The Impact of Work-Family Conflict on Hedonic Consumption: A Survey on Industrial Workers

Abstract

Purpose – Work and family make up a large part of the lives of individuals and every individual has a role in social life as much as the number of groups he/she belongs to. It has become more important than ever for individuals to balance their work and family life so that they can fulfill all the responsibilities of their job and family roles. Especially in recent years, the fact that many women have started working and more families have double income has changed their job and family roles. The first consequence of not being able to balance work and family responsibilities is the dilemma between these two roles. The roles that people play in business and family life shape their lifestyles and also their needs and demands. Therefore, the conflict arising from the lack of stabilize between work and family tasks also affects the social lives of individuals and consequently the habits of consumption changes. As it is known, consumption in modern societies is not only aimed at meet the physiological and basic needs but also brings a lifestyle dedicated to the quest for pleasure. The Hedonic Consumption that emerges at this stage is a form of consumption that tends to act with emotions rather than sensations where it is not possible to be satisfied with desires and fantasies and to which the desire is continuous. In this study, the concept of business family conflict is handled with its reflections in modern consumption societies and the relation of this conflict with the consumption and hedonic consumption habits depending on the effect of this conflict on the roles of individuals. Design/methodology/approach – For this purpose, a survey was conducted with 412 blue and white collar workers who were actively working in factories operating in the Organized Industrial Zone of Bilecik and Bayburt Province in July-August 2019 and 390 evaluable questionnaires were obtained. In the light of the findings, it was tried to put forward the influence of work family and family work discord and hedonic consumption habits of the workers. Findings – According to the study findings, work-family conflict has no effect on social shopping, adventurous shopping and shopping to make others happy dimensions, while it has a negative effect on shopping for relaxation, shopping to get ideas and shopping for value dimensions. On the other hand, family-work conflict has a positive effect on all dimensions of hedonic consumption except the adventurous shopping dimension. The strongest effect is on shopping for relaxation dimension. Discussion – The WFC independent variable has no effect on hedonic consumption. However, the other independent variable FWC has an effect. In order to see whether the findings in the present study are supported or not, it is recommended that researchers conduct new studies using different research methods and different research areas (universe and sample).