Abstract
Individuals are involved in multiple roles in their daily life. With finite amount of resources like energy, attention, money and time, the demands coming from various roles tend to cause stress and role conflict for people. Role conflict is incongruity of the expectations associated with a role. The constant feeling of role conflict may diminish the perceived work life balance of individuals. Job satisfaction is pleasurable experience about one’s job. The present study discusses the relationship between role conflict, work life balance and job satisfaction of 150 employees from manufacturing sector. The findings of correlation analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analysis supports the hypothesis that if role conflict is high work life balance and job satisfaction will be low. It further suggests the mediation of job satisfaction on a relationship between role conflict and work life balance.
1. Introduction
Some studies contend that involvement in multiple roles is advantageous for individuals as it enhance their well being (Thiots, 1986). There is another stream of research which believes that having to fulfil the demands and expectation of multiple roles simultaneously may actually cause conflicts for individuals and diminishes their well being (Batnett & Baruch, 1985)
Role is defined as "the set of prescriptions defining what the behavior of a position member should be" (Biddle & Thomas, 1966, p. 29). Although roles can be functional for the individual and the organization, they can also be extremely dysfunctional (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964). Kahn et al. (1964) elaborated upon the dysfunctions of roles using the concepts of role conflict.
