Work-Family Conflict as a Cause for Turnover Intentions in the Hospitality Industry

Abstract

This study examines the work-family conflict approach to the turnover intentions of highly educated employees within the hospitality industry. The purpose was to investigate the relation between workplace flexibility, organizational support, work-family conflict and the intention to leave among highly educated male and female employees working in the hospitality industry. The research study conducted among this specific group worldwide provided a corpus of 247 respondents. The results show that work-family conflict and organizational support can explain a substantial amount of variance among highly educated employees regarding their intention to leave an organization. This study also found that for men work-family conflict could be explained by lack of organizational support, while for women work-family conflict could be explained both by dissatisfaction with workplace flexibility and lack of organizational support. In addition, with regard to women, the study has shown that organizational support has a moderating effect on the relation between workplace flexibility and work-family conflict. This study suggests that maintaining a good organizational climate and offering the possibility of flexible work hours to improve the balance between work and family are important factors when it comes to retaining highly educated staff.