The Effects of High Performance Work Practices on Perceptions of Work and Family Conflict.

Contemporary literature is unclear in how high performance work settings will affect employees' ability to balance the work and family spheres. To date, no study has used a nationally representative sample to test the effects of these practices on perceptions of work-family conflict. Using the General Social Survey's "Quality of Working Life" module (2002, 2006), I examine the effects of increasingly common high performance work practices, in the form of heightened worker discretion, autonomy, and pressure to continuously learn skills, on employees' perceptions of work-family conflict. I also include an index designed to capture the effect of a high performance work environment. In addition, I test for gender differences in the effects of work practices on perceptions of conflict. My findings show that autonomy lowers the likelihood of work to family conflict, whereas being required to learn new job skills raises it. Moreover, participating in how work is carried out may have the undesired effect of raising perceptions of conflict. Surprisingly the effects of work practices on work-family conflict do not appear to differ by gender. My results suggest that work practices play an important role in perceptions of work-family conflict, and that in an era of workplace innovation, this connection deserves further attention. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]