and its outcomes (Hennessy& Lent, 2008). It has not been checked for its moderating effect for conclusive results.
Hypothesis 3a, Self-efficacy moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job stress
Hypothesis 3b, Self-efficacy capital moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction
Hypothesis 3c, Self-efficacy moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and intention to quit.
Optimism. Optimism, in view of Luthans et al., (2007), is one of the positive attributions of believing that things are going good and same would be the case in times to come. Furthermore, since optimists work towards their goal, they tend to stay focused on their goals and stay motivated towards achieving them. Pessimism, the total opposite of optimism, is when people tend to start doubting themselves and expect the worst to happen for them. Optimism needs to be realistic to remain effective (Peterson, 2000) otherwise unrealistic optimism may lead to negative outcomes (Seligman, 1998). Optimism can act as a good moderator when it comes to work conflicts and its outcomes.
Hypothesis 4a, Optimism moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job stress
Hypothesis 4b, Optimism moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction
Hypothesis 4c, Optimism moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and intention to quit.
Hope. Hope is the continuous struggle to achieve success, doing whatever possible, towards achieving it and taking different directions, if need be(Peterson & Luthans, 2003). Hope can be defined as a status of being motivated, with its roots in the sense of well-being and being optimistic about ones future. Two factors that are important in attaining goals are agency and pathway. They hold the energy and planning needed to attain goals and succeed (Snyder, Irving & Anderson, 1991).The word ‘hope’ is frequently used as a vague term, meaning a way to happiness or getting a desired state. In psychological term, it holds a deeper meaning to it. Hope regulates individuals as well as groups, and on a larger scale, whole organizations. Hopefulness is usually confused with a wish to get to a better position and an unsupported optimistic thought. Meanwhile, Snyder et al., (1991) researched this concept and defined hope to be a cognitive or more specifically, a ‘thinking’ state through which a person is capable of setting practical but demanding goals. He has to focus himself to those goals with expectations to overcome all challenges and feel the power over undesirable circumstances. ‘agency’ and ‘willpower’ with the additional factor of ‘pathways’ combined, allow an individual to tackle obstacles and make way to a successful order. Therefore, hope can have a positive influence on the relationship of work-family conflict with its outcomes.
Hypothesis 5a, Hope moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job stress
Hypothesis 5b,Hope moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction
Hypothesis 5c, Hope moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and intention to quit.
Resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back, much stronger and steadfast, against all problems, hurdles and failures (Luthans, 2002). Clinical and positive psychology tests lead to the conclusion that resilience traits help people adjust themselves fairly well when they are faced with life threatening circumstances (Block & Kremen, 1996; Masten, 2001). Masten and Reed (2002) defined resiliency to be a phenomena of adopting an optimistic pathway to face off complications or any adverse situation. Taking resiliency in context of PsyCap, it further goes on to make a person not only rise back up from the ashes but also shine through the shadows of failure, stealing the spot light for a new beginning(Avolio & Luthans, 2006; Luthans, 2002; Youssef & Luthans, 2005). Ability and development of resiliency might be held back because of some major factors such asasserts, risk factors and values (Masten, 2001; Masten & Reed, 2002; Youssef & Luthans, 2005). These three factors are glued together in a synergistically interactive and an additive way of adaptation processes to encore resiliency (Cowan, Cowan & Schulz, 1996). Resiliency can help work out conflicts and manage stress and other outcomes.
Hypothesis 6a, Resilience moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job stress
Hypothesis 6b, Resilience moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction
Hypothesis 6c, Resilience moderates the relationship between work family conflict and intention to quit.
METHODS
Sample and Procedure
We followed the simple research design of cross-sectional study. We have done convenient sampling technique, a type of non-probability sampling. The people who participated in the study were from many different organizations including banks, universities, national and multination companies. Due to the large number of different organizations we divided the responses according to Bank, University and Company (includes all the organization that does not come under banks or universities).
The questionnaire for the study was made available online through social networking sites (Facebook and LinkedIn). The questionnaire was also emailed to both personal and professional contacts of the authors. The purpose and scope of the study was mentioned at the start of the questionnaire document. It clearly stated that the study is being conducted for the purpose of knowledge creation and the participation is completely on voluntary bases. Strict anonymity of the respondents was also assured.
We collected a data of around 300 questionnaires out of which around half of questionnaires were filled online while the rest were distributed in a university and a collage and several banks. We discarded a data of 100 questionnaires based on unreliable and ignorant responses. A usable data of 200 questionnaires has been used for the analysis of the study. Since our questionnaire was circulated online, we cannot estimate the response rate for our data collection. On the other hand the questionnaires that were distributed in person were around 150 and we received back 122 questionnaires (with a response rate of 81.3%).Although the questionnaire was available to people at all the different levels in an organization, most of the respondents were managers (36.5%) or people with office jobs (34%). 16.5% were teachers while the percentage of field and technical staff was 5.5% and 7.5% respectively.
The mean age of the respondents is 29.9 years with a standard deviation of 7.27. There were 150 males and 50 females. 60.5% were single and 39% were married. Majority had a Master degree totaling to 125. 54 respondents were Graduate, 19 had an MPhil or Doctorate degree. 2 respondents had just completed high school. 22% of the respondents were working in an education institute, 34.5% worked at a bank while the rest 43.5% work at different companies. The mean tenure of our respondents have reported is 4.01 years (s.d=5.28) and a mean experience of 6.95 years (s.d=6.94).
Measures
We are using a “self-report” questionnaire. Since the questionnaire was floated on the internet and the respondents were expected to be well educated professionals, the language used in the questionnaire was English and it did not require the need for translation or simplification.
Work-family Conflict. Work-family conflict was measured with 5-item questionnaire developed by Netemeyer, Boles, & McMurrian (1996) that has been used by many researchers to study this construct and has shown considerable validity (Hennessy, 2005). It has a Likert-scale of 1 to 7, 1 signifying “strong disagree”, 2 disagree, 3 “slightly disagree”, 4 “neither agree nor disagree” 5 “slightly agree”, 6 “agree” and 7 “strongly agree”. This includes items such as “Things I want to do at home do not get done because of the demands my job puts on me”. The work-family conflict demonstrated an internal consistency reliability of .935, that is particularly higher then limit of .70.
Job Stress. Measure developed by Parker &DeCotiis (1983) was used to assess job stress. It consists of 13 items, for example “My job gets me more than it should”, “I have too much work and too little time to do it in” the measure has a Likert-scale of 1 to 5. Here 1 is for “strongly disagree” while 5 is for ‘strongly disagree”. Its Cronbach’s alpha value comes to .891.
Job Satisfaction. Job satisfaction was checked through the scale developed by Agho, Price & Mueller (1992). “I am fairly well satisfied with my present job”, “I find real enjoyment in my work” are 2 of the sample of this scale. It is a 5 Likert scale measure with 6 items. It showed a reliability of .701.
Intention to Quit. The Michigan Organizational Assessment Questionnaire (Cammann, Fichman, Jenkins & Klesh, 1982) was used to measure intention to quit. It is a 3 item, 5 likert scale measure. Example of intention to quit item is “I think about quitting this job”. The reliability co-efficient is .801.
Psychological Capital. The Psychological Capital measure developed by Luthans, Youssef & Avolio (2007) was used for the purpose of this study. The first 6 items measure Self-efficacy. Then next 6 items are for Hope followed by 6 items of Resilience and the rest of the 6 measure Optimism, totaling a 24 item, 6 likert scale measure for positive psychological capital. On the likert scale 1 is for “strongly disagree”, 2 for “disagree”. 3 for “somewhat disagree” 4 for somewhat agree”, 5 for “agree’ and 6 is for “strongly agree”. The composite factor, PsyCap had a reliability of .802 though the 4 facets showed much less reliability. Self-efficacy had a reliability of .711 and Hope had a reliability of .766. The 6 items of Resilience showed a very lower value therefore 1 item was removed to get a reliability of .616 which is also less than the acceptable level of 0.70. For optimism 2 items are removed to reach an internal consistency reliability of .536 for the scale. This is also below the accepted reliability limit.
Control Variables. By using the one-way analysis tool, organization type and job nature were found to have significant influence on the main variables under study, while gender, age, tenure and qualification only had significant influence on one or two main variables. All these have been controlled while running the regression analysis.
RESULTS
Descriptive Analysis
The descriptive statistics and correlations among the variable are being shown in Table 1. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability value is given in parentheses. Correlations Table 1 | | Mean | S.D. | OTyp | Gdr | Age | MSt | Tnr | Exp | Qlf | JNt | SE | H | R | O | JST | JSat | I2Q | WC | FC | PC | OT | | 2.12 | .743 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Gdr | | 1.25 | .434 | -.12 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Age | | 29.9 | 7.26 | -.27** | .04 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | MSt | | 1.39 | .490 | -.16* | .00 | .51** | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Tnr | | 4.01 | 5.27 | -.22** | .19** | .78** | .37** | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Exp | | 6.95 | 6.94 | -.24** | .04 | .92** | .46** | .79** | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Qlf | | 3.80 | .607 | -.18* | .05 | .09 | .10 | .02 | .08 | | | | | | | | | | | | | JNt | | 3.24 | 1.23 | -.57** | .07 | .22** | .15* | .22** | .24** | .22** | | | | | | | | | | | | SE | | 4.91 | .621 | -.23** | -.07 | .18** | .08 | .16* | .22** | .12 | .15* | (.71) | | | | | | | | | | H | | 4.75 | .684 | -.11 | -.03 | .13 | .04 | .11 | .15* | .20** | .11 | .57** | (.76) | | | | | | | | | R | | 4.51 | .634 | -.09 | -.03 | .12 | -.03 | .15* | .10 | .08 | .07 | .43** | .43** | (.61) | | | | | | | | O | | 4.50 | .697 | -.05 | -.05 | .03 | .00 | .03 | .07 | .15* | -.00 | .36** | .47** | .31** | (.53) | | | | | | | JSt | | 2.93 | .735 | .37** | -.11 | -.23** | -.12 | -.20** | -.26** | -.04 | -.30** | -.21** | -.21** | -.09 | -.10 | (.89) | | | | | | JSat | | 3.57 | .613 | .08 | -.20** | -.03 | -.05 | -.16* | -.02 | -.00 | -.10 | .18** | .34** | .11 | .22** | -.08 | (.70) | | | | | I2Q | | 2.91 | 1.01 | .12 | .02 | -.30** | -.08 | -.27** | -.32** | -.00 | -.10 | -.23** | -.27** | -.11 | -.04 | .37** | -.42** | (.80) | | | | WFC | | 3.85 | 1.58 | .23** | -.12 | -.15* | -.08 | -.15* | -.15* | -.03 | -.21** | -.13 | -.16* | -.03 | -.03 | .69** | -.08 | .23** | (.93) | | | FWC | | 3.10 | 1.32 | .29** | -.09 | -.15* | .01 | -.15* | -.16* | -.06 | -.20** | -.27** | -.29** | -.19** | -.00 | .53** | -.05 | .37** | .54** | (.88) | | PC | | 4.53 | .449 | -.19** | -.11 | .17* | .03 | .14* | .19** | .19** | .14* | .80** | .82** | .65** | .59** | -.29** | .35** | -.30** | -.16* | -.32** | (.80) | ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). | * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). |

Mean for work family conflict is 3.85 (s.d. = 1.58) and that for job stress is 2.93(s.d. = .73). The correlation between the two is .693 (p < .001). The mean for Job satisfaction is 3.57(s.d = .61). The correlation between Work-family conflict and job satisfaction is -.083 (n.s.) Intention to quit has a mean of 2.91 (s.d = 1.01). It correlates with work-family conflict with the value of .232 (p < .001). Based on the bi-variant correlation analysis, Hypothesis 1a and 1c are supported while Hypothesis 1b is not be supported.
Self-efficacy has a mean of 4.91(s.d = .62), Hope has 4.75(s.d = .68), Resilience has 4.75 (s.d = .63) and Optimism has a mean of 4.5 (s.d. =.69). Psychological capital, the composite factor has a mean value of 4.53(s.d. = .45).
Regression Analysis
For the purpose of regression, control variables were organization type, gender, age, tenure, qualification and job nature. We ran regression to test the direct hypothesis, that is, Hypothesis 1a, b and c. The results are given in Table 2.
Regression Table 2 Predictors | Job Stress | Job Satisfaction | Intention to Quit | | β | R2 | ΔR2 | Β | R2 | ΔR2 | β | R2 | ΔR2 | Step 1Control Variables | | .178 | | | .078 | | | .101 | | Step 2Work-Family Conflict | .626*** | .538 | .359 | .-143* | .097 | .019 | .191** | .134 | .033 |
*** Regression is significant at the 0.00 level (100%)
** Regression is significant at the 0.01 level (>99%)
* Regression is significant at the 0.05 level (>95%)

Work-family conflict. The hypothesis predicts that work-family conflict has a positive relation with job stress and intention to quit, while it has negative relationship with job satisfaction. Job stress (β = .626, p < .001) was a significant predictor of work-family conflict supporting Hypothesis 1a. Likewise job satisfaction (β = -.143, p < .05) has a significant relationship with work-family conflict thus supporting the Hypothesis 1b, though it was not supported through correlation. Hypothesis 1c states the positive relationship between work-family conflict and intention to quit. It is supported through regression (β = .191, p < .01).
Moderation Table 3 Predictors | Job Stress | Job Satisfaction | Intention to Quit | | β | R2 | ΔR2 | Β | R2 | ΔR2 | β | R2 | ΔR2 | Step 1Control Variables | | .17 | | | .078 | | | .10 | | Step 2Work-Family ConflictPsychological Capital | -.16** | .56 | .38 | .38*** | .22 | .14 | -.24*** | .18 | .08 | Step 3WFC x PsyCap | .06 | .56 | .00 | 2.23** | .27 | .04 | -1.61* | .21 | .02 | Step 1Control Variables | | .17 | | | .07 | | | .10 | | Step 2Work-Family ConflictSelf-Efficacy | -.07 | .54 | .36 | .20** | .13 | .05 | .-16* | .16 | .05 | Step 3WFC x SE | -.06 | .54 | .00 | 1.53** | .16 | .03 | -1.75** | .19 | .03 | Step 1Control Variables | | .17 | | | .07 | | | .10 | | Step 2Work-Family ConflictHope | -.09 | .54 | .36 | .36*** | .21 | .13 | -.22** | .18 | .08 | Step 3WFC x Hope | .06 | .54 | .00 | 1.49** | .25 | .04 | -.91 | .19 | .01 | Step 1Control Variables | | .17 | | | .07 | | | .10 | | Step 2Work-Family ConflictResilience | -.05 | .54 | .36 | .13* | .11 | .03 | -.06 | .13 | .03 | Step 3WFC x Resilience | .24 | .54 | .00 | 1.17* | .14 | .02 | -.40 | .141 | .003 | Step 1Control Variables | | .17 | | | .07 | | | .101 | | Step 2Work-Family ConflictOptimism | -.07 | .54 | .36 | .22** | .14 | .06 | -.02 | .135 | .034 | Step 3WFC x Optimism | -.27 | .54 | .00 | 1.06* | .16 | .02 | -.38 | .138 | .003 | *** β is significant at the 0.00 level (100%)** β is significant at the 0.01 level (>99%)* β is significant at the 0.05 level (>95%) |

Moderator Analysis
To examine the interaction of Psychological Capital, both as composite and 4 facets, with work-family conflict, we have done moderation regression analysis. It is a three-step model in which first the control variables are entered. Then the two independent variables namely work-family conflict and PsyCap are entered. In the last step the interaction term between the two independent variables are entered (Baron & Kenny, 1986).
Table 3 shows the results of moderator regression analysis for the three dependent variables that are job stress, job satisfaction and intention to quit. The interaction term for PsyCap when the dependent variable is job stress (β = .062, n.s.) shows insensitivity. On this basis, Hypothesis 2a is rejected. The interaction term sensitivity becomes significant with the dependent variable job satisfaction (β = 2.233, p< .01) and intention to quit (β = -1.671, p < .05). Hypotheses 2b and c are accepted.
For the individual facets’ interaction with work-family conflict, we have checked the interaction terms of self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism separately.
Moderation of self-efficacy on the relationship with job stress (β = -.066, n.s.) is insignificant. Thus, Hypothesis 3a is rejected. On the contrary, significant results are obtained with job satisfaction (β = 1.535, p < .01) and intention to quit (β = -1.756, p < .01) leading to acceptance of Hypothesis 3b and c. When taking Hope as a moderator, there is no significant interaction between hope and work family conflict when ran with job stress (β = .065, n.s.) and intention to quit (β = -.910, n.s.). Significant sensitivity is shown by this interaction term with Job Satisfaction (β = 1.495, p < .01) as the dependent variable. Hypothesis 4a and c are rejected while Hypothesis 4b is accepted based on these analyses. Resilience and work-family conflict do not influence job stress (β = .242, n.s.), rejecting Hypothesis 5a. With Job satisfaction (β = 1.179, p < .05), the hypothesis is accepted. The interaction term is insensitive for Intention to Quit (β = -.401, n.s.). Hypothesis 5c is also rejected. Moderator regression run with optimism for work-family conflict and job stress (β = -.273, n.s.) and for work-family conflict and intention to quit (β = -.389, n.s.) suggest that Hypotheses 6a and c should be rejected, while for work-family conflict and job satisfaction (β = 1.062, p < .05) suggested Hypothesis 6b acceptable.
SUMMARY OF RESULTS
The results for our direct relationship analyses are quite conclusive. The correlation and regression results for positive relationship between work-family conflict and its outcomes, job stress and intention to quit and negative relation with job satisfaction are supported. Thus, the Hypotheses 1a, 1b and 1c are confirmed.
Moderation results do not really support our hypotheses and so most of them are rejected. PsyCap does not moderate the relationship between work-family conflict and job stress. Hence, Hypothesis 2a is rejected. On the other hand, Hypotheses 2b and 2c stating relationship with job satisfaction and intention to quit are significantly supported and thus, confirmed.
Self-efficacy as a moderator also shows conclusive results with job satisfaction and intention to quit and proves Hypotheses 3b and 3c. Hypothesis 3a is rejected because self-efficacy does not moderation the relationship. Influence of Hope and Resilience is only supported for Job Satisfaction, proving Hypotheses 4b and 5b. Hypotheses 4a, 4c, 5a and 5c are rejected because there is no significant influence shown by hope and resilience on work-life conflict and job stress and intention to quit. Moderating effect of optimism is also only significant for Job Satisfaction. There is no sensitivity shown for Job stress and intention to quiz. Hypotheses 6a and 6c are rejected, while Hypothesis 6b is accepted.
DISCUSSION
Most of our hypotheses have been rejected, especially the ones involving job stress for which we had good literature support (e.g., Avey et al., 2009) and the Conservation of Resources Theory (McPadden, 2006) to prove. However, the inference of our finding suggests that this particular construct of PsyCap and its 4 facets do not exactly fall under the list of resources that act as moderator when it comes to controlling the stress that one feels due to work-family conflict. This is particularly an important finding and a substantial contribution towards understanding and usage of PsyCap model.
Since all our hypotheses on moderating effects on work-family conflict and job satisfaction are accepted, this also has a significant implication in terms of how employee satisfaction could be influenced even when they seem to have conflicts with their professional and personal lives. Therefore, it is noteworthy that PsyCap model does work well and shows considerable sensitivity towards Job Satisfaction as was identified by Luthans et al., (2007).
Intention to quit can also be influenced through development of positive traits that are part of PsyCap. The overall, composite model supports this idea as well as conclusive results with self-efficacy. This suggests that self-efficacy is a strong predictor when it comes to intention to quit.
Limitations
There are many limitations to our study. Since we used convenient sampling technique and data was collected from people from many different companies with many different backgrounds, it is likely that people from whom we collected the data had very diverse life-styles and living situations. Also when it comes to effect of work on ones’ family life, we need to consider many different demographics such as age, gender, marital status, income, number of children, family system, number of people to support at home and many more. Likewise, at work, these days many different new working styles have been applied that would particularly need to be controlled in order to get better conclusive results.
One huge limitation that has affected our analyses is that we were unable to get inter-scale reliability for the 4 characteristic components of PsyCap. For Optimism and Resilience, the reliability was so less that 2 – 3 items had to be omitted in order to reach the acceptable Cronbach’s Alpha value.
It is interesting to note that the items that were omitted to get better reliability were actually those that people had difficulty understanding what they actually meant. This suggests that the questionnaire that was circulated among the employees should have been converted into much simpler, easy to understand English that anyone with Basic English know-how could interpret and effectively answer.
We received many complaints from people that the questionnaire was very lengthy with way too many items to keep a person interested and fill in the answers honestly and with full understanding. This is a very valid argument and needs to be addressed in order to get more reliable data. Chances of common method variance are also there in our data that was analyzed because all the variables were measured using a single questionnaire. But then, there is no other effectively way to measure such variables.
Further Research Directions
Future research can be conducted by keeping the focus on the family side and relating stress level with the type of life style an employee has. Another approach to the same model is to focus more on the work place by identifying organizational culture, leadership style or job nature. The results of this study could also be compared with a similar study conducted at some developed country like Canada or America to see if PsyCap also fails to moderate this particular relationship.

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