The moderating role of job autonomy on the relation between work family conflict and work engagement

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of job autonomy on the relationship between work to family conflict and work engagement; and family to work conflict -work engagement. Based on the job demands-resources (JDR) model suggested relations are investigated. According to this model, the work-family and the family-work conflicts are considered as job demands, and the work autonomy is regarded as a job resources. The Information Technologies (IT) sector is affected by the globalism on a large scale- it needs busy working schedules, long working hours and innovative thinking. Therefore the data for this research has been collected via survey from 217 IT sector workers who work in private or governmental institutes in Ankara and Istanbul. The hypotheses of the study were analyzed using the SPPS Process Macro. The results demonstrates that the job autonomy is found to moderate the effects of family-work conflict on absorption. In other words, family work conflict is negatively related to absorbtion only when indvidiual has higher levels of job autonomy. It has also been found that the work-family conflict has negative effects on work engagement and its dimensions absorption and vigour - yet it has no statistically significant effect on dedication. Family-work conflict too has no statistically significant effect on work engagement and its dimensions - vigour, dedication and absorption. In this regard, we interpreted the effects of the work-family and familywork conflicts on work engagement and investigated whether the job autonomy has any effect on any of these relationships. This research includes advice to managers based on the results.