| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of the current thesis was to gain increased knowledge with regard to how
business travel associates with conflict between employees’ work and family life, and
how these factors again relate to the emotional exhaustion component of burnout and
health outcomes. The Job-Demand Resources model and Conservation of Resources
Theory were applied as theoretical frameworks. The studies in this thesis were
conducted in a large Norwegian oil and gas company. Measurement related to business
travel was derived from company specific register data. Further, it was distinguished
between business travel frequency, referring to the number of overnight stays, and
business travel pattern, referring to the type of travel. Self-reports questionnaires were
applied to measure the remaining variables. With regard to health outcomes, three
aspects of subjective health were examined: Psychological health complaints,
musculoskeletal pain and gastrointestinal problems. Four aims were defined to guide
the conducted work: 1) Examine associations between business travel frequency, workfamily
conflict, emotional exhaustion and employee’s psychological health complaints.
2) Investigate the association of job resources related to business travel frequency with
work-family conflict and emotional exhaustion. 3) Study whether levels of workfamily
conflict and emotional exhaustion differ according to business travel pattern. 4)
Examine how associations among work-family conflict and the emotional exhaustion
component of burnout are related to, musculoskeletal pain and gastrointestinal
problems, and whether the same associations differ according to business travel
pattern. The thesis consisted of two cross-sectional studies (paper 1 and paper 2), and
one longitudinal study (paper 3).
Results revealed that business travel frequency and control over travel
explained a significant portion of the variance in work-family conflict, but not in
emotional exhaustion. However, work-family conflict was found to be a mediator in
the business travel frequency – emotional exhaustion relationship. In the longitudinal
study normal cross-lagged effects, reversed cross-lagged effects and reciprocal effects
were demonstrated between the study variables. Specifically, normal cross-lagged
effects were revealed between business travel frequency and work-family conflict. In
addition, work-family conflict predicted emotional exhaustion over time and emotional
exhaustion predicted psychological health over time. Further, reversed cross-lagged
effects were demonstrated between psychological health complaints measured at Time 1 and emotional exhaustion measured at Time 2, and between emotional exhaustion
measured at Time
1 and work-family conflict measured at Time 2. Finally, reciprocal
cross-lagged effects were also present, indicating that employees who travel for
business experience higher work-family conflict that leads to emotional exhaustion and
psychological health complaints. The presence of psychological health complaints
gives rise to even more emotional exhaustion, which again gives rise to more workfamily
conflict, resulting in what in Conservation of Resources theory is referred to as
loss spirals.
With regard to business travel pattern, three travel groups were identified:
commuters, national travelers, and international travelers. Significant differences in
work-family conflict, but not in emotional exhaustion, were identified among all three
groups, where commuters turned out to experience the highest degree of work-family
conflict. Results demonstrated that emotional exhaustion was positively related to
musculoskeletal pain and gastrointestinal problems. However, contrary to expectations
work-family conflict was not directly associated with musculoskeletal pain or
gastrointestinal problems. The associations showed a similar pattern for commuters,
national travelers, and international travelers. Still, the association between emotional
exhaustion and musculoskeletal pain proved to be significantly stronger for the
commuter group compared to the national and international travel group. This finding
indicates that commuters who experience emotional exhaustion are more prone to
musculoskeletal pain compared to other business travelers. | nb_NO |
