The Effect of Individual Antecedents on Work-Family Conflict: A Research on Employees Working from Home due to Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Existing research on work-familyconflict mostly focused on its consequences due to its negative effect on employees, their families and organizations; so that research about the factors which cause work-family conflict remained limited. Based on this limitation, this study focuses on the effect of individual antecedents on work-family conflict, determined as Big-five personality traits and emotional intelligence, as important indicators of work-family conflict. The sample of the research includes 220 employees working for public institutions and who experienced to work from their home first time in their work-life due to Covid-19 pandemic conditions. The research findings indicate that employees that have a high conscientiousness trait experience a low work-family conflict, whereas the ones that have a high neuroticism trait experience a high work-family conflict. In addition, the findings about emotional intelligence reveal an insignificant effect on work-family conflict. Limitations, contributions and suggestions are further discussed.