Introduction

Most of the research studies in industrial-organizational psychology are conducted in organizational context, therefore, the focus has been on organizational performance of an individual and a little attention has been paid on the family performance while work and family role can equally be important. (Chen et al. 2014). The concept of family performance refers to “the fulfillment of obligations and expectations stemming from the roles associated with participation in the family domain” (Chen et al. 2014; p. 4). It can be considered as theoretical deficiency to under represent family performance as along with examining the work role performance. For most of the parents, life is not just performing the work role or family role but they have to perform both roles simultaneously (De Vaus 2009). Therefore, this study focuses on the extent to which work place contributes in improving the performance of an individual in family role. The work family enrichment (WFE) theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006), posits that one way the individuals’ family performance can be improved is to provide them resources in the workplace which can help them to balance their family role performance. Although, there can be lot of workplace resources which can improve the performance of an individual in family role but one of the important resource which can improve the performance in family role, can be the family related social support provided by the coworkers in the workplace (Boyar et al. 2014). According to Hobfoll (1988), social support is related to “those social interactions or relationships that provide individuals with actual assistance or that embed individuals within a social system believed to provide love, caring, or a sense of attachment to a valued social group or dyad” (p. 121). This study has focused on coworkers’ support for reasons such as; first, current study has been conducted in context in which there is high prevalence of collectivism (Hofstede 2018). Second, the implementation of human resources practices in this part of the world has been at the stage of infancy and in absence of such practices people make inbound groups to interact and help each other (Khilji 2013). Third, work environment in banking sector of Pakistan is very competitive. Employees have very hectic work schedule and it is routine for them to work extra hours. There is dual pressure on the employees working in banks. On one hand banks are reducing the salaries of employees and on the other hand workload is increased (Kumar and Arain 2014). Implementation of human resource practices in banking sector are at the stage of infancy and in absence of formal support, employees look towards informal support from their supervisor and coworkers (Khilji 2013). Therefore, in these critical circumstances it will be interesting to see how the support of coworkers let employees experience work to family enrichment to improve family role performance. Thus, following the WFE theory, the overall objective of this research is to investigate the extent to which coworkers’ social support improves family performance of an individual. Further, the specific objective meet by this study, which we believe needs due attention, are elaborated;

First, the studies investigating social support, have mostly determined the effect of general type of social support on outcomes and focused a little on the varying effect of specific types (i.e., emotional and instrumental), domains (i.e., work and family) and sources (i.e., supervisory, coworkers) of social support (Boyar et al. 2014; Malecki and Demaray 2003). Researchers have been arguing that each of the type of social support has distinguishing characteristics and varying effect on the workplace attitudes & behaviors (Boyar et al. 2014; Cohen and Wills 1985; House et al. 1985; Malecki and Demaray 2003). By examining overall social support, we may miss the useful information that can been acquired by testing the specific types and sources of social support (Malecki and Demaray 2003). Therefore, following line of these researchers, this research has taken emotional and instrumental as the two different types, coworkers as source and family as domain of social support. The other sources of social support (i.e., supervisor and organization) and work domain support are beyond the scope of this study. Similarly, this research has also focused on the specific types of family performance (i.e., relationship and task), in order to investigate the extent to which the varying types of social support may have varying effect on the specific types of family performance. The family performance has also be taken as outcome generally without focusing its specific aspects like task and relationship family performance (Chen et al. 2014). Thus, the first objective of this study is to investigate the effect of emotional and instrumental family related support from coworkers on the relationship and task family performance.

Second, we argue that there is a certain mechanism or process through which social support can enhance the family performance of employees. Do all employees really need social support? What outcome or benefit this social support would yield which may improves the performance of an individual in family role. Based on WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) we argue that social support resources engenders positive experiences of work to family enrichment which in turn enhances an individual’s family role performance. The concept of work to family enrichment refers to the extent to which work role improves performance of an individual in family role (Greenhaus and Powell 2006). Thus, the second objective of this research is to investigate work to family enrichment as the mediator between social support and family performance.

Third, WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) posits that individuals who give more value to any specific role (i.e., work and family), are likely to acquire more resources for that. They propose role salience as the moderator in WFE theory. Therefore, based on WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006), we propose family role salience as the moderator. According to Carlson et al. (2006), concept of family role salience refers to “the degree to which family is central to one’s life” (p. 152). We argue that the individuals who value their family more are likely to acquire more resource from workplace to experience work to family enrichment more to improve their family performance more. Thus, the third and final objective of this study is to test family role salience as the boundary condition under which the indirect effect of workplace social support on family performance, through the mediation of work to family enrichment, will be more for the individuals who are high on family role salience as compare to those who are low on family role salience. Thus, overall we propose and test a moderated mediation model. Overall, based on WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006), this study will help managerial practitioners and researchers to understand the simple and conditional indirect effects of two specific types of coworkers’ social support (i.e., emotional and instrumental) on two specific types of family performance (i.e., relationship and task). Work to family enrichment will be established as missing link through which coworkers’ support enhances family performance. The family role salience will be tested as the conditional moderator which will show, what happens to the indirect effect of coworkers’social support on family performance with difference in the individuals’ family role salience.

Theoretical Framework & Hypotheses

As we argued earlier, most of the research studies in industrial-organizational psychology are conducted in organizational context. Therefore, their focus is on organizational performance of an individual and a little attention has been paid on the family role performance while work and family role can equally be important (Chen et al. 2014). WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) posits that experiences in one role improves quality of life in other role, therefore, it is likely that improvement in family role performance can ultimately improve the work role performance of employees. Although, many of work performance construct are available but the reason for neglecting the family performance measurement could be the lack of a valid and reliable construct for measuring the family performance. It can be considered as theoretical deficiency to under represent family performance as along with examining the work role performance. Therefore, realizing the need for a comprehensive measure of family performance Chen et al. (2014) developed a family performance measure, which can be very helpful to assist organizations to make proper decisions about maintaining an employees’ work as well as family role performance. Similar to existing work performance construct, the family performance construct of Chen et al. (2014) also comprises of the task and relationship components. The concept of relationship performance is akin to the extra role behavior of an individual in the workplace. This behavior comprised of but not limited to “providing emotional, evaluative, informational, and instrumental support, as well as quality of interactions and communication” (Chen et al. 2014, p. 5). The concept of task performance is much similar like the in-role behavior of an individual in the workplace. This “refers to those aspects of the job (being a parent, spouse, child) that are expected” (Chen et al. 2014, p. 5) from an individual being part of a family. Some studies have shown several family related antecedents which can contribute in improving family role performance such as family role adjustment, family role engagement, and family resources (Chen et al. 2014). Perrucci et al. (1978) investigated several determinants of family performance such as Husbands’ age, wife’s education, marital duration, number of children, husband’s occupation and education, house wife or working wife, martial happiness and many more. Surprisingly, it is hard to find empirical studies on the role of workplace in enhancing family performance of their employees. However, some studies have argued the role of workplace in family performance of employees (Aldous 1969; Greenhaus and Powell 2006). Aldous (1969) argued the role of job characteristics such as role salience, the degree of synchronization of family and occupational responsibilities, the degree of overlap in family and work setting in the family role functioning of individuals. WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) proposed the positive role of workplace resources such as skills & perspectives, psychological and physical resources, social-capital resources, flexibility, material resources, in improving the family role performance of employees. Since the inception of this theory, several studies have investigated and found the positive role of workplace resources in engendering the positive experiences of work to family enrichment (D. S. Carlson et al. 2006; Kumar et al. 2017; Tang et al. 2014). Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to measure the role of workplace resource in improving the family performance, even after development of a comprehensive measure of family performance by Chen et al. (2014). Therefore, we believe that there is dire need to investigate the role of workplace resources in enhancing the family performance of employees. Based on WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006), and considering the collectivist cultural context of current study, this study proposes to investigate the effect of coworkers’ support workplace resource on employees family performance. Further, this study proposes to investigate the effect of two specific types of coworkers’ social support (i.e., emotional and instrumental), on two different types of family performance (i.e., relationship and task), because their contents are much similar like the contents of the types of family related social support (i.e., emotional, instrumental) from coworkers. The concept of emotional social support refers to “being empathetic, expressing care and concern, and listening” while instrumental support refers to “providing tangible and objective assistance” (House 1981). Regarding the domain for which social support is provided to people can be general, work related and family related (Boyar et al. 2014; Kossek et al. 2011). General social support means the social support provided to people without properly specifying either it is provided for work related activities, family related activities or for both work and family related activities (Kossek et al. 2011). The work related social support is the support provided to people which help them to manage only work related activities and family related social support is support which help people to manage family related activities (Boyar et al. 2014). This study focuses on the family related domain of coworkers’ support because the ultimate outcome is to improve family performance, rather than work performance. Further, we argue that, specifically, the emotional support can be more related to relationship family performance as compared to task family performance because the contents of emotional support are much similar like the relationship family performance. Similarly, the instrumental support can be more related to task family performance as the contents of it are more like the task family performance. Thus, overall based on WFE theory, collectivist cultural context and focusing the specific aspects of social support and family performance, we hypothesize that;

  • H1: Emotional and instrumental family related social support from coworkers are positively associated with relationship and task family performance but emotional support will be more related to relationship family performance and instrumental support will be more related to task family performance.

Further, we argue that there is a certain mechanism or process through which social support can enhance the family performance of employees. Although, studies have been conducted to test the work to family enrichment as a mediator and on the basis of these studies, we may derive the role of work to family enrichment as potential mediator in the relationship between workplace resources and work related attitudes and behaviour. (Annor 2016; Baral and Bhargava 2010; Fung et al. 2013; McNall et al. 2009; Odle-Dusseau et al. 2012; Tang et al. 2014). However, it is hard to find any study, testing work to family enrichment as mediator between family related social support from workplace and family performance of individuals. Although, several workplace resources have been found as the potential antecedents of work to family enrichment (D. S. Carlson et al. 2006; Kumar et al. 2017; Tang et al. 2014). Similarly, potential relationship between work to family enrichment and work related outcomes (Baral and Bhargava 2010; Bhargava and Baral 2009; D. Carlson et al. 2011; D. S. Carlson et al. 2006; McNall et al. 2009; McNall et al. 2010). Further, work to family enrichment is also found as significant predictor of family related and other outcomes such as family satisfaction (Bhargava and Baral 2009; D. S. Carlson et al. 2006; Lu and Chang 2014), life satisfaction (McNall et al. 2010), psychological wellbeing (D. S. Carlson et al. 2006), physical/ mental health (McNall et al. 2010). However, we couldn’t find research on relationship between work to family enrichment and family performance. Based on WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006), we argue that work to family enrichment can be the potential mediator. The WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) posits that an individual experiences work to family enrichment due to the resources generated in work role and these positive experience of work to family enrichment are likely to improves his/her performance in family role. We argue that the coworker’s family related social support (i.e., emotional & instrumental) resources engender work to family enrichment and these positive experiences in turn may help an individual to perform his/her personal tasks and develop smooth relationship with his/her family member’s. Therefore, it could be very implicative to determine the indirect effect of the varying types of social support on two different types of family performance (i.e., relationship & task), to derive more specific effects which have hardly been tested. Thus, we hypothesize that;

  • H2: Work to family enrichment will mediate the positive relationship between coworkers’ family related social support (i.e., emotional and instrumental) and family performance (i.e., relationship and task).

Furthermore, we argue that do all employees really need social support to improve their family performance? When the employees are more likely to experience work to family enrichment to improve their family role performance? WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) proposes, role salience as the potential moderator for experiencing WFE. Amatea et al. (1986) argued that individuals commit resources to a life (work/family) role in which they intend to become successful. As the prime objective of this study is to improve the family role performance of individuals, therefore, the relevant role which is likely to be salient for individual, to enhance family performance, is the family role salience. Research has shown family role salience as the antecedent of work to family enrichment (D. S. Carlson et al. 2006), work and family satisfaction (Bhowon 2013), distress and job satisfaction(Noor 2004). Noor (2004) also investigated family role salience as the moderator in the relationship between work family conflict and distress but the effects were insignificant. The empirical evidence on the role of family role salience as moderator has been rare and therefore inconclusive. But based on thoughtful directions of WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) and life role salience concepts (Amatea et al. 1986), we argue that the individuals who value their family more are likely to gain more resources from work place to experience work to family enrichment more. Further in turn such positive experiences of work to family enrichment improves their performance in family role more. Therefore we propose family role salience as the boundary condition. Under this condition, the indirect effect of emotional and instrumental family related support from coworkers on relationship and task family performance, will be more for the individuals who are high on family role salience as compare to those who are low on family role salience. Thus, we hypothesize that;

  • H3: The conditional indirect effect of emotional and instrumental family related social support from coworkers on relationship and task family performance through work to family enrichment will be more when family role is highly salient than when it is not highly salient.

Research Model (Fig. 1)

Research Design & Methodology

Data and Sample

The primary data were collected through the survey questionnaire from the employees working in the commercial banking sector of Sindh province of Pakistan, mainly focusing on the urban area districts through convenient sampling method i.e., Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur Districts. We preferred these districts because these are the most developed areas and students in these areas frequently go to the banks for data collections purpose. Therefore, employees working in banks there do not mind to give response to the researchers. There are mainly 05 public sector and 15 private commercial banks working in these areas. Therefore, we collected data from different branches of all these banks. As each of the commercial bank have thousands of branches located in different provinces of Pakistan and thousands of employees have been working in different branches all over Pakistan, such as currently, national bank of Pakistan has 1310 branches in Pakistan, where more than 15,000 employees have been working; the data regarding the exact number of employees working in each bank were not available, so the employees were selected through the convenient sampling method. Convenient sampling is the rational choice when the total population is unknown (De Voss 1998) but researcher made sure that the number of respondents selected for current study is good enough to generalize the results. In this regard, this study followed the sample size table of Saunders et al. (2011).Footnote 1We, distributed approximately 550 questionnaires among the respondents. Either some of the respondents did not return or some were improperly filled. 401 questionnaires were found appropriate and were included in this study, which makes a healthy response rate of 72%. Regarding the gender 88% of the respondents were male while 12% were female. Total participation of labour workforce in financial and insurance industry in Pakistan is around 0.47% and out of that 0.02% are female (Aslam et al. 2015). Therefore, the ratio of male to female in financial and insurance industry in Pakistan becomes 22.5 to 01 which in percent is around 4. 44%. We tried our best to have maximum representation of female but due to overall very low ratio of female in banking sector we could only manage around 12%. Therefore, looking at the overall ratio of male to female, 12% can be considered as the adequate representation of female sample. However, before analysis of the results we conducted preliminary data analysis tests such as common method variance, reliability and validity to ensure the generalizability of the obtained results. These tests will be discussed in data analysis part in more detail. The mean age of the respondents was 30 year while mean experience was 6.4 years. Every employee had 01 child on average. Regarding the marital status 53% of the respondents were married while 47% were unmarried. Regarding joint family setup 83% of respondents had joint family setup while 17% were single family respondents.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Research model

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Measures

All the measures are measured through the five point Likert scale questionnaires adopted for this study. The coworkers’ family related social support (i.e., emotional & instrumental) is measured through six items’ scale (three items for emotional and three items for instrumental) adopted from Boyar et al. (2014). Reliabilities of the scales were .82 and .87 respectively. Sample items of the scale are; “My coworkers care about my family life”, “My coworkers will volunteer to pick up the slack if I have to attend to family needs”. The work to family enrichment is measured through the nine items’ scale adopted from Carlson et al. (2006). Although, we have taken the general measure of work to family enrichment but Carlson et al. (2006) has presented the reliability of three dimensions (i.e., work to family development = .73, work to family affect = .91 and work to family capital = .90) of the work to family enrichment separately. Sample items of the scale is; “My involvement in my work provides me with a sense of accomplishment and this helps me be a better family member”. The family performance is measured through fourteen items scale (eight items for relationship and six items for task performance) adopted from Chen et al. (2014). Rreliabilities of the scales were .94 and .91 respectively. Sample items of the scale are; “Completes household responsibilities”, “Provides emotional support to family members”. The family role salience is measured through six items’ scale adapted from Noor (2004). The sample items of the scale are; “The most important things that happen to me in my life involve family”, “Family should be considered central to life”. Based on work family interface studies, demographic variables such as Gender (Daniel and Sonnentag 2014; Mauno and Rantanen 2013), Age (Daniel and Sonnentag 2014; Mauno and Rantanen 2013), number of children (Daniel and Sonnentag 2014; Mauno and Rantanen 2013) and marital status (Daniel and Sonnentag 2014) were included as controls. So 06 employees’ demographic variables i.e., gender, age, experience, number of children, marital status, joint family setup were included as controls. This study included joint family setup as the control based on the context of current study. In context of Pakistan, usually the extended or joint family setup model of family prevails (Alam 2008; Bilal et al. 2013), where people live together with their parents, grandparents, children and other relatives together and being a collectivist society also love and care each other. Our, study reported that 83% of the respondents has joint family setup. People with joint family setup are likely to need more resources such as social support from workplace to manage their family performance. The prevalence of joint family setup in our context makes this study model more relevant as employees are likely to gain the resources of social support and thus social support is likely to have significant effect on the family performance of employees.

Data Analysis

After performing preliminary data screening tests (i.e., missing value, outliers,), first, the descriptive phase of data analysis starts, which provides as quick summary of the all the variables under study (Pallant 2010). It includes mean, standard deviation and correlations among all study variables. Further, we performed the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and checked the reliability, validity and common method variance (CMV), before proceeding to the analysis of proposed relationships. The mediation and moderated mediation analysis was conducted following the process of Preacher et al. (2007) using their PROCESS macro for SPSS (Hayes 2012). The evidence of indirect effect of X on Y through M (mediator) cannot be excluded if the bootstrapped confidence intervals does not include zero (Hayes 2012). Further, Hayes (2012) has given different models ranging from 1 to 76, for testing different moderation, mediation and moderated mediation effects. Researchers are supposed to select any model according to their study. According to Hayes (2012) if the conditional indirect effect of moderator is determined in the first stage – path A (X → M) of the mediating relationship (X → M → Y) than model number 7 of process macro is run to determine the conditional indirect effect (Hayes 2012). Therefore, model 7 was selected for current study. The evidence of conditional indirect effect of X on Y at different values of moderator (plus/minus one standard deviation from mean) cannot be excluded if the bootstrapped confidence intervals does not include zero (Hayes 2012). Further the evidence of moderated mediation can be derived from the index of moderated mediation (Hayes 2015). If the confidence interval of index does not include zero than the possibility of moderated mediation cannot be excluded (Hayes 2015). Further, the results of each data analysis step are given. The results of descriptive statistics and correlation are given in Table 1.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlations
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In order to check our proposed model fit, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed through AMOS. The fit indices included were Chi-square, Degrees of freedom, CMIN/DF, Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and Root-Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) (Hair et al. 2010). In the initial CFA, the model fit indices were relatively poor (Chi-square = 1083.40, Degrees of freedom = 362, CMIN/DF = 2.99; CFI = .89; TLI = .88; RMSEA = .07) but after removing the two items of family role salience, with low factor loadings, the model fit indices improved and were well within the acceptable level (Chi-square = 912.51, Degrees of freedom = 309, CMIN/DF = 2.9, CFI = .91, TLI = .90, RMSEA = .07).

Further the composite reliability and validity (i.e., discriminant and convergent) were checked by following the procedure of Hair et al. (2010). All the measures were well within the acceptable level, as given in Table 2.

Table 2 Reliability and validity
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We also checked the problem of common method variance, through the common latent factor test, following the procedure of Podsakoff et al. (2003). The results of common latest factor test showed the shared variance of around 13% among all variables. Further, there was no significant improvement in model fit. Thus, there was no serious issue of common method variance.

Results

In hypothesis H1, we proposed that emotional and instrumental family related social support from coworkers are positively associated with relationship and task family performance but emotional support will be more related to relationship family performance and instrumental support will be more related to task family performance. The regression analysis results showed that the emotional (β = .21, p < .00) and instrumental (β = .14, p < .01) family related social support from coworkers has positive and significant association with relationship family performance. Overall, the model explained around 11% of significant variance by two types of social support on relationship family performance. The effect of emotional support were more on relationship family performance as compare to instrumental support. The results are given in Table 3.

Table 3 Results for testing effect of emotional and instrumental family-related support from coworkers on relationship family performance
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Further, the regression analysis results also showed that the emotional (β = .12, p < .04) and instrumental (β = .20, p < .00) family related social support from coworkers has positive and significant association with task family performance. Overall, the model explained around 10% of significant variance by two types of social support on task family performance. The effect of instrumental support were more on task family performance as compare to emotional support. Therefore, H1 was fully supported. The results are given in Table 4.

Table 4 Results for testing effect of emotional and instrumental family-related support from coworkers on task family performance
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In H2, we proposed that work to family enrichment will mediates the positive relationship between coworkers’ family related social support (i.e., emotional & instrumental) and family performance (i.e., relationship and task). The results showed that the indirect effect of emotional (unstandardized β = .09, p < .05) and instrumental (unstandardized β = .07, p < .05) family related social support from coworkers on relationship family performance were significant. Further, form these results, it can be observed that like the main effect of emotional and instrumental support on relationship family performance, the indirect effect of emotional support were more than the instrumental support, on relationship family performance. The results of proposed mediating effects with 5000 bootstrapping sample are given in Table 5.

Table 5 Results for testing mediating effect of work to family enrichment (with 5000 bootstrap) on relationship between social support and relationship family performance
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Further, the results also showed that the indirect effect of emotional (unstandardized β = .10, p < .05) and instrumental (unstandardized β = .09, p < .05) family related social support from coworkers on task family performance were significant. However, the indirect effect of emotional support were slightly higher than the instrumental support, on task family performance. Overall, H2 was fully supported. The results of proposed mediating effects with 5000 bootstrapping sample are given in Table 6.

Table 6 Results for testing mediating effect of work to family enrichment (with 5000 bootstrap) on relationship between social support and task family performance
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In H3, we proposed that the conditional indirect effect of emotional and instrumental family related social support from coworkers on relationship and task family performance will be more when family role is highly salient than when it is not highly salient. The moderated mediation analysis results showed the significant simple interaction of emotional family related support from coworkers and family role salience (β = .13; S.E = .03; p < .00) on work to family enrichment. Further, the simple interaction of instrumental family related support from coworkers and family role salience on work to family enrichment were also significant (β = .09; S.E = .03; p < .01). Furthermore, we developed the slopes for examining the effects of moderator at different levels of moderators. The slope for relationship between emotional family related support from coworkers and work to family enrichment, moderated by family role salience showed that the relationship became stronger when family role salience was high as compared to when it was low. The Slope is given in Fig 2.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Slope for the simple moderating effect of family role salience on the relationship between emotional support and work to family enrichment. Note: WTFE: Work to Family Enrichment; EFRCS: Emotional Family related Support from Coworkers

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Further, the slopes for relationship between instrumental family related support from coworkers and work to family enrichment, moderated by family role salience also showed that the relationship became stronger when family role salience was high as compared to when it was low. The Slope is given in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Slope for the simple moderating effect of family role salience on the relationship between instrumental support and work to family enrichment. Note: WTFE: Work to Family Enrichment; IFRCS: Instrumental Family related Support from Coworkers

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The moderated mediation bootstrapped results for the conditional indirect effect of emotional family related social support from coworkers on relationship family performance through work to family enrichment at different values of moderator – family role salience were i.e., at −1 SD (β = .05; LL = .02 & UL = .09), at Mean (β = .08; LL = .03 & UL = .13), and at +1 SD (β = .11; LL = .04 & UL = .18). As it can be observed that the confidence intervals does not include zero at low (−1 SD), medium (mean) and high level (+1 SD) of moderator. Thus, conditional indirect effects were significant at all levels of moderator – family role salience. The index of moderated mediation results also showed that the confidence interval of index does not include zero (β = .03; LL = .01 & UL = .07). Therefore, the overall possibility of conditional indirect effect of emotional family related social support from coworkers on relationship family performance cannot be excluded.

Further, the moderated mediation bootstrapped results for the conditional indirect effect of instrumental family related social support from coworkers on relationship family performance through work to family enrichment at different values of moderator – family role salience were i.e., at −1 SD (β = .05; LL = .01 & UL = .12), at Mean (β = .07; LL = .02 & UL = .13), and at +1 SD (β = .08; LL = .03 & UL = .15). As it can be observed that the confidence intervals does not include zero at low (−1 SD), medium (mean) and high level (+1 SD) of moderator. Thus conditional indirect effects were significant at all levels of moderator – family role salience. The index of moderated mediation results also showed that the confidence interval of index does not include zero (β = .02; LL = .002 & UL = .04). Therefore, the overall possibility of conditional indirect effect of instrumental family related social support from coworkers on relationship family performance cannot be excluded. Further, it can be observed from these results that the conditional indirect effect of emotional support were slightly more than the instrumental support on relationship family performance. The results are given in Table 7.

Table 7 Conditional indirect effect of family role salience on the relationship between social support and relationship family performance through mediation of work to family enrichment (with 5000 bootstrap)
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The moderated mediation bootstrapped results for the conditional indirect effect of emotional family related social support from coworkers on task family performance through work to family enrichment at different values of moderator – family role salience were i.e., at −1 SD (β = .06; LL = .03 & UL = .12), at Mean (β = .10; LL = .05 & UL = .16), and at +1 SD (β = .13; LL = .07 & UL = .21). As it can be observed that the confidence intervals does not include zero at low (−1 SD), medium (mean) and high level (+1 SD) of moderator. Thus conditional indirect effects were significant at all levels of moderator – family role salience. The index of moderated mediation results also showed that the confidence interval of index does not include zero (β = .04; LL = .02 & UL = .07). Therefore, the overall possibility of conditional indirect effect of emotional family related social support from coworkers on task family performance cannot be excluded.

Further, the moderated mediation bootstrapped results for the conditional indirect effect of instrumental family related social support from coworkers on task family performance through work to family enrichment at different values of moderator – family role salience were i.e., at −1 SD (β = .06; LL = .02 & UL = .14), at Mean (β = .08; LL = .04 & UL = .15), and at +1 SD (β = .11; LL = .05 & UL = .18). As it can be observed that the confidence intervals does not include zero at low (−1 SD), medium (mean) and high level (+1 SD) of moderator. Thus conditional indirect effects were significant at all levels of moderator – family role salience. The index of moderated mediation results also showed that the confidence interval of index does not include zero (β = .03; LL = .001 & UL = .05). Therefore, the overall possibility of conditional indirect effect of instrumental family related social support from coworkers on task family performance cannot be excluded. Further, it can be observed from these results that similarly, like the conditional indirect effects on relationship family performance, the conditional indirect effect of emotional support were slightly more than the instrumental support on task family performance,. The results are given in Table 8. Thus overall, H3 for the role of family role salience as the conditional moderator was fully supported.

Table 8 Conditional indirect effect of family role salience on the relationship between social support and task family performance through mediation of work to family enrichment (with 5000 bootstrap)
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Discussion

Based on WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006), we proposed and found significant role of coworkers’ support resources in improving the performance of individuals in family role. Further, the testing of varying effect of social support has made it clear that it is the emotional family related support from coworkers, which contributes more to the relationship family performance as compared to instrumental support. Similarly, the effect of instrumental family related support from coworkers was more on task family performance as compared to effect of emotional support on task family performance, which is also consistent with our proposition. These results validates the WFE theory’s (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) assumptions, regarding the role of workplace resources such as coworkers’ support, in improving the family role performance of employees. Further, these results also validates the research studies focusing on testing the effect of specific types (such as emotional and instrumental), source (coworkers) and domain (family related) of social support on employees’ attitudes and behaviours (Boyar et al. 2014; Cohen and Wills 1985; House et al. 1985; Malecki and Demaray 2003).

Further, our study found work to family enrichment as mediator. Boyar et al. (2014) specifically argued that emotional and instrumental family related support from coworkers engender work to family enrichment among employees; whereas, Greenhaus and Powell (2006) argues that the positive experiences of work to family enrichment enhances an individual’s family role performance (Greenhaus and Powell 2006). Consistent with these arguments, we found the positive, significant indirect effect of both types of social support on both types of family performance (i.e., relationship and task) through mediation of work to family enrichment. These results establish work to family enrichment as the bridge in the work and family domains. Work and family are two separate domains in which an individual juggles but the positive experiences of work to family enrichment, engendered by workplace resources such as coworkers’ support, helps an individual to apply these resources in his/ her family role to fulfill the commitments, responsibilities of this role. Although, work to family enrichment has been tested as mediator between work place resources and employees job related outcomes (Annor 2016; Baral and Bhargava 2010; Fung et al. 2012; Tang et al. 2014) but our study is its first type which tested and found work to family enrichment as mediator between workplace resources such as coworkers’ support and family performance. Further, testing and validating work to family enrichment as mediator between two specific types of support (i.e., emotional and instrumental) and two specific types of family performance (i.e., relationship and task) is one more unique contribution of this study.

We found the significant role of family role salience as the conditional moderator. The conditional indirect effects of emotional and instrumental support from coworkers on relationship and task family performance were more when family role salience was high as compared to when family role salience was low. These results are consistent with the WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) and as we proposed. Although, there is dearth of empirical research to support the moderating role of family role salience but WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006) provides us clear directions for such moderating effect. Our study can be considered as the bench mark empirical studies to validate the moderating role of family role salience. These results provided us the useful information about when employees may utilize resources such as coworkers’ support more to experience work to family enrichment more which can help them to improve their relationship and task family performance more. These results have highlighted the value of family role salience. Consistent with Amatea et al. (1986), individuals commit resource to a role in which they intend to become successful. Therefore, it is important to understand that those employees, who do not value their family may not acquire workplace resources of coworkers’ support to improve their family role performance. Thus, family role salience is the certain condition for acquisition of resources, as indicated by the results of this study. Overall, the total effect of emotional support were more on relationship family performance and the effect of instrumental were more on task family performance as we proposed. But the specific indirect effects and conditional indirect effects of emotional support were slightly more than the instrumental support, on both types of performance (i.e., relationship and task). It could be because, we used general measure of work to family enrichment as mediator. The general measure of work to family enrichment includes the items of its three dimensions (i.e., affect, development and capital) (D. S. Carlson et al. 2006). Therefore, separating out these three dimensions of work to family enrichment might have resulted in more clear specific effects.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

Theoretically, this study contributes by incorporating the role of WFE theory (Greenhaus and Powell 2006), in context of current study, Further this study contributes by testing the effects of specific types of social support on the specific types of family performance. Our findings suggested that emotional and instrumental family related social support from coworkers can be very effective for employee to improve their relationship and task family performance. On the one hand, instrumental support provided by coworkers can help them to accomplish their family task and on the other hand, if they can’t provide instrumental support than at least they can console each other through the emotional support. This emotion regulation may help employees in their family to fulfill the requirement of relational role. Through this study we also validate the line of researchers focusing on the varying types, sources and domain of social support (Boyar et al. 2014; Cohen and Wills 1985; House et al. 1985; Malecki and Demaray 2003). Therefore, based on the finding of this study we may derive that emotional support can be more helpful to improve relationship family performance and instrumental support can be more helpful to improve task family performance.

Further, based on the finding of this research, we have established work to family enrichment as the process or the mediating mechanism through which the emotional and instrumental social support resources from coworkers can improve the relationship and task family performance of employees. The positive experience of work to family enrichment can work like a bridge through which workplace support resources are transmitted to family of employees.

Finally, through this research we come to know the extent to which employees value their family life and the extent to which family role salience plays role for individuals to experience work to family enrichment. Comparatively, employees may vary on the degree to which they give value or importance to their families. The employees for whom their family is more salient, such employees utilize workplace resources such as coworkers’ support more to experience more work to family enrichment, to improve their relationship and task family performance.

In prevailing context, this study becomes more important and applicable. Khilji (2013) argued that in our context, human resource practices are at the stage of infancy in organizations, including banking sector and in absence of formal organizational practices, people form in-groups to acquire help from each other. Therefore, in absence of such organizational practices, the coworkers support can really be helpful to improve the family role performance of employees, as indicated by this study. But the organizations, specifically banking sector organizations should pay serious attention to family role performance of employees and develop a mechanism to provide employees support which is according to their family needs, to improve their family role performance. Overall, this study contributes by testing a moderated mediation model.

Limitations & Future Direction

The use of cross sectional data is always a limitation but we took care of the seriousness of this issue by checking through common latent factor test. As in this study, the ratio of female in comparison to male was very low. Therefore, these results cannot be straightforwardly generalized for women. The future research may conduct the study either with women sample or a sample having almost equal ration of women to men. This research considered work to family enrichment in general, while other studies may include the specific dimension of work to family enrichment (i.e., affective, capital, development) for more comprehensive understanding. The work family conflict and enrichment may be tested simultaneously. The organizational performance variables (i.e., extra role behaviour, interpersonal citizenship behaviour) may be tested as dependent measures. The future research may use the longitudinal data.