An exploratory study of the impact of family & technology issues on sales careers with a focus on gender differences.

ABSTRACT

The first purpose of this exploratory study was to add to the body of knowledge related to work-family conflict (WFC), particularly in the area of the impact of family members' health issues on careers. The second purpose was to address the impact of information technology security issues on salespeople's lives and careers. The authors designed and distributed a survey on work-family conflict and technology issues to 35 salespeople they knew. Items from two previously-developed scales were borrowed, and new items and questions were created. An overview of the responses to the questions is provided. The focus then shifts to identifying any significant gender differences. Significant differences were found for gender with regard to percentage of time spent on certain sales-related tasks, for several WFC questions relating to self-image and loss of productivity, and effect of parent's health on career plans. Limitations, tentative conclusions and suggestions for future research are then provided.

INTRODUCTION

A discussion of the effect of aging parents on professional careers took place at a conference in the fall of 2003 among several colleagues. This discussion prompted the researchers to explore the impact of family-related issues (schedule flexibility, care giving responsibility and technology) on salespeople's ongoing professional development and careers. A review of the literature revealed the connection of family-related issues, and to a lesser extent, technology issues, to the larger issues of work and family conflict and role conflict and ambiguity. Adams (1998) summarized the dilemma faced by many sales and marketing employees and managers:

   "Which will it be, Jennifer's ballet recital or the client dinner?
   The anniversary celebration or the manager's conference? Missed
   opportunities on one end can mean loss of client trust, aborted
   promotions, or worse, termination. Short shrift on the other side
   can translate to marital conflicts, domestic discord, alienated
   children" (p. 61).

LITERATURE REVIEW

The psychology, organizational behavior, human resource management, and family sciences literature is full of studies on the impact of work and family conflict on employee productivity, job satisfaction, job loyalty, marital happiness, and physical and mental health, among other attitudinal, physiological, and behavioral consequences. Work-family conflict has been established by prior research to be bi-directional; i.e., it involves two types of conflict, work obligations interfering with family life (work-family conflict, WFC) and family life interfering with work duties (family-work conflict, FWC)(Marchese, Bassham & Ryan, 2002, 145, 146).

One of the leading contributors to the body of knowledge on work-family conflict (WFC) has been management professor Jeffrey Greenhaus of Drexel University. Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) identified three key types of WFC in their review of existing literature: time-based conflict (e.g., hours worked per week, schedule flexibility, child care demands); strain-based conflict (e.g., tension, depression, irritability, family roles expectations); and behavior-based conflict (role expectations). Prior research by Greenhaus and others identified the importance of studying gender differences in WFC, especially when both husband and wife are employed (see, e.g., Burke, Weir & DuWors, 1979; Cinamon & Rich, 2002; Greenhaus & Powell, 2003; Jansen et al., 2003; Kim & Ling, 2001; Martins, Eddleston & Veiga, 2002; Parasuraman et al., 1989; Parasuraman & Simmers, 2001; Senecal, Vallerand & Guay, 2001).

One area of the work-family literature that has received more attention lately is that of the impact of caregiver arrangements and related issues on employees' attitudes and behavior (e.g., see Kossek's work, including Kossek & Ozeki, 1998). To some extent, more research seems to have been done on child care than on elder care. The research on child care, however, has been more from the perspective of measuring the impact of providing assistance (e.g., child care centers) on reducing WFC (see Marchese, Bassham & Ryan, 2002, p. 147). Gerstel and Gallagher (1993, p. 606) found a significant relationship between the caregiver's level of depression and the degree to which care giving ("kinkeeping") was perceived to interfere with work. Jansen et al. (2003) found that having to care for a chronically sick child or other family member at home was a significant risk factor for WFC for men but not for women. Marks (1998) studied the impact of caring for disabled children, parents and spouses on the psychological well-being of men and women in Wisconsin. She found that women suffered more psychological distress from care giving. However, while being a caregiver generated more WFC than not being a caregiver, there were no significant gender differences in terms of increased WFC. Kossek, Colquitt and Noe (2001) conducted an extensive examination of care giving decisions and work performance and found that "managing elder care interacts with variables to influence employee outcomes more negatively than does managing child care, especially when caregiving is at home or by a family member" (p. 40). Personal resources, health and age are postulated to affect how much influence aging parents have on family decision making (Watson, Srisupandit & Tung, 2002).

Research on WFC has reached the selling/sales management literature, with a number of factors being studied, including work environment and mental health (Borg & Kristensen, 1999), salesforce culture, role conflict and turnover (Jackson, Tax & Barnes, 1994), coping strategies and WFC (Nonis & Sager, 2003), and turnover intentions (Good, Page & Young, 1996; Good, Sisler & Gentry, 1988; Netemeyer, Brashear-Alejandro & Boles, 2004). Boles, Wood and Johnson (2003) focused research on the interrelationships of WFC and role conflict with multiple dimensions of job satisfaction, paying particular attention to gender differences. In fact, they did find gender differences with WFC: women realize more satisfaction with work, coworkers and company policies when WFC is reduced, whereas men realize more satisfaction with pay, supervisors, promotion and policies when WFC is reduced (Boles, Wood & Johnson, 2003, p. 109).

Little research was found in terms of the influence of technology on salespeople's careers and role conflict (e.g. see Boles & Sunoo, 1998; Prewitt, 1998). Salesperson technophobia was found to be related to age and education level of salespeople and was a contributing factor to increased role stress (Rich, 2000). Since the terrorism attacks on September 11, 2001, and given the subsequent passage of the Patriot Act, the authors decided to investigate attitudes toward computer security issues both at home and in the sales office.

Based on the literature review and the anecdotal experiences of the authors, the purpose of the study was two-fold: first, to add to the body of knowledge regarding the impact of family members' health issues on salespeople's careers; second, to assess the impact of information technology security issues on salespeople's lives.

METHODOLOGY

A questionnaire was originally designed in November 2003 and subsequently pretested on students in an upper-level Marketing class at a southern regional university. As a result of the pretest, wording on the two use of technology questions was changed from "use computers" to a broader, less confusing, "use any kind of technology". For the three questions regarding how far respondents lived from family members, the response categories were changed from region of the state to distance in miles (less than 20, less than 60, less than 100, or greater than or equal to 100). The final version of the questionnaire contained 28 numbered questions, with three of the numbered questions containing a total of 33 Likert-type statements. The first set of questions on the final questionnaire addressed the following topics: length of employment with current employer, travel expectations of job, extent of travel, hour worked per week, work schedule flexibility, use of technology at work and at home for work purposes, online work assessment, and percentage of time spent on sales tasks (selling, meetings, paperwork, etc.).

A search of the three volumes of the Marketing Scales Handbook yielded two scales that appeared to be appropriate for the authors' assessment of family-related issues. Chonko and Burnett (1983) developed a 27-item scale that measured role conflict (Bruner & Hensel, 1998). One segment (four items) from Chonko and Burnett's scale was used in our study; this segment represented Factor 3: Family and addressed time spent working, socializing (with customers and other salespeople), and traveling. Responses were measured on a five-point scale ranging from "Complete agreement" to "No agreement."

Good, Page and Young (1996) used a 13-item scale adapted from Fournier (1981) to measure work and family conflict (as noted in Bruner, James & Hensel, 2001). The items addressed self-image and esteem, impact on productivity, spousal career conflict, and contentment with current city. A five-point Likert-type scale was used to measure responses, ranging from "Strongly disagree" to "Agree strongly," with "Not applicable" as the fifth scale point. Since specific questions that measured the impact of family members' health on one's sales career could not be found, four questions were added to the work and family conflict scale: health of spouse/significant other, health of parents or spouse's parents, health of children, and anticipation of career move/change due to health issues in next five years.

A search of the literature did not reveal any scales that were up-to-date and relevant to current technology issues (security, training, viruses, and computer usage). Therefore the authors developed a 12-item Likert-type scale, using the same five-point scale that was used by Good, Page and Young (1996), to measure work and family conflict possibly stemming from technology-related issues.

The final series of questions dealt with demographics, including gender, age, marital status, number of children, state of residence, and education, computer usage (number at home, Internet access), and family information (parents living, distance from parents, distance from children, and primary caregiver).

A cover letter was prepared according to university Institutional Review Board guidelines. The questionnaire and cover letter were combined to produce a booklet format and printed at a local office supply store.

A convenience sample was used in this exploratory study. Surveys were distributed by hand and through e-mail to 35 salespeople known by the researchers. All 35 surveys were completed during December 2003 and used in this exploratory study. The surveys were edited, coded and inputted into ABstat[TM] as a database. The data was cleaned, and then frequencies, descriptive statistics, and both parametric and nonparametric statistics were calculated.

RESULTS

Twenty (57.1%) of the 35 survey participants were women. Twelve (34.3%) of the respondents were between the ages of 35 and 44 and ten (28.6%) were between the ages of 45 and 54. Twenty-five (73.5%) were married. Thirty-three participants reported having one computer at home, while two marked that they had two computers at home. All but one person had Internet access from home. Of those 34 with Internet access at home, 16 (47.1%) used a dial-up modem while 13 (38.2%) used DSL to access the web. Thirteen (37.1%) of the 35 respondents have earned an undergraduate degree, while another seven (20%) have earned a graduate degree. Just over half (51.4%) indicated that both parents were still alive, while 25.7% indicated that only one parent was still living. Nineteen (70.4%) out of 27 who answered the question reported that they lived less than 20 miles from their parents. Ten (41.67%) out of 24 who responded to the question reported that they lived less than 20 miles from their spouse's parents. Thirty participants (85.7%) said they have children; of these, 43.3% have two children and 30% have one child. Thirteen (44.8%) of the 29 who answered reported that they have one child under the age of 18, while another ten (34.5%) have two children under 18 years of age. Twenty-two (73.3%) of the thirty parents indicated that they lived less than 20 miles from their children. With regard to being the primary caregiver for parents, only one out of the 35 participants reported that they had that responsibility. All of the respondents lived in one southern state.

For a deeper profile of the respondents, crosstabulations and chi-square tests were run on the demographic variables. Readers are cautioned that many of the significant relationships to be reported here and in later sections suffered from cell size problems, due to the small sample size of this exploratory study. To eliminate some cell size problems, the initial age categories were combined to form three, under 35, 35 to 44, and 45 and older.

As would be expected, age and marital status were significantly related to having children or not. Those under the age of 35 tended to not have any children (p < .001) and those who were married or divorced/separated tended to have children (p < .0001). Younger respondents tended to be single/never married, while those 35 or older tended to be married or divorced/separated (p < .05). Those with some undergraduate or some graduate coursework done tended to use a dial-up modem to access the Internet, whereas those with a graduate degree tended to use DSL (p < .10). No other significant differences were found at the alpha = .10 level.

Descriptive statistics for ratio and interval scale-based questions are provided in Table 1 and briefly discussed in this section, along with frequencies from categorical questions. The respondents have been with their present employers an average of 65.26 months (or almost five and a half years). Over three-fourths of the salespeople (27/35; 77.1%) are required to travel as part of their jobs. Twelve people (44.4%) indicated that they had to travel two to three times a week, while another eight people (29.6%) had to travel on a weekly basis. Of the 27 who indicated that they had to travel, 15 (55.6%) said that their travel did not require an overnight stay. Respondents averaged 52.57 hours of work per week, with four people reporting 70 hours a week as their workload. Just over half of the salespeople (18/35; 51.4%) indicated that they had a flexible work schedule. Most (97.1%) reported daily usage of any kind of technology (computers, registers, etc.) at work; meanwhile, nine (25.7%) reported using technology at home for work monthly versus six (17.1%) who used it daily at home. A third of the respondents (12/35; 34.3%) rarely or never used technology at home for work purposes. Most of the salespeople (31/34; 91.2%) indicated that their use of the Internet for work is more than it was a year ago; only three people said their Internet work usage had remained the same.

Respondents were then asked to allocate 100% of their time in a typical week among seven sales-related tasks. The descriptive statistics are found in Table 1. Only one person marked the "other" task category (15% allocated to it). Using the means, the tasks were ranked from most time spent to least time spent (see Table 2).

Respondents were then presented with the questions borrowed from the scales mentioned in the Methodology section, plus the set of questions on technology issues developed by the authors. Before proceeding to the scale-based questions, respondents were given the following definition:

   For this next section of questions, "family" refers not just to your
   spouse or significant other, but also to your children, your parents
   and/or in-laws, and any other significant people that would make up
   your "extended" family.

The first four questions dealt with time spent on four activities: working, socializing with customers, socializing with other salespeople, and traveling (see Chonko & Burnett, 1983). The rating scale ranged from 1 (complete agreement) to 5 (no agreement) between the respondent and his/her family. Means ranged from 1.80 for time spent socializing with other salespeople to 1.91 for time spent working and time spent socializing with customers (see Table 1). Respondents felt there was very much agreement between them and family members on how they spent their time in these four areas.

As stated earlier, 13 WFC questions (Good, Page & Young, 1996) and four health-related questions developed by the authors were measured on a five-point scale, where 1 = Strongly disagree, 4 = Agree strongly, and 5 = Not applicable. For purposes of analysis, any "5" score was dropped, leaving a four-point scale. As seen in Table 1, respondents tended to agree with positive self-related statements (able to do things, take a positive attitude, satisfied with myself) and spousal career statements (spouse content with his/her job, I'm content with spouse's job). Salespeople tended to disagree with negative self-related statements (feel useless, feel like a failure), work-home conflict statements (spouse's career conflicts with mine, feel tense when get home), and all four health-related career-impact statements (health issues affecting career plans). There were some points of indecision, however. Respondents were torn between agreement and disagreement over: personal concerns reduce my productivity at work; family has resources to meet desired lifestyle; family problems cause loss of time at work; and contentment with city they live in.

Finally, with regard to the technology issues (see Table 1), respondents tended to agree or agree strongly with these issues: using computers is more important in my job today; have to login with a password at work; have to use a password when logging in to the company's computer system from home; family members use the home computer for non-work activities; company is overly concerned about computer security; I'm concerned about computer security at work and at home; company gave me adequate computer training; and being careful about having anti-virus software up-to-date both at work and at home. Participants tended to disagree with: my spouse uses the home computer for work and time spend on computer takes away from family time.

Given the scope of the exploratory research undertaken, the authors decided to focus on significant differences by gender in this paper. Crosstabulations and chi-square tests were conducted on the categorical work-related questions. Even with the relatively balanced split between men and women in the sample, there exist potential cell size problems for some of the analyses. For the scale-based questions, the t test for two independent samples was selected over the Mann-Whitney U test, though there is the risk of violation of the homogeneity of variance assumption and the sample sizes varied above and below 30 (see Sheskin 1997, pp. 153 and 181). Since we did not hypothesize any directional differences, two-tailed probabilities were used.

A significant difference for gender with regard to travel necessitating an overnight stay was found. Male salespeople tended to be required by their travels to stay overnight, whereas women salespeople were not (?2 = 4.4524, p < .05). No other significant differences were found by gender for travel-related, technology-use, length of employment, and hours worked questions. Three significant differences were discovered for percentage of time spent in various sales-related tasks. Men tended to spend more time on the selling task than women did (38.67% vs. 32.5%, t = 1.8197, p < .10). Female salespeople tended to spend more time on professional development (10% vs. 6.67%, t = -1.942, p < .10) and paperwork tasks (17.25% vs. 12%, t = -1.8356, p < .10).

No significant differences by gender were found for the four questions on family and salesperson agreement on time spent on various activities. Seven significant differences were identified with regard to the 13 WFC questions. Women salespeople tended to be indecisive regarding the statement, "Personal concerns reduce my productivity at work," whereas men tended to disagree with the statement (mean = 2.55 vs. 2.067 for men, t = -1.9222, p < .10). Female participants also were indecisive about "Family problems cause loss of time at work for me" (2.526 vs. 2.071, t = -1.945, p < .10). Women tended to be disagree less about "My spouse's job or career conflicts with mine" (2.294 vs. 1.90, t = -1.9501, p < .10), "All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure" (1.7 vs. 1.267, t = -2.011, p < .10), and "I am nervous, tense, or frustrated when I get home from work" (2.35 vs. 1.80, t = -2.2468, p < .05). Men were more in agreement about these statements than were women: "I take a positive attitude toward myself" (3.4 vs. 3.1, t = 1.8548, p < .10) and "On the whole, I am satisfied with myself" (3.5 vs. 3.2, t = 1.8815, p < .10).

Analysis of the four health-related questions yielded two significant differences by gender. Men tended to strongly disagree with the following two statements, whereas women tended to disagree: "The health of my parents or my spouse's/significant other's parents has affected my career plans" (1.357 vs. 1.722, t = -2.148, p < .05) and "I anticipate having to make a career move or change in the next five years due to the health of a family member (spouse, child, parent)" (1.417 vs. 1.778, t = -1.81, p < .10). No significant differences by gender were found for the technology-related questions.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

There are several limitations that need to be addressed first. The pretest was done with students, not salespeople. Though these students may end up being salespeople, this is still a weakness of the study. The analyses were limited by the small sample size of 35 (or fewer, depending on variable and analytical method). The sample is not a representative sample, since it was a convenience sample and also drawn from a small region of the United States. The study also is affected by the use of borrowed scales and the appropriateness of added items (see Engelland, Alford & Taylor, 2001 for cautions in such use). In hindsight, the 10-item sales activity classification taxonomy developed by Moncrief (1986) should, perhaps, have been used instead of the sales tasks developed by the authors. The scale items also need to be carefully examined through factor analysis and reliability analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions we make are more speculations, given the exploratory nature of this study. A possible explanation for men spending more time on the selling task is that they see a clearer connection between their sales and their salaries, whereas women focus on relationships, and part of that is doing what is important to the organization (like paperwork). With regard to the work-family conflict questions, it appears that women are still more likely to worry about family concerns, even while at work. The role of women as traditional caregivers appears to be coming through in the findings discussed earlier. Men and women seem to have similar perceptions regarding the technology issues. Given the heightened security awareness in the U.S., both may be reluctant to express disagreement with computer security and privacy issues.

FUTURE RESEARCH

A larger sample size is needed to test whether or not these significant differences between men and women will be maintained, expanded, or minimized. A wider geographic range of participants is also warranted. The scales need to be tested and further refined by other researchers. A factor analysis of the scales, followed by reliability assessment, is the next step for the authors. More data is also being gathered by the authors as one of several next steps in this vein of research.

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Jeff W. Totten, Southeastern Louisiana University Barbara A. Schuldt, Southeastern Louisiana University Duane Donald, Southeastern Louisiana University

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics

                                                Standard
Variable                                Mean    Deviation   Median

Length of employment (months)           65.26     50.01       54
Hours worked per week                   52.57     10.39       50
Time spent selling (%)                  35.14     10.25       30
Time spent in meetings (%)              10.00     5.82        10
Time spent traveling (%)                 9.57     8.08        10
Time spent entertaining (%)              5.86     4.62        5
Time spent on sales follow-up (%)       16.14     6.54        15
Time spent on professional               8.57     5.23        10
  development (%)
Time spent on paperwork (%)             15.00     8.66        10
Agreement on time spent working *        1.91     0.89        2
Time spent socializing with customers    1.91     0.89        2
Time spent socializing with other        1.80     0.80        2
  salespeople
Agreement on time spent traveling        1.86     0.97        2
Able to do things as well                3.49     0.51        3
  as others (#)
Personal concerns reduce productivity    2.34     0.77        2
Family has resources to meet desired     2.82     0.64        3
  lifestyle
Spouse's job/career conflicts with       2.15     0.53        2
  mine
I certainly feel useless at times        1.71     0.71        2
Family problems cause loss of time       2.33     0.69        2
  at work
Inclined to feel like I'm a failure      1.51     0.66        1
Nervous/tense/frustrated when I get      2.11     0.76        2
  home
Take a positive attitude toward          3.23     0.49        3
  myself
I am satisfied with myself               3.32     0.48        3
Spouse is content with his/her work      3.11     0.42        3
  status
I'm content with spouse's work status    3.04     0.44        3
I'm content with city in which I live    2.82     0.80        3
Spouse's health has affected my          1.70     0.61        2
  career plans
Kid's health affected my career plans    1.60     0.50        2
Parents' health affected my career       1.56     0.50        2
  plans
Make career move due to family health    1.63     0.56        2
Using computers is more important        3.74     0.44        4
  in job (#)
Required to login using password         3.74     0.44        4
  at work
Required to login when accessing         3.74     0.45        4
  from home
Spouse uses home computer for work       1.96     0.60        2
Family uses computer for non-work        3.00     0.61        3
  activities
Time on computer takes away from         2.33     0.55        2
  family
Company is overly concerned about        3.14     0.49        3
  security
I'm concerned about work computer        2.86     0.60        3
  security
I'm concerned about home computer        2.89     0.58        3
  security
Company provides adequate training       3.09     0.45        3
Careful to ensure work anti-virus is     2.86     0.60        3
  up-to-date
Careful to ensure home anti-virus is     2.83     0.57        3
  up-to-date

Variable                                  Mode        n

Length of employment (months)           24, 36, 40   35
Hours worked per week                      40        35
Time spent selling (%)                     30        35
Time spent in meetings (%)                  5        35
Time spent traveling (%)                   10        35
Time spent entertaining (%)                 5        35
Time spent on sales follow-up (%)       10, 20       35
Time spent on professional                  5        35
  development (%)
Time spent on paperwork (%)                10        35
Agreement on time spent working *           2        35
Time spent socializing with customers       2        35
Time spent socializing with other           2        35
  salespeople
Agreement on time spent traveling           1        35
Able to do things as well                   3        35
  as others (#)
Personal concerns reduce productivity       3        35
Family has resources to meet desired        3        33
  lifestyle
Spouse's job/career conflicts with          2        27
  mine
I certainly feel useless at times           2        35
Family problems cause loss of time          3        33
  at work
Inclined to feel like I'm a failure         1        35
Nervous/tense/frustrated when I get         2        35
  home
Take a positive attitude toward             3        35
  myself
I am satisfied with myself                  3        34
Spouse is content with his/her work         3        27
  status
I'm content with spouse's work status       3        27
I'm content with city in which I live       2        34
Spouse's health has affected my             2        27
  career plans
Kid's health affected my career plans       2        30
Parents' health affected my career          2        32
  plans
Make career move due to family health       2        30
Using computers is more important           4        35
  in job (#)
Required to login using password            4        35
  at work
Required to login when accessing            4        35
  from home
Spouse uses home computer for work          2        26
Family uses computer for non-work           3        28
  activities
Time on computer takes away from            2        30
  family
Company is overly concerned about           3        35
  security
I'm concerned about work computer           3        35
  security
I'm concerned about home computer           3        35
  security
Company provides adequate training          3        35
Careful to ensure work anti-virus is        3        35
  up-to-date
Careful to ensure home anti-virus is        3        35
  up-to-date

* For the next four statements, 1=complete agreement and 5=no
agreement.

(#) For the remaining statements, 1=strongly disagree and 4=agree
strongly; 5=not applicable (dropped from analysis).

Table 2: Sales-related Tasks Ranked by Mean Percentage

Selling (planning, calling, prospecting, presentations)   35.14%
Sales follow-up (customer service, training)              16.14
Paperwork (loan processing, phone calls, etc.)            15.00
Meetings/conferences                                      10.00
Travel                                                     9.57
Professional development/training                          8.57
Entertaining                                               5.86