Illegitimate Tasks And Work-family Conflict:The Mediating Role Of Psychological Detachment And The Moderating Role Of Boundary Flexibility Ability

With the globalization of economic development,the organization’s industrial structure is accelerating the transformation and upgrading.The illegitimate tasks arising from the contradiction between the increasing enterprise competition and the unbalanced organization structure have become a common phenomenon in the organization.Illegitimate tasks are tasks that do not fit into the scope of work people are expected to do,should not be done by themselves or are unnecessary.Existing studies have shown that illegitimate tasks have a range of negative outcomes in terms of mood,cognition,behavior and health.Work and family roles are the main roles that employees take in their daily life.People are shuttling between work and home every day,transforming roles across boundaries.The positive and negative effects of work can spill over to the family,hindering the virtuous cycle of work and family,and not conducive to the development of society.Based on the stressors-detachment model and boundary theory,this study explored the mechanism of illegitimate tasks and work-family conflict,from the perspective of cognitive assessment,this paper tries to put forward corresponding management suggestions to improve the problem of aggravation of work-family conflict,construct a moderating mediation model of illegitimate tasks affecting work-family conflict,the mediating role of psychological detachment in illegitimate tasks and work-family conflict,the moderating role of boundary flexibility ability in mediating role,and the moderating role of boundary flexibility ability in illegitimate tasks and work-family conflict were analyzed.In this study,questionnaires were mainly used to investigate 437 employees and statistical methods such as confirmatory factor analysis,correlation analysis,hierarchical regression analysis and Bootstrap test were used to draw the following conclusions:Illegitimate tasks can positively predict work-family conflict.Psychological detachment serves as a partial mediator between illegitimate tasks and work-family conflict.Boundary flexibility ability negatively moderates the relationship between illegitimate tasks and work-family conflict.Boundary flexibility ability moderates the relationship between psychological detachment and work-family conflict,and boundary flexibility ability moderates the mediating effect of illegitimate tasks on work-family conflict through psychological detachment.This study starts from subjective feelings and employees’ cognitive ability,and deepens the relationship between illegitimate tasks and work-family conflict,which is a supplement and expansion of previous research.Study results confirm negative impact of illegitimate tasks.The findings inspire organizations to take steps to reduce the occurrence of illegitimate tasks,while advocating for organizations and families to provide supportive boundary management policies,reduce work-family conflict,and promote employee career health and the virtuous circle of society.