A snapshot of work-family conflict among hotel managers in Malaysia - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 35

Employment can have an effect on working
women's marital relationship, as her job may limit
her from spending time with her spouse. Stoner,
Hartman and Arora (1990) reported that female
entrepreneur who experiences lower levels of mari-
tal happiness tend to have higher level of work
family conflict. A negative relationship between
work family conflict and marital satisfaction for
Singapore women professionals was reported by
Aryee (1992), and found to be consistent with
Holahan and Gilbert's (1979) finding on dual
career couples.
Study by Bragger et al. (2005) indicated that
parents experience greater work family conflict.
While Pleck, Staines and Lang (1980) parents
with young children will be much affected with
work-family conflict. According to Kim and Ling
(2001), hours worked correlates most strongly
with job-parent conflict for Singapore women
entrepreneurs, similar results obtained from
Aryee (1992).
Work stressor also has an impact on job-home-
maker conflict. According to Barling and MacE-
wen (1992), work stressors will results to strains
such as worry and preoccupation with the work
can reduce the level of concentration, making
household chores more difficult. Parent with older
children will be less affected with job-homemaker
conflict since the children can help them out with
household chores (Kim & Ling, 2001). Greater
number of older children parents have, more help
is available for doing household chores.

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This research utilized self-administered question-
naires. The samples of the study were from 133
executives of five stars hotels in Kuala Lumpur.
The data were later analyzed to test two hypotheses
formulated for the study.

4 FINDINGS

4.1 Response rate
A total of 19 from 24 five star rated hotels
agreed and participated in the study; a total
of 51 questionnaires were returned and coded
from 133 issued, represents 38 percent response
rate. According to Baldauf Reisinger and Mon-
crief (1999) and Tomaskovic-Devey, Leiter and
Thompson (1994), surveys of organizations typi-
cally receive substantially lower return rates than
surveys of individuals, which is with 15 percent
return rates sometimes reaching a level of accept-
ability for organizational surveys. Besides, Visser,
Krosnick, Marquette, and Curtin (1996) men-
tioned that some studies with low response rates,
even as low as 20 percent, are able to yield more
accurate results than studies with response rates
of 60 to 70 percent.

4.2 Cronbach's alpha reliability analysis of study
variables
In order to ensure that the gathered data were reli-
able, the measurement of each variable and its sub
scales were assessed for reliability. The Cronbach's
alpha coefficient value for all variables in the study
revealed a range of coefficient value from 0.63 to
0.71 accordingly. The dependent variable of work-
family conflict had a reliability coefficient of 0.71
constant with the number of independent variables.
The independent variable of work variable showed
that its dimensions of meaningfulness had a coef-
ficient value of 0.66, and non-work variable had a
reliability coefficient value of 0.63. The results also
indicated that the reliabilities of the scales used in
this study were commonly accepted and considered
to be the criterion for demonstrating the internal
consistency of a reliable scale (Hinton, Brownlow,
McMurray & Cozens, 2004).

2.4 Relationship between work variable, non-work
variable and work-family conflict
Time pressure which can be measured by the
number of hours worked and schedule flexibil-
ity is one of the work characteristics that lead to
work-family conflict. Jones and Fletcher (1996)
confirmed in their research that work stressors
affect family life in the form of unpleasant moods
that have spilled over from work to family. Accord-
ing to Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek and Rosenthal
(1964) they suggested that work-family conflict
occurs when demands from work and family are
mutually incompatible to some degree. Job stres-
sors and job involvement would predict work-
family conflict which would in turn predict family
distress and depression (Frone, Russell & Cooper,
1992). Emotional demands from work and home
deal with the intentional or overt displays of cer-
tain emotions expected of employees and family
members (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000). Moreover,
according to Wilson (2009), work family conflict
occur when individuals experience various pres-
sures regarding how or what emotions to display
at work and at home.

4.3 Bootstrap/INDIRECT Analysis
The objectives of this study are to examine the
relationship among work variable, non-work vari-
able and work-family conflict. The result from
bootstrap analysis is used to examine all the rela-
tionship outlined through developed hypotheses.