Understanding the role of self-efficacy in moderating work-family interface and emotional exhaustion

BACKGROUND: Over the years, an overwhelming amount of studies demonstrate that Work-family conflict is a major source of employees' stress that may have obvious implications for organizational members. OBJECTIVE: This article investigates the effect of the work-family interface among service sector employees' emotional exhaustion and the moderating role played by self-efficacy (SE). METHOD: Based on the responses of 202 telecom service employees, the authors examine proposed hypotheses through multiple moderated regression analyses. RESULTS: The results indicate that work-family conflict (WFC) and family-work conflict (FWC) were positively related to emotional exhaustion and negatively related to the work-family facilitation (WFF) and family-work facilitation (FWF). Additionally, we identify the potential moderating effect of SE on the relationship between facilitation and exhaustion but find no support for conflict and exhaustion. CONCLUSION: Our study findings lend support for one sub-principle of conservation of resource theory, that 'gain begets further gain spiral' and enhances wellbeing. Implications for theory and practice regarding service employee management are discussed.