Relationship Between Organizational Injustice and Work Interference with Family: The Role of Social Support

Abstract

This study investigates the moderating role of social support (i.e., supervisor, co-workers and the family) in the relationship between organizational injustice (i.e., distributive and procedural) and work interference with family (WIF; i.e., strain and behaviour based). Quantitative data were collected from employees working in public sector health-care organizations of Pakistan through survey questionnaires ( N = 255). This study finds significant effects of distributive and procedural injustice in engendering the negative experiences of strain- and behaviour-based WIF, in the employees of health-care organizations. The moderating effect of co-worker and family support provided mixed results. The supervisory social support was not found as a moderator. Findings of this study suggest that health-care organizations should pay serious attention to the ineffective work family policies and procedure to develop a family-friendly work environment. The supervisors should be given a role in work family policies and procedure development. The mitigating effect of co-workers’ support showed that the employees should be provided with proper knowledge on the policies and procedures of their organizations. The support of family members can also be either benign or harmful.

Effects of social undermining in families on deviant workplace behaviours in Pakistani nurses

“…Nurses in developing countries such as Pakistan experience high levels of stress in both family (Kumar et al., 2019) and work (Manzoor et al., 2018) domains. In this respect, our study is pertinent for showing how social undermining in the family domain can lead to deviant employee behaviours in the work domain through the mediating role of negative emotions.…”

“…Recent research suggests that events involving deviant work behaviours are prevalent among nurses in developing countries such as Pakistan (Sarwar, Naseer, et al, 2019). Nurses in developing countries also face a considerable amount of family‐related stressors (Kumar et al., 2019), and thus, it is crucial to consider when and how such stressors can affect nurses’ workplace behaviours (Sarwar, Bashir, et al, 2019).…”

“…Second, this study is unique for focusing specifically on nurses working in the health care industry in Pakistan. We chose Pakistani nurses as our respondents due to the fact that (a) nursing is a stressful profession in Pakistan involving a substantial amount of negative emotions (Sarwar, Bashir, et al, 2019), (b) the nursing profession is not well respected in Pakistan, making Pakistani nurses susceptible to undermining pressures from their family members because of their lowly regarded professional status (Kumar et al., 2019). Third, this study contributes to the existing literature on nursing management by demonstrating neuroticism as a salient personality trait that can elevate the intensity of negative emotions experienced by nurses in the family context.…”

“…Recent research by Sarwar, Bashir, et al (2019) has shown that the negative effects of workplace stressors experienced by Pakistani nurses could extend or “spill over” to the family setting and create incivilities or discord among family members. Moreover, recent surveys conducted in Pakistan showed that the nursing profession in Pakistan was not given the respect it duly deserves; and this makes Pakistani nurses particularly vulnerable to negative emotions induced by work‐related stress (Kumar, Ali Arain, & Ahmed Channa, 2019). Several other studies further highlighted that Pakistani nurses experience high levels of work‐related stress (Bano, Pradhan, Rizvi, & Midhet, 2019;Sarwar, Bashir, et al, 2019;Sarwar, Naseer, et al, 2019), particularly stress dealing with organisational issues (Manzoor, Afzal, Azhar, & Gilani, 2018).…”

“…In the current study, we proposed that negative emotions could serve as a mediator between the family and the workplace. By international standards, Pakistani families generally live in poverty (Kumar et al., 2019), and economic difficulties such as poor financial resources can be associated with negative psychological well‐being (e.g. depression) [Taylor, Rodriguez, Seaton, & Dominguez, 2004].…”