Scheduled for Research Consortium Poster Session: Thematic Sport Posters, Thursday, March 15, 2007, 12:45 PM - 2:15 PM, Convention Center: Exhibit Hall Poster Area I


Work-Family Conflict as a Mediator Between Job Stressors and Organizational Turnover Intent

Timothy D. Ryan1, Michael Sagas1 and Aaron W. Clopton2, (1)Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, (2)Marshall University, Huntington, WV

The incongruence of work and family role demands and the conflict that arises is termed work-family conflict (WFC). The consequences of WFC include lower job, family, and/or life satisfaction, and higher turnover intentions (Eby et al., 2005). Because of long working hours, especially in the evenings and weekends, college coaches are particularly vulnerable to WFC (Sagas & Cunningham, 2005; Sartore et al., 2004). While the effect of working hours on WFC has been studied in college coaches, less work has been done on the effect of job stressors. This is unfortunate as coaching can be a highly stressful and time consuming job with fragile job security (Scott, 1999). Coaches may feel time-based stress because of the overwhelming feeling to accomplish a significant amount of work between established deadlines (i.e. games, practices). Additionally, college coaches may feel strain from uncertain job security. It is expected that feelings of job insecurity may heighten WFC as a coach may feel the need to increase time/effort in the coaching role and may struggle mentally engaging in the family role. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of time stress and job insecurity on WFC and turnover. Specifically, it was predicted that WFC would mediate the relationship between both time stress and job insecurity to organizational turnover intentions. Data from coaches were collected through a mailed questionnaire as part of study assessing quality of employment in college coaching. A stratified random sample was used to select coaches from all NCAA divisions with 351 usable responses collected. Results confirmed a significant bivariate relationship between all variables in the study (p <.001 for all). Using regression, both time stress (β= .18, p<.01) and job insecurity (β = .12, p<.05) were significant in predicting organizational turnover intentions. However, when time stress, job insecurity, and WFC were used to predict organizational turnover, the mediator, WFC (β = .42, p<.001), maintained its effect on organizational turnover intentions. Conversely, time stress and job insecurity were insignificant (p>.05), suggesting the predicted mediated relationship (R2 = 16.1%). Significantly this implies that while strains from time stress and job insecurity have a direct affect on organizational turnover intentions, WFC is a major process through which these two strains act on an individual's intention to leave an organization. Additionally, this builds on coaching research within WFC as little work has been done on the effects of job straining variables on WFC.
Keyword(s): coaching, research, sport management

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