When workplace family-support is misallocated: effects of value congruence and fairness perceptions on supervisor family-support

Abstract

To better manage our work demands and family demands, we often erect mental or physical ‘boundaries’ to help manage our experiences. However, preferences for preserving these boundaries differ across individuals (e.g., some individuals may prefer to segment work/family roles, while others may prefer to integrate these roles) and employees may not always have similar preferences/values as their supervisors. Applying a resource framework from the job demands-resources model (JD-R; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007), we explicate the process through which supervisor–employee value congruence reduces work–family conflict, when supervisors provide valuable emotional and instrumental resources through family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB). Furthermore, we find evidence that supervisors can demonstrate adequate FSSB even when having incongruent values with employees by fairly allocating and individually tailoring family-support. With a diverse sample of 815 staff members from four southern US universities, we conduct mediation and moderation analyses to test our hypotheses.