Abstract

Work stress caused by work-family conflict creates negative impacts on an organization, specifically on the increasing trends of turnover intention or intention to leave the organization as well as reducing the intention to perform proactive work behaviors. These impacts are the result of employees’ limited resources (e.g., time and energy) for balancing work and family domains simultaneously. One of the contributing factors influencing work-family conflict is a situational work domain such as working hours, job characteristics, and organizational culture. Jobs that require employees to work long hours or irregular work schedule (e.g., working on a shift system) and the nature of work that requires employees to spend most of their time and energy in the workplace can cause high work-family conflict. The negative impacts of work-family conflict can be reduced by the availability of sufficient support from leaders (supervisory support). Leaders who provide support to employees who are facing work-family conflict can contribute to the improvement of resources needed by employees to resolve work stress resulting from work-family conflicts. This study aimed to find (1) empirical support of negative effects of work-family conflict on turnover intention and proactive work behavior, and (2) the role of supervisory support as a moderating variable in reducing the negative impacts of work-family conflict in the service organization context. The sample of this study are nurses who work in private and public hospitals. The results of the study show that work-family conflict increases employees’ work stress; consequently, work stress reduces the intention to perform proactive work behavior and at the same time it increases the intention to leave the organization. Meanwhile, supervisory support reduces the negative impacts of work stress on proactive work behavior, yet it can not reduce the employees’ intention to leave the organization.