Date of Award
8-2017
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Psychology
Committee Member
Dr. Thomas W. Britt, Committee Chair
Committee Member
Dr. Robert Sinclair
Committee Member
Dr. Marissa Shuffler
Committee Member
Dr. DeWayne Moore
Abstract
Flexible work arrangements have the potential to simultaneously benefit organizations and their employees (Galinsky, Sakai, & Wigton, 2011), and have been classified as an essential component to an effective workplace. Flexibility may positively influence health behaviors and health outcomes through empowering employees to control the organization of their work demands and outside activities (Casey & Gzywacz, 2008), and through helping to buffer the negative effects of work demands. This study hypothesized positive relationships between subjective flexibility and health outcomes through improved health behaviors. Work demands were expected to negatively influence health outcomes through decreased health behaviors, though these relationships were expected to be buffered by flexibility. Family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) were expected to moderate such relationships, increasing positive relationships between flexibility and health behaviors, and buffering negative relationships with demands. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze longitudinal data collected through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N=470). Overall, results revealed positive relationships with flexibility and negative associations with demands to employee health, though many pathways were nonsignificant. FSSB did not moderate relationships with flexibility, but did buffer negative relationships with demands. Flexibility did not act as a buffer to demands. Findings help to contribute to a limited body of research linking flexibility to health behaviors and outcomes, and offer unique contributions in examining multiple perspectives of an employee's work arrangements and health indicators in a comprehensive model.
Recommended Citation
Goguen, Kandice, "Flexible and Fit: Examining the Relationship Between Flexible Work Arrangements and Employee Health" (2017). All Dissertations. 1975.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/1975