Work-family role integration and personal well-being: The moderating effect of attitudes towards personal web usage

Managing the spillover and integrating the work and life domains has become a critical challenge for both individuals and organizations as the two domains become increasingly interlocked. An under-research area in our understanding of the integration of role domains is how individual employees have taken the initiative to “work through” the issues - that is to improvise solutions to role integration often apart from formally sanctioned organizational initiatives. We propose that many employees are using information technology, specifically the web, to facilitate role integration between the work and family domains. Using the role integration perspective, this study examines the role of attitudes towards work/family personal web usage (PWU) as a moderator between role integration and well-being outcomes. Our data support a direct negative relationship between role conflict and well-being as well as a direct positive relationship between role facilitation and personal well-being. We also find that attitudes towards work/family PWU strongly buffer the relationship between role conflict and personal well-being. Finally, our data provide partial support for the enhancing role of PWU attitudes with role facilitation and well-being.