The relative contribution of formal and informal organizational work-family support

Recent work-family research has proposed that informal means of organizational work-family support (e.g., managerial support) are more useful than formal means of organizational work-family support (e.g., work-family benefit availability) in explaining variance in employee affective, intentional, and behavioral outcomes. However, the relative contributions of formal and informal means of support have not yet been empirically tested against each other. The proposition is tested using data from the Families and Work Institute's 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce (Bond, Galinsky, & Swanberg, 1998). Two relative importance procedures are used to analyze the data. The results offer compelling evidence that informal means of work-family support explain a greater share of variance in employee outcomes than formal mechanisms do. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.