What If people’s private life constrained their career decisions? Examining the relationship between home-to-career interference and career satisfaction

摘要

Purpose - Previous research suggests that employees often make family-related career decisions (Greenhaus & Powell, 2012). We extend this idea and explore the concept -of “hometo- career interference”, defined as the extent to which people perceive that their private life has constrained their career decisions to date. We expect that home-to-career interference has a negative impact on employees’ later career satisfaction via career goal self-efficacy and perceived organizational career support.Design/methodology/approach - We collected quantitative data at three points in time, each six months apart in a Belgian telecommunications organization. Using the full information maximum likelihood path analysis approach, we performed analyses on a sample of dual-earner employees.Findings - Our results showed that employees’ home-to-career interference related negatively to their career goal self-efficacy and perceived organizational career support, which were, in turn, positively related to their career satisfaction.Originality/value - This study contributes to the work-family literature by introducing the concept of home-to-career interference, by clarifying the mechanisms through which home-tocareer interference relates to career satisfaction and by testing these relationships using a threewave longitudinal design.