Abstract:
Commuting is ubiquitous in contemporary society as a substantial majority of the population travels to and from work on a daily basis. This thesis attempts to explore how an individual’s commuting experience affects their level of work-family conflict. Key concepts derived from the management literature in the work-life interface are used during the course of this study. This study uses a qualitative methodology in the form of semi-structured interviews which were conducted on employees who lived and travelled to work in New Zealand. The key findings of this study identified many of the phenomena that individuals are exposed to during their journeys to work, such as traffic congestion, extended commute times, and sheer unpredictability in terms of anticipating how long their commute will take. The results indicate that being exposed to such phenomena during their commute may promote an individual’s level of work-family conflict. Exposure to such phenomena promoted negative mood within respondents which then transferred over to the individual’s family domain. Furthermore, this work-family conflict also often manifested in the form of time-crunches and shortages of time being spent with the respondent’s respective families because of extended periods of time away from home, spent travelling to and from work. The results also indicate that many individuals have differing conceptualisations of what constitutes as ‘conflict’ within their home domain, as many respondents claimed to have a shortage in time, yet refuted the notion of having increased levels of work-family conflict. The key theoretical implications in this thesis compare the findings of this study with the findings of past studies, highlighting that the daily commute can be a source of significant stress for individuals, especially those with families. The practical implications identified from this study are that the characteristics of one’s job, such as organisational culture, organisational norms and the availability of alternative working arrangements affects their decision to work from home. Finally, there is a discussion of the limitations of this study and the future research directions that can be embarked upon to further understanding the effect of commuting experiences on individual’s work-family conflict levels.