Investigating the effect of role conflict and role ambiguity on employees ' job stress : Articulating the role of work-family conflict

Article history: Received March 12, 2013 Received in revised format 10 June 2013 Accepted 22 June 2013 Available online June 25 2013 Psychologists and researchers of management sciences are of great interest in subject of stress and the major reason for this is its impact on psychological well-being and organizational consequences. They also recommend that preventing stress called destructive stress results from factors such as role ambiguity, role uncertainty, and organizational policies, and decreases both the individual and organizational performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of role conflict and role ambiguity on employees' job stress by explaining the role of work-family conflict. The statistical population of this study is comprised of 530 employees of Iran's central insurance. Using stratified random sampling and Cochran's formula, a sample of 118 employees was selected. We used a researcher-made questionnaire for data gathering. The Cronbach's alpha for this questionnaire was .88 and split-half reliability was .80, which represents for a reliable questionnaire. Furthermore, we used content validity and confirmatory factor analysis to confirm the validity of questionnaire. Data analysis was accomplished by structural equation modeling using the LISREL software v 8.7. Research results indicate that the effect of role ambiguity on work-family conflict is statistically significant (p-value = 62.40). Furthermore, the effect of role ambiguity on job stress was confirmed with significance of 1.83. On the other hand, the effect of role conflict on work-family conflict was not confirmed, because its significance value was negative. However, it was found that the job stress is influenced by role conflict (p-value = 2.35). And finally, the effect of work-family conflict on job stress was confirmed with the number of .93 for its significance value. © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


Introduction
The job stress can be described as a feeling in which the individual cannot adjust his/her capabilities, resources, and demands with the job needs (Harrisons, 2005).The workplace stress or job stress appears when employees detect the workplace demands for adaptation and adjustment beyond their capabilities and resources.Many researches on job stress have concentrated on such aspects of the workplace, which may cause the employees to be stressed.These aspects are factors that act as stressors (Hit et al., 2006).The job stressors are divided into two types: organizational stressors and managerial stressors (Human Resource Management, 2005;Ivancevich et al., 2001).
The organizational stressors are comprised of job flow components, human resource development, rewards, participation, minimum implementation of resources, supervising manner, and organizational structure.Managerial stressors are comprised of role ambiguity, role conflict, workload pressure, quality pressure, job sensitivity, development and promotion, accountability for employees' performance, time pressure, and job-relating technology (Human Resource Management, 2005;Ivancevich et al., 2001).In this research, the effect of two managerial factors on job stress has been investigated: role ambiguity and role conflict.Role conflict occurs when a set of job expectations accepted by a person is in conflict with another set of expectations.As the studies of job stress, researches on work-family conflict have often considered the top managers and white collars (e.g., Grzywacz et al., 2007;Panatik et al., 2012).What the current study examines is the effect of role conflict and role ambiguity in place of work on job stress considering the important role of workfamily conflict.Previous studies have generally investigated and confirmed the relationship between these variables, but the main question and challenge is the type and direction of the relationship between these variables.Therefore, this study is to determine the type and direction of the relationship between role conflict, role ambiguity, work-family conflict, and job stress.

The effect of role ambiguity on work-family conflict
Role ambiguity happens when the organization expectations from a job varies with the expectations of customers and people outside the organization, For instance, when the employees encounter with various needs and demands from the customers and the store top managers (Babin & Boles, 1996).Thus, the role ambiguity is the inseparable part of any work environment (Verbeke et al., 2011), indicating an ambiguous and unreliable work conditions (Cicero et al., 2010), and representing the amount of job simplicity or complexity (Cordery et al., 2010).Most of the researches on role ambiguity are based on Rizzo et al.'s (1970) study, which investigated its various dimensions from various perspectives (e.g., Breaugh & Colihan, 1994;Li & Bagger, 2008).In this research, the role ambiguity is investigated from three aspects given the daily affairs that employees encounter: from the supervisors' perspective, managers' perspective, and work ethic.Kahneman and Lovallo (1993) in their study concluded that the role ambiguity happens because of ambiguous regulations, ethics, and work culture.Role ambiguity is defined as individual's uncertainty degree of job expectations (Baral & Bhargava, 2010;Epie, 2009;Fayankinnu & Alo, 2007;Akanji, 2012).According to Verbeke et al. (2011), "when a person does not know exactly what to do he/she may be confused of work or family duties".In other words, it may lead to work-family conflict.Therefore: H 1 : Role ambiguity affects the work-family conflict.

The effect of role ambiguity on employees' job stress
Role ambiguity takes place when a person does not know what he/she should exactly do and is confused with formal and informal situations as well (Schulz & Auld, 2006).Wall et al. (2002) indicated that the role ambiguity disturbs the job stability and independence.Despite the importance of this issue, few studies have been accomplished surrounding the impact of ambiguity as well as the impact of role ambiguity on various individual and organizational variables (Cordery et al., 2010).One of the important variables, which may be affected by role ambiguity is the employees' job stress (Arnold et al., 2009).Psychologists and researchers of management sciences are of great interest in subject of stress and the major reason for this is its effect on psychological well-being and organizational consequences (e.g., Semmer et al., 2005;Jex & Yankelevich, 2008;Westman, 2001).Cavanaugh et al. (2000) were the first to classify the job stress into two kinds: challenging and preventing stress.They suggested that preventing stress called destructive stress results from factors such as role ambiguity, role uncertainty, and organizational policies, and decreases both the individual and organizational performance, while challenging stress will result in satisfaction, loyalty, trust, and even employees' creativity.According to Tubre and Collins (2000), the individual's role perception has an effect on his/her organizational performance.Furthermore, Harris et al. (2006) concluded that the role conflict and role ambiguity are two influencing factors of job stress.Previous studies have indicated that the role ambiguity had a considerable impact on employees' stress (eg., Arnold et al., 2009;Knight et al., 2007).Therefore: H 2 : Role ambiguity affects the job stress.

The effect of role conflict on work-family conflict
Role conflict is defined as facing of a person with conflicting expectations.These conflicting and usually unreasonable expectations are generated because of intra-and extra-role conflict.Intra-role conflict is a state that the person should sometimes do conflicting tasks in similar situations, and extra-role conflict also called inter-role conflict, is a state that the person suspects he/she should do a special task while the supervisor or co-workers expect his/her to do a different task (Wallace, 2005).
When a person faces with conflict in his/her job or role, intra-role conflict cause to his/her confusion in distinguishing the boundaries of work and family duties from each other and finally leads to workfamily conflict.Extra-role conflict as well, may be resulted from exposure to the managers and coworkers expectations and family members' expectations and cause to work-family conflict in terms of his/her decisions (Wallace, 2005;Panatik et al., 2012).Therefore: H 3 : Role conflict affects the work-family conflict.

The effect of role conflict on employees' job stress
As mentioned previously, role conflict is one of the most influencing factors of job stress and occurs when at least two conflicting job factor pressures the person (Wu & Norman, 2006).Rizzo et al. (1970) stated that the role conflict and role ambiguity influences the factors such as job satisfaction and non-functional behavior because of job stress and concerns.In addition, Kelloway and Barling's (1990) reported that role conflict affects the job stress.Therefore: H 4 : Role conflict affects the job stress.

The effect of work-family conflict on employees' job stress
There have been different definitions for work-family conflict, but of the best definitions is one that is suggested by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) which is a basis for current study.Many researches reported that the scope of an individual's responsibilities could be in conflict with his/her responsibilities scope in the workplace.This issue is empirically observed in all the individuals' life and usually referred to work-family conflict (Frone et al., 1992;Major & Germano, 2006).To prevent this issue, we need to identify the stressor factors in and outside of the workplace and determine a certain range for each of the personal, social, and work tasks (Bellavia & Frone, 2005).
Work-family conflict is an intra-role and intra-task conflict and happens when various responsibilities of an individual interfere with each other (Greenhaus et al., 1985).In addition, if this type of conflict is not properly managed, it may influence on the other organizational factors such as employees' absenteeism, employees ' turnover, organizational commitment, etc. (Frenandez, 1986).Most of the performed researches have considered this conflict from two perspectives: First, the conflict from workplace to family and the other, conflict from family to workplace.
Conflict from workplace to family is the case in which the source of conflict is the workplace and influences the family life.Moreover, conflict from family to workplace is created when the source of conflict is family and family relationships that affect the work aspects of an individual (Frone et al., 1997).Some researches indicate that the work-family conflict has an impact on job stress (e.g., Matthews et al., 2010;Wallace, 2005;Panatik et al., 2012;Hasnain et al., 2012).Panatik et al. (2012) suggested that the work-family conflict influences the job stress.By reviewing the researches on the work-family conflict, it is clear that this kind of conflict is more common between employees who work longer hours or have a more difficult job.Eby et al. (2005) and Poelmans (2001) recommended that the work-family conflict could lead to psychological and nervous pressures of employees.Therefore: H 5 : work-family conflict affects the job stress.

Conceptual framework
Conceptual model of the present study includes the predictor, outcome, and mediator variables (Fig. 1) which were explained in previous section.Meanwhile, the relationships between these variables were investigated according to previous studies.

Role ambiguity H 2 H 1
Work-family conflict H 5 Job stress H 3 Role conflict H 4 Fig. 1.The proposed study

Research method
This study is survey in terms of method and is applied-developmental in terms of its objective.The under study population is the employees of Iran's central insurance.A random sampling was applied and the statistical sample was selected using the sampling formula relating to unlimited population (in which d = 0, Z = 1.96, P = .5).With a higher percentage, a number of 120 questionnaires were distributed in order to cope with uncompleted questionnaires.In this study, Data gathering tool was questionnaire consisted of employees' general information and 29 specialized questions using 5-point Likert-type scale.The Cronbach's alpha was .88 and split-half reliability was .80 indicating the reliability of questionnaire.In addition, we used content validity and confirmatory factor analysis to confirm the questionnaire validity.In order to analyze the main paths between variables, descriptive statistical methods and structural equation modeling (LISREL software v8.7) were used.In the path analysis method, the path coefficients and relating p-values are calculated and based on its multiplicative rule the direct and indirect effects of each independent variable on dependent variable are calculated.Variables of the conceptual model in terms of the number of their questions and their Cronbach's alpha are provided in Table 1.

Findings
In this section, we are to explain the statistical analyses of structural equation modeling with the path analysis approach in addition to study the participants' demographics.To do so, the participants' demographics including gender, age, organizational tenure, and education level are provided in table 2. In our study, 70 people were male and 45 people were female.Fig. 2 demonstrates other personal characteristics of the participants.

. Estimating and evaluating the path model using structural equation modeling
In this section, the structural equation modeling was conducted in order to test the causal relationships between role ambiguity, role conflict, work-family conflict, and job stress.The proposed hypotheses in the form of research conceptual model are indicated in Fig. 3 using the path analysis approach.The standard research model along with path coefficients relating to each relationship can be seen in this figure.Note that "ebhamnag" represents role ambiguity, "taoruzka" stands for work family conflict, "taoruzna" is for role conflict and "esterssh" describes job stress.Now, the significance values of the relationship between variables should be considered in order to test the research hypotheses and ensure the obtained coefficients to affect the variables on each other (these values are provided in Fig. 4).On the other hand, research hypotheses are investigated based on their standard estimation and their respective significance values.In addition, the work-family conflict results in job stress, while the role ambiguity itself leads to job stress directly.In this research, the effect of role conflict on the work-family conflict was not confirmed indicating that inconsistency between various job expectations does not so affect the workfamily conflict.However, like the role ambiguity, the role conflict can leads to job stress and affect the employees' performance and efficiency.

Model fit indices
In the Lisrel software, in addition to estimation of model coefficients and errors some indices are reported which accordingly the model overall fitness is evaluated.Some people emphasized three fundamental criteria for evaluating the absolute model fit: the chi-square likelihood ratio (x 2 /df), goodness of fit index (GFI), and root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA).These mentioned indicators are reported in Table 3.As it can be seen, most of the indicators are greater than standard values and represent for a good model fit to data.

Discussion and Conclusion
After explaining the variables such as role ambiguity, role conflict, work-family conflict, and job stress, we are to investigate the effect of role ambiguity and role conflict on work-family conflict and stress, and finally the effect of work-family conflict on job stress.In order to achieve this goal, related literature was investigated and finally, research conceptual framework was designed.In the following, research hypotheses were examined based on the assumed relationships of the model.In order to test the hypotheses, research data was analyzed using statistical techniques mentioned in the findings section and following results were obtained: The first and the second hypotheses expressing the effect of role ambiguity on work-family conflict and job stress were confirmed.This result is consistent with the studies of Tubre and Collins (2000), Tuten and Neidermeyer (2004), Jackson and Schuler (1985), and Boles and Babin (1996).
The third hypothesis reflecting the effect of role conflict on work-family conflict was investigated and not confirmed contrary to studies of Wallace (2005), Panatik et al. (2012), and Boles and Babin (1996).
The forth hypothesis representing the effect of job conflict on job stress was confirmed too.This result is consistent with the studies of Wallace (2005), Panatik et al. (2012), and Boles and Babin (1996).The effect of work-family conflict on job stress was investigated in the fifth hypothesis and was confirmed, which is consistent with the studies of Matthews et al. (2010), Wallace (2005), Panatik et al. (2012), andHasnain et al. (2012).
In general, it can be concluded that in job environments associated with role ambiguity because of unclear job description and organizational chart and those environments that are informal, the most work-family conflict and stress is experienced.On the other hand, role conflict, which is occurred due to interference of a person's different roles in the organization and family, has greater effect on job stress.Finally, if the occurred work-family conflict emanated from role ambiguity and role conflict is not managed properly and individual is not supported by his/her family and supervisors, job stress affects his/her performance destructively.

Fig. 2 .
Fig. 2. Personal characteristics of the participants 5.1.Analyzing the hypotheses using path analysis approach 5.1.1.Estimating and evaluating the path model using structural equation modeling

Table 1
Research variables (The number of items and Cronbach's alpha) It should be noted that if the significance values are greater than 1.96 the path significance of the relationships are confirmed.On this basis, the hypotheses number 1, 2, 4, and 5 are confirmed and the hypothesis number 3 is rejected.These results indicate that the ambiguity affects the formal job roles and informal family roles affect the work-family conflict.