Journal of Occupational Health Psychology2001, Vol. 6, No. 2, 91-100

Copyright 2001 by the Educational Publishing Foundation1076-8998/01/S5.00 DOI: 10.1037//1076-8998.6.2.91

Career Involvement and Family Involvement as Moderatorsof Relationships Between Work-Family Conflict

and Withdrawal From a Profession

Karen M. CollinsLehigh University

Jeffrey H. Greenhaus andSaroj Parasuraman

Drexel UniversityThis study extended prior analyses by J. H. Greenhaus, K. M. Collins, R. Singh, and S.Parasuraman (1997) by examining relationships between 2 directions of work-family conflict(work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict) and withdrawal from public accounting.The sample consisted of 199 members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants(135 men and 64 women) who were married or in a long-term relationship and who had 1 or morechildren. It was found that work-to-family conflict (but not family-to-work conflict) was posi-tively related to withdrawal intentions. In addition, relationships of work-to-family conflict withwithdrawal intentions and withdrawal behavior were stronger for individuals who were relativelyuninvolved in their careers than for those who were highly involved in their careers. Theimplications of the findings for future research are discussed.

Organizational downsizing and restructuring in re-sponse to global competitive pressures have beenaccompanied by marked changes in the nature ofcareers. The uncertainty of continuous employmentwithin a single organization and extensive work pres-sures in the new "lean and mean" organizations haveled to the growing prevalence of "boundaryless" ca-reers (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996). In light of recentchanges in the psychological contract between em-ployers and employees as well as a favorable labormarket, individuals pursuing boundaryless careersare likely to move across organizational and occupa-tional boundaries with increasing frequency.

Although high rates of voluntary turnover havebeen observed among diverse groups of occupations(e.g., nursing, information technology), the publicaccounting profession has recently witnessed turn-over rates in excess of 20% per year (Connor, Hooks,& McGuire 1997). A disturbing trend observed bythe profession is that public accountants are not onlyleaving their employer but are also withdrawing from

Jeffrey H. Greenhaus and Saroj Parasuraman, Depart-ment of Management, LeBow College of Business, DrexelUniversity; Karen M. Collins, College of Business andEconomics, Lehigh University.

An earlier version of this article was presented in August1999 at the annual meeting of the American AccountingAssociation, San Diego, California. We thank Romila Singhfor her assistance with the research.

Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-dressed to Jeffrey H. Greenhaus, Department of Manage-ment, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104.Electronic mail may be sent to greenhaus@drexel.edu.

the field of public accounting itself. These develop-ments emphasize the need to gain a better under-standing of the dynamics underlying withdrawalfrom a professional career field.

Accounting firms have assumed that the high rateof withdrawal from the profession is due, in part, tothe stress generated by extensive work-family con-flict (American Institute of Certified Public Accoun-tants, 1992). This is not an unreasonable assumption.Work-family conflict tends to produce low levels ofjob satisfaction and career satisfaction (Adams, King,& King, 1996; Higgins, Duxbury, & Irving, 1992;Netemeyer, Boles, & McMurrian, 1996; Parasura-man, Purohit, Godshalk, & Beutell, 1996), both ofwhich may stimulate withdrawal tendencies (Blau &Lunz, 1998; Neapolitan, 1980; Rhodes & Doering,1983, 1993). Extensive work-family conflict has alsobeen associated with a diminished quality of life(Higgins et al., 1992; Rice, Prone, & McFarlin, 1992)and a variety of dysfunctional behaviors (Frone, Rus-sell, & Barnes, 1996; Frone, Russell, & Cooper,1993, 1997; MacEwen & Barling, 1994; Stewart &Barling, 1996).

Although work-family conflict has been men-tioned as a potential determinant of the decision towithdraw from a profession or career field, this topichas received little attention in the research literature.Recently, however, Greenhaus, Collins, Singh, andParasuraman (1997) examined the impact of workand family factors on withdrawal from public ac-counting. They observed significant relationships be-tween work-family conflict and withdrawal. How-ever, the relationships were smaller than what might

91

92 GREENHAUS, PARASURAMAN, AND COLLINS

have been expected given prior beliefs regarding therole of work-family stress in withdrawal from acareer field (American Institute of Certified PublicAccountants, 1992; Hooks, Thomas, & Stout, 1995;Rhodes & Doering, 1983). The present study wasmotivated by our desire to gain a deeper understand-ing of the relationships between work-family conflictand withdrawal intentions and withdrawal behavior.The study, which is based on Greenhaus et al.'s(1997) data set, goes beyond prior analyses in tworespects.

First, Greenhaus et al. (1997) studied globalwork-family conflict using a composite measurethat confounded the direction of the conflict. Rec-ognizing the bidirectionality of work-family con-flict, recent studies have distinguished work-to-family conflict, in which work interferes withfamily life, from family-to-work conflict, in whichfamily responsibilities interfere with work. Be-cause the two directions of conflict can have dif-ferent consequences (Frone, Russell, & Cooper,1992), it is possible that withdrawal from a pro-fession is not affected in the same way by work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict.Therefore, combining both directions of conflictinto one composite measure may have masked astronger relationship between withdrawal and oneor the other direction of conflict. This researchextends Greenhaus et al.'s analyses by examiningthe separate effects of work-to-family conflict andfamily-to-work conflict on withdrawal intentionsand behavior.

Second, it is possible that the strength of therelationship between work-family conflict andwithdrawal from a profession is contingent on per-sonal characteristics that were not examined byGreenhaus et al. (1997). Just as organizationalturnover is produced by interactions between situ-ational and personal variables (Steel & Ovalle,1984), so too may withdrawal from a profession.Using social identity theory as a theoretical frame-work, the present research extends the prior anal-yses by investigating the conditions under whichwork-family conflict is related to withdrawal in-tentions and behavior.

In sum, the goals of the present study were toexamine the effects of work-to-family conflict andfamily-to-work conflict on withdrawal from publicaccounting and to investigate the conditions underwhich conflict is associated with withdrawal from theprofession. The rationale for the hypotheses is devel-oped in the following section.

Work-Family Conflict, Role Involvement, andWithdrawal From a Profession

The present study examined both directions ofwork-family conflict to determine whether one direc-tion of conflict has a stronger impact on withdrawalfrom a profession than the other direction of conflict.There is good reason to believe that work-to-familyconflict is more likely to have an impact on thewithdrawal process than family-to-work conflict. Be-cause the most substantial determinants of work-to-family conflict reside within the work domain (Froneet al., 1992; Frone, Yardley, & Markel, 1997), indi-viduals who experience extensive work-to-familyconflict may attempt to reduce the conflict by leavingthe work environment that has produced the stress.However, individuals who experience extensive fam-ily-to-work conflict may not necessarily withdrawfrom their profession because the roots of the conflictlie not in the work environment but rather in thefamily domain. Although Frone et al. (1992) sug-gested that work-to-family conflict, rather than fam-ily-to-work conflict, may bear a direct relationship tovoluntary turnover, we are not aware of any researchthat has tested this proposition. Therefore, Hypothe-sis 1 predicts that there is a positive relationshipbetween work-to-family conflict and withdrawal in-tentions and behavior. For the reason discussedabove, we do not expect to observe a relationshipbetween family-to-work conflict and withdrawal.

It is also possible that the modest relationshipsbetween work-family conflict and withdrawal ob-served by Greenhaus et al. (1997) reflect the presenceof other factors that moderate the strength or direc-tion of the relationship between conflict and with-drawal. Consistent with social identity theory, wepropose that the impact of work-to-family conflict onwithdrawal intentions is dependent on an employee'slevel of involvement in family and career.

According to social identity theory, social roles(e.g., professional, spouse, or parent) form the basisof a person's self-identity (Burke, 1991; Frone, Rus-sell, & Cooper, 1995), and the effectiveness of roleperformance has consequences for one's self-evalu-ation (Thoits, 1991). Because individuals participatein a variety of social roles, they have multiple iden-tities (Lobel, 1991) that are organized in a hierarchyof centrality (Thoits, 1991). Therefore, there are in-dividual differences in the salience of a particularrole as a determinant of self-identification (Frone etal., 1995).

Thoits (1991, pp. 105-106) suggested that "themore salient the role identity, the more meaning,

WITHDRAWAL FROM A PROFESSION 93

purpose, and behavioral guidance the individualshould derive from its enactment, and thus the morethat identity should influence psychological well-be-ing." Thus, some role requirements have the potentialto reinforce one's self-identity, and others may di-minish an individual's sense of identity. The latter arethought to be more psychologically damaging whenthey threaten one's identity in highly salient roles(identity-threatening stressors) than when theythreaten one's identity in less central roles (Thoits,1991).

Therefore, Hypothesis 2 predicts that the relation-ships between work-to-family conflict and with-drawal intentions and behavior are stronger for em-ployees who are highly involved in their familiesthan for those who are relatively uninvolved in theirfamilies. Extensive work-to-family conflict is likelyto be an identity-threatening stressor for individualswho are highly involved in family life because workinterferes with an aspect of their livesthe familythat is a central part of their self-identity. Family-involved professionals may respond to this identitythreat by seeking to leave the profession that is thesource of the conflict. Employees who are relativelyuninvolved in their families, however, may toleratehigh levels of work-to-family conflict and see noneed to leave their profession as a result of theinterference. For this latter group, work-to-familyconflict is an identity-irrelevant experience (Thoits,1991) that is unlikely to trigger withdrawal. We madeno prediction regarding family involvement as amoderator of the relationships between family-to-work conflict and withdrawal.

On the basis of similar reasoning, Hypothesis 3predicts that the relationships between work-to-fam-ily conflict and withdrawal intentions and behaviorare weaker for employees who are highly involved intheir careers than for those who are relatively unin-volved in their careers. Because effective perfor-mance in highly salient roles is important to one'sself-identity (Thoits, 1991), career-involved employ-ees may tolerate extensive work-to-family interfer-ence to achieve career success. For this reason, thewithdrawal of career-involved professionals may notbe highly dependent on the level of work-to-familyconflict they experience. However, individuals rela-tively uninvolved in their careers who experienceextensive work-to-family conflict may be inclined toleave the profession that has produced the conflictbecause their career is not sufficiently salient to theirself-identity to justify its continual intrusion into theirfamily life. We made no prediction regarding career

involvement as a moderator of the relationships be-tween family-to-work conflict and withdrawal.

Method

Sample

The present research was part of a larger study on thequality of life in public accounting (Greenhaus et al., 1997).Participants were members of the American Institute ofCertified Public Accountants (AICPA) who were employedin public accounting below the partnership level, excludingsole practitioners and those who had joined the institutewithin the previous 12 months. Surveys were mailed to1,000 randomly selected members of the AICPA who metthe above-mentioned criteria. To relate survey responses tosubsequent withdrawal from public accounting (discussedbelow), we assigned a confidential research number thatidentified the respondent to each outgoing survey. Respon-dents were informed about the presence of the researchnumber, were assured that their responses would be keptconfidential, and were instructed to return their completedsurveys directly to the researchers.

Completed surveys were returned by 428 accountants,which represents a response rate of 43%. We were able tocompare our respondents with the AICPA membership onfour background characteristics: sex, age, number of yearsin public accounting, and size of their firm. Compared withthe public practice membership of the AICPA, the presentsample included a larger percentage of women (37% in thepresent sample vs. 24% in the AICPA), was younger (me-dian age of 33.0 years vs. 40.9 years), had spent fewer yearsin public accounting (median time of 8.0 years vs. 13.6years), and was more likely to be employed by a national orinternational public accounting firm (33% vs. 24%). It islikely that our strategy of excluding public accountants atthe partner level and sole practitioners yielded a younger,less-experienced sample with a greater percentage ofwomen than the national membership as a whole.

The present analyses were conducted on the 199 respon-dents who were married or in a long-term relationship andwho had one or more children. This sample included 135men and 64 women, 98% of whom were married. Thenumber of children ranged from 1 to 7, with 82% of thesample having one or two children. The average age of therespondents' children was 7.52 years (SD = 8.19 years).Thirty-five percent of the respondents were senior accoun-tants and 65% were managers. The vast majority of thesample worked in auditing (27%), tax (36%), or multipleareas of specialization (31%). Respondents averaged 4.74years in their position, 6.31 years in their firm, and 9.64years in public accounting.

Measures

Work-to-family conflict was measured by nine items(e.g., "Because my work is demanding, at times I amirritable at home" and "My work schedule often conflictswith my family life") that assessed time-based conflict andstrain-based conflict (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Five ofthe items were used previously by Greenhaus et al. (1997)and assessed time-based and strain-based interference of

94 GREENHAUS, PARASURAMAN, AND COLLINS

work with home life. We also included four additional itemsthat assessed time-based and strain-based interference ofwork with family life. Responses to the nine items, whichwere made on a 5-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to5 (strongly agree), were averaged to form a work-to-familyconflict scale (a = .90). Family-to-work conflict was mea-sured by four items that assessed time-based and strain-based interference of home and family with work activities(e.g., "The demands of my family life make it difficult toconcentrate at work"). Responses to the four items, whichwere made on a 5-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to5 (strongly agree), were averaged to form a family-to-workconflict scale (a = .57).

Career involvement was assessed with three items fromLodahl and Kejner's (1965) job involvement scale, with theword career substituted for job (e.g., "Most of the importantthings that happen to me involve my career"). Responses tothe three items were averaged to form a career involvementscore (a = .79). Family involvement was assessed with aparallel set of three items (with the word family substitutedfor career) that has been used previously in the literature(Parasuraman, Greenhaus, & Granrose, 1992). Responseswere averaged to produce a family involvement score(a = .84).

Intentions to leave public accounting were measured bythree items (e.g., "I will probably look for a new job outsideof public accounting in the next year"). Two of the itemswere adapted from Cammann, Fichman, Jenkins, and Klesh(1979; cited in Seashore, Lawler, Mirvis, & Camman,1982), and the third item was written for this research. Eachitem was answered on a 5-point scale from 1 (stronglydisagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and responses to the threeitems were averaged to form a total intention score (a =.92). The measure of withdrawal from public accountingwas derived from information contained on a computer tapeprovided by the AICPA. The tape indicated the employmentstatus of each member of the sample 22 months after theoriginal survey data were collected. A dichotomous variablewas created with individuals who had withdrawn frompublic accounting coded 1 and individuals who had re-mained in public accounting coded 0.

Data Analyses

Preliminary analyses revealed that two demographic vari-ables were significantly related to intentions to leave andwithdrawal from public accounting: size of firm (national orinternational vs. regional or local) and number of years inpublic accounting. Because they were also significantlyrelated to work-to-family conflict, firm size and tenure inpublic accounting were controlled in all subsequent analy-ses.

Hypothesis 1 predicted a positive relationship of work-to-family conflict with withdrawal intentions and with-drawal behavior, and Hypotheses 2 and 3 predicted inter-actions of work-to-family conflict with family involvementand career involvement, respectively. The predictions ofwithdrawal intentions were tested with hierarchical multipleregression analysis, and the predictions of withdrawal be-havior were tested with hierarchical logistic regression anal-ysis. All variables were standardized prior to conducting theregression analyses (Jaccard, Turrisi, & Wan, 1990). With-drawal intentions and withdrawal behavior were separatelyregressed on the two demographic controls in Step 1. Theindependent variables (work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, career involvement, and family involvement)were entered in Step 2. In Step 3, the interactions of work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict with careerinvolvement and family involvement were entered. All sig-nificant interactions were plotted by calculating regressionlines from the full equation at high (+1 SD) and low (-1SD) levels of the moderator variable (Cohen & Cohen,1983).

Results

Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations,and intercorrelations for the study variables. Duringthe 22 months between the administration of thesurvey and the collection of the withdrawal data, 18%of the sample had withdrawn from public accounting.

Table 1Intercorrelations Among Study Variables

Variable 11. Size of firm"2. Years in public accounting3. Family-to-work conflict4. Work-to-family conflict5. Career involvement6. Family involvement7. Intention to leave public accounting8. Withdrawal from public accounting11

MSD

-.10-.02

.35**

.09

.04

.31**

.31**0.300.46

-.04-.17*

.11-.06-.23**-.19**9.645.64

.34**

.01-.17*

.02

.022.220.61

-.07-.06

.40**

.19**3.210.81

-.26**-.31**-.093.140.76

.01

.114.350.64

.38**2.681.16

0.180.38

Note. Pairwise Ns range from 191 to 199.a 1 = national/international; 0 = regional/local.

accounting.* p < .05, two-tailed. ** p s .01, two-tailed.

1 1 = withdrew from public accounting; 0 = remained in public

WITHDRAWAL FROM A PROFESSION 95

Work-to-family conflict was positively related towithdrawal intentions and subsequent withdrawalfrom public accounting, whereas family-to-workconflict was unrelated to both measures of with-drawal. In addition, career involvement was nega-tively associated with withdrawal intentions.

Tables 2 and 3 show the results of the multipleregression analysis and the logistic regressionanalysis, respectively. Hypothesis 1 was partiallysupported. Work-to-family conflict was positivelyrelated to withdrawal intentions, family-to-workconflict was unrelated to intentions, and a compar-ison of regression coefficients (Cohen & Cohen,1983) revealed that work-to-family conflict wasmore strongly related to intentions than wasfamily-to-work conflict, f(l) = 3.03, p < .01.Inconsistent with Hypothesis 1, however, work-to-family conflict was not related to subsequent with-drawal behavior.

Hypothesis 2 predicted that the relationships ofwork-to-family conflict with withdrawal intentionsand behavior would be stronger for employees whoare highly involved in their families than for thosewho are relatively uninvolved in their families. Thefindings provided no support for the hypothesis.There was no interaction between work-to-familyconflict and family involvement predicting either in-dicator of withdrawal from public accounting. Inaddition, there was no evidence that family involve-ment moderated the relationships between family-to-work conflict and withdrawal intentions andbehavior.

Hypothesis 3 predicted that the relationships be-tween work-to-family conflict and withdrawal in-tentions and behavior would be weaker for em-ployees who are highly involved in their careersthan for those who are relatively uninvolved intheir careers. The regression analyses revealed sig-nificant interactions between work-to-family con-flict and career involvement predicting withdrawalintentions and withdrawal behavior. Figure 1 indi-cates that the relationship between work-to-familyconflict and withdrawal intentions was not as sub-stantial for employees who are highly involved intheir careers as for those who are relatively unin-volved in their careers. The interaction predictingwithdrawal behavior, shown in Figure 2, reflects asomewhat similar pattern. There was a strong pos-itive relationship between work-to-family conflictand withdrawal for employees uninvolved in theircareers, and a weak negative relationship betweenconflict and withdrawal for those highly involvedin their careers.

Although it was not predicted that family-to-work conflict would interact with career involve-ment, there was a significant interaction betweenthese variables predicting withdrawal intentions.As shown in Figure 3, there was a weak positiverelationship between family-to-work conflict andwithdrawal intentions for employees who are rel-atively uninvolved in their careers and a weaknegative relationship for employees who are highlyinvolved in their careers.

Table 2Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analysis Predicting the Intentionto Leave Public Accounting

Step & predictors A/?2 F change dfa $1. Controls .14 16.24** 2, 193

Size of firm"Years in public accounting

2. Independent variables .19 13.18** 4,189Work-to-family conflict (WFC)Family-to-work conflict (FWC)Career involvement (CI)Family involvement (FI)

3. Interactions .04 2.80* 4, 185WFC x CIWFC X FIFWC x CIFWC X FI

.30**-.20**

.28**-.06

-.33**-.09

-.12t-.07-.14*-.01

Note. N = 196.a 1 = national/international; 0 = regional/local.tp .06, two-tailed. * p < .05, two-tailed. ** p < .01, two-tailed.

96 GREENHAUS, PARASURAMAN, AND COLLINS

Table 3Hierarchical Logistic Regression Analysis Predicting Withdrawal FromPublic Accounting

Step & predictors X2 improvement1. Controls

Size of firm6Years in public accounting

2. Independent variablesWork-to-family conflict (WFC)Family-to-work conflict (FWC)Career involvement (CI)Family involvement (FI)

3. InteractionsWFC X CIWFC X FIFWC X CIFWC X FI

30.69**

4.47

5.72

0.80**-1.30**

0.200.14

-0.200.31

-0.50t-0.600.290.44

Note. N = 111.' Unstandardized coefficient. b 1 = national/international; 0 = regional/heal.tp = .06, two-tailed. **p .01, two-tailed.

Discussion and Implications forFuture Research

This study was conducted to address two relatedquestions. Do work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict differ in their impact on the decision towithdraw from a profession? Do the levels of familyinvolvement and career involvement moderate therelationships between conflict and withdrawal? Ourfindings indicate that work-to-family conflict has amore substantial impact on withdrawal than doesfamily-to-work conflict and that career involvementmoderates the relationship between conflict andwithdrawal.

Our research supports these conclusions in severalways. First, work-to-family conflict had a strongereffect on withdrawal intentions than did family-to-work conflict, which was unrelated to intentions.Apparently, when considering whether to withdrawfrom a professional career field, individuals take intoaccount the source of the stress and the likelihoodthat departure from the profession will relieve thestress. Because work-to-family conflict is arousedprimarily from stressors within the work environment(Prone et al., 1992, 1997), leaving the profession thatinterferes with family life is likely to reduce anindividual's level of stress. Individuals who experi-ence extensive family-to-work conflict are not likelyto withdraw from their profession because the sourceof the interference is coming from the family domain,not the workplace. Thus, a major contribution of this

study derives from our finding that an individual'sintention to leave a professional career field is sensi-tive to the direction of the interference between workand family roles.

Although work-to-family conflict was unrelated tosubsequent withdrawal for the total sample, it didpredict withdrawal behavior for individuals who arenot highly involved in their careers. Career involve-ment interacted with work-to-family conflict to pre-dict withdrawal intentions and withdrawal behavior.The interactions had two common elements. First, therelationships of work-to-family conflict with with-drawal intentions and behavior were strongly positiveonly for those individuals low in career involvement.Second, withdrawal intentions and the likelihood ofwithdrawal from public accounting were strongestfor employees who experienced extensive work-to-family conflict and who were relatively uninvolved intheir careers.

Therefore, work-to-family conflict, in conjunctionwith career involvement, does influence withdrawalfrom a profession. Apparently, there is less of areason to put up with extensive work-to-family con-flict if work is not a highly salient part of one's life.However, career-involved professionals are notoverly disturbed by the interference of work withfamily life and are willing to tolerate the interferencefor the sake of their careers. Perhaps they accept thework demands and the interference with family lifeas the price to be paid for the prestige and economicrewards that come with a career in public accounting.

WITHDRAWAL FROM A PROFESSION 97

CO

3.75

3.5

B 3.25I.E 315| 2.75 -\~ 2.5

2.25 ^

2Low High

Work-to-Family Conflict

- Low career involvement - Ugh career involvement

Figure 1. Interaction between work-to-family conflict and career involvement predictingwithdrawal intentions. The dependent variable is expressed in raw scores.

Thus, an intense involvement in a professional careernot only reduces the intention to withdraw from thefield (Blau & Lunz, 1998) but also weakens theimpact of work-to-family conflict on withdrawal.

Although we have concluded that family-to-workconflict plays little or no role in the withdrawalprocess, we should note that family-to-work conflictdid interact with career involvement to predict with-drawal intentions (see Figure 3). Despite the interac-tion, the relationship between family-to-work conflictand withdrawal intentions was not strong either forindividuals who are relatively uninvolved in theircareers or for those who are highly involved in work.

Moreover, although it is possible that the relation-ship between family-to-work conflict and withdrawalintentions was attenuated by the relatively low reli-ability of the family-to-work conflict scale, applyinga correction for attenuation due to unreliability (Fer-guson, 1966) did not substantially increase the cor-relation. A more likely explanation, as noted earlier,is that the direction of the interference between workand family roles determines the impact of conflict onwithdrawal (Frone et al., 1992).

The findings of the present study did not supportthe hypothesized role of family involvement in thewithdrawal process. Although we had expected thatfamily-oriented individuals would withdraw fromtheir profession when their work lives extensivelyinterfered with their family, there was no interactionbetween family involvement and work-to-familyconflict. It is possible that employees who are highlyinvolved with then- families not only want to protectthe time they have available for their families but arealso motivated to maintain their families' financialsecurity. In this event, high levels of work-to-familyconflict, although upsetting, may also be seen as anecessary byproduct of the level of effort that isrequired to assure the material well-being of thefamily. Additional research is required to understandthe role, if any, that family involvement plays in thedecision to withdraw from a professional career field.

Additional research in several other areas is alsowarranted. It would be useful to determine whetherfamily-to-work conflict influences withdrawal deci-sions in ways that could not be examined in thepresent study. For example, when individuals who

98 GREENHAUS, PARASURAMAN, AND COLLINS

i2T3^~JL.

MO-aoo

"o

in

0.8 -,

0.7

0.6 -

0.5 -

0.4

0.3 -

0.2

0.1 -

Low High

Work-to-Family Conflict

- Low career involvement - High career involvement

Figure 2. Interaction between work-to-family conflict and career involvement predicting thelikelihood of withdrawal from public accounting. The dependent variable, logit (withdrawal),is converted to the likelihood of withdrawal through exponentiation and division as describedby Menard (1995, p. 13).

experience extensive family-to-work conflict fail intheir attempt to relieve the stressors within the familyrole, do they withdraw from interactions with othermembers of their family, as suggested by the findingsof MacEwen and Barling (1994, Figure 2)1 Or dothey attempt to leave their professional role for a lessdemanding or more flexible work environment that isless likely to be the object of family-induced inter-ference? Answers to these questions require a re-search design that is capable of detecting the se-quence of responses designed to cope with work-family conflict.

It would also be helpful to examine the linkagebetween withdrawal intentions and subsequent with-drawal behavior. The organizational turnover litera-ture has revealed that the relationship between turn-over intentions and turnover behavior is moderatedby a variety of variables (Maertz & Campion, 1998;Steel & Ovalle, 1984). It is equally plausible thatsituational and personal factors can either strengthenor weaken the impact of intentions to withdraw froma profession on subsequent withdrawal.

The present findings should be used cautiously to

predict withdrawal from public accounting for sev-eral reasons. First, our sample had a higher percent-age of women and was somewhat younger and lessexperienced than the national membership of theAICPA. Second, the interactions we observed be-tween conflict and career involvement explainedmodest percentages of the variance in withdrawaltendencies. We view our findings in general, and theinteractions in particular, as providing theoretical in-sight into the role of the work-family interface inprofessional withdrawal and stimulating future re-search to enhance theoretical development further.

Moreover, future research should examine the im-pact of work and family life on withdrawal fromprofessional fields other than public accounting.Many professional career fieldssuch as nursing,law, and consultingsuffer high withdrawal rates,and the new emphasis on boundaryless careers thatmove across functional, organizational, and occupa-tional boundaries will undoubtedly increase the fre-quency of major career shifts.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge that thepresent research was not designed to test a compre-

WITHDRAWAL FROM A PROFESSION

Low High

Famify-to-Work Conflict

-Low career involve;

Figure 3. Interaction between family-to-work conflict and c

hensive model of flillaiiav. al from a profession. Such

a model would necessarily include a variety of work-

related variablesstressors, job characteristics, and

attitudesthat were beyond the scope of the present

study. Having established in this study that the work-

family interface can play a role in withdrawal from a

profusion, we tncouraiji.1 researchers to examine a

broad array of work and family influences in future

studies of the withdrawal process.

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Received September 2, 1999Revision received June 21, 2000

Accepted August 2, 2000