An Examination of the Relationship between Perceived Organizational Support for Family Flexibility, Supervisor Support for Family Flexibility, and the Use of Family Friendly Benefits

Ellen F Smith, Purdue University

Abstract

“Family-friendly” benefits and policies help employees manage competing work and family demands, and research has shown that these policies benefit both the employee and the organization (Saltzstein, Ting, & Saltzstein, 2001). However, researchers have noted that employees are not using these benefits for fear of being stigmatized (Williams et al., 2013).Thus, use of flexibility benefits entail an assessment of both its benefits and its risks. The current study explores two possible configurations of the interplay between perceptions of organizational support for flexibility (FSOP) and supervisor support for flexibility on female employees’ requests to utilize FWAs. Drawing on signaling theory, this study examines whether FSOP mediates the relationship between supervisor support for family flexibility and benefit use. Additionally, supervisor support was hypothesized to moderate the relationship between FSOP and benefit use, such that positive supervisor support magnifies the positive impact of organizational support, whereas negative supervisor support suppresses the impact of organizational support on employees’ decisions to utilize FWAs. Furthermore, individual difference variables of supervisor/subordinate gender similarity, supervisor’s parental status, and supervisor’s own use of a flexible working arrangement were hypothesized to be positively related to perceptions of supervisor support for family flexibility. These hypotheses were tested using a cross-sectional, cross-lagged design. Results from 630 men and women in a variety of organizations suggest that supervisor support plays a role in triggering flexible organizational support perceptions which in turn increase use of FWAs. Furthermore, supervisor’s parental status was positively related to perceptions of supervisor support for family flexibility indicating that individual difference variables are important in relation to perceptions of support for family flexibility.

Degree

M.S.

Advisors

Stockdale, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Social psychology

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