6. A Qualitative Study on Work-Family Conflict, Social Support and Response Mechanisms of Individuals Working in Multi-National Corporations

Emerging economies of the world are experiencing changes in the fabric of society as well as the work place. Employees working in a high intensity, always connected, multi-cultural, team-based and interdependent work environment are experiencing increasing work-family conflict. There is an urgent need to explore the response mechanisms to this conflict in an attempt to categorize the more effective mechanisms from the ineffective. This study aims to understand how employees in a high-pressure work environment have coped and developed mechanisms to manage this conflict. In-depth interviews were conducted with the respondents to gain detailed insights. The findings suggested that there is a passive acceptance of the conflict by most respondents, despite psychological strain reported by most of them, and adjustments in the family domain are more common than in the work domain. The study adds to the existing pool of literature on work-family conflict by exploring individual response and adjustment mechanisms.