The angry implications of work-to-family conflict: Examining effects of leadership on an emotion-based model of deviance

Drawing upon Affective Events Theory (AET), we propose a model of work interfering with family (WIF, a form of work-family conflict), work-to-family resentment, and organizational deviance with consideration of the leader's use of transformational and transactional leadership styles as a contextual moderator of an employee's emotional and behavioral responses. Owner and employee data were collected from 221 employees at 55 small businesses in a large southern U.S. metropolitan area. Multi-level modeling results revealed that work-family resentment fully mediated the relation between WIF and deviance, but this mediated relationship was independent of leadership style. Unexpectedly, we found a direct effect of the three-way interaction on deviance, such that the direct WIF-deviance linkage was strongest when leaders reported being low in transformational leadership and high in transactional leadership. These results suggest that employees who work for leaders who exhibit higher levels of transactional leadership in combination with lower levels of transformational leadership may not necessarily experience higher levels of work-to-family resentment (contrary to our expectations), but may be more likely to retaliate by committing acts of deviance directed toward their organization. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of the empirical linkage between WIF and deviance through work-to-family resentment, and the ways leaders might mitigate detrimental effects. •Responds to calls to increase the theoretical rigor of work-family research•Work-family resentment mediates the relation between WIF and organizational deviance.•Leadership style is a moderator in model of work-family conflict and deviance.