2012 Cambridge Business & Economics Conference ISBN : 9780974211428
IMPACT OF EMPOWERMENT ON WORK-LIFE BALANCE AND EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING
Füsun Akdağ, Ph.D.
Yeditepe University,
Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences,
Department of Business Administration,
Istanbul, Turkey.
90-216-5781745
ABSTRACT
Organizations are under tremendous pressure to improve their performance and success in the competetive business world. Psychological empowerment increases employees' sense of personal control and motivates them to engage in work, which in turn results in positive managerial and organizational outcomes (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997).
Work-life balance has always been a concern for quality of working life and its relation to quality of life. Individuals experiencing interference between work and personal lives are also significantly more likely to suffer from reduced psychological well-being and physical health. (Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 1998).
The well-being of employees is in the best interest of communities and organizations. The average adult spends much of his or her life working, as much as a quarter or perhaps a third of his waking life in work. Subsequent research in this area has led to an understanding of the detrimental effect of work-related stress on employee health (Bond, 2004; Loretto et al, 2005).
This study argues that perception of empowerment is a key factor that affects work-life balance, physical and mental well-being of employees and managers. The effect of empowerment on mental and physical well-being can be direct or through its effect on work-life balance. Using non-random convenience sampling, employees and managers in various sectors were surveyed.
The questionnaire consists of four parts: demographic aspects, perceived empowerment, work-family balance, physical and mental well-being.
Analyses support our hypotheses that empowerment and work-family balance has a strong effect on mental, physical well-being. Furthermore the results also provide evidence for the effect of empowerment on work-family balance. As to the gender effect on the interaction between empowerment, work-family balance and mental/physical well-being, we have not found any gender based differences on perception of empowerment, work-family balance and mental/physical well-being.
INTRODUCTION
Empowerment
In our global world, empowerment is a concept of organizational behavior which has increasingly gained importance. A basic definition of empowerment is to have the authority and capacity to make decisions and to act for the organization in order to improve both individual motivation and organizational productivity (Elmuti, 1997). If committed to empowerment, organizations motivate and retain their employees and thus increase organizational performance. Individual empowerment basically means people feeling and actually having a sense of control over their lives. Research tells us that this ‘sense of control’ is particularly important, as it has a direct effect on improving an individual’s mental and physical health. According to Spreitzer (1995), psychological empowerment exists when employees perceive that they exercise some control over their work lives. He furthermore defines empowerment as intrinsic motivation manifested in four cognitions reflecting an individual's orientation to his or her work role. The four cognitions are meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. ‘Meaning’ refers to a sense of purpose or personal connection to work . Empowered people feel that their work is important to them and they care about what they are doing (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997). ‘Competence’ reflects individuals' beliefs that they have the necessary skills and abilities to perform their work well. ‘Self-determination’ refers to a sense of freedom about how individuals do their work. ‘Impact’ describes a belief that individuals can influence the system in which they are embedded (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998). The four dimensions of empowerment could help people to feel more in control (Spreitzer, 1995). Empowerment is one of the most effective ways of enabling employees at all levels to use their creative abilities to improve the performance of the organization they work for, and the quality of their own working life (Chaturvedi, 2008). As Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1977,1993) argues, employees’ behavior is a reaction to the situation in which they find themselves and when situations are structured so that employees feel empowered, the organization is likely to benefit both in terms of employee attitudes and organizational effectiveness.
Work-life Balance
Work/life balance, in its broadest sense, is defined as a satisfactory level of involvement or ‘fit’ between the multiple roles in a person’s life (Clarke, Koch & Hill, 2004). Work/life imbalance is when the pressures from one role make it difficult to comply with the demands of the other. (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Employees who experience increased stress due to work/life conflict and decreased perceptions of control over their work and non-work demands are less productive, less committed to, and satisfied with, their organisation and more likely to be absent or leave the organisation. (Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 1998). The nature of work, such as its routinization, supervision, and complexity, has been linked casually to an individual's sense of control and depression (Kohn & Schooler, 1982) Individuals experiencing interference between work and personal lives are also significantly more likely to suffer from reduced psychological well-being and physical health. (Boles & Babin, 1996; Boles, Howard & Donofrio, 2001). Perceivedbalancebetweenworkandsocialrolesusuallyisleading tolife satisfaction.
Work-family balance was found to predict well-being and the overall quality of life (Fisher,2002;
Greenhaus, Collins & Shaw, 2003) . On the other hand, failure to achieve balance was associated with reduced job and life satisfaction (Allen, Herst, Bruck, & Sutton, 2000), decreased well-being and quality of life (Grant Vallone & Donaldson, 2001; Noor, 2004) as well as increased stress (Burke, 1988) and impaired mental health ((Beatty,1996;Grzywacz Bass,2003),
Well-being
Well-being is a broadly defined as the overall quality of an employee’s experience and functioning at work including physical and psychological dimensions (Warr, 1987). The well-being of employees is in the best interest of communities and organanizations since the average adult spends most of her or his life working and almost fifth to a quarter of the adult life satisfaction can be accounted for satisfaction with work (Campbell,Converse,Rodgers,1976). Research shows that employee well-being is an important concern for organizations and that employee well-being has a significant impact on the performance and survival of organizations by affecting costs related to illness and health care (Danna & Griffin,1999), absenteism, turnover (Spector, 1997) , and job performance (Judge at.al.,2001; Wright & Cropanzano, 2000). Additionally, the World Health Organisation’s 2005 Mental Health Action Plan for Europe has called for an improvement of employee mental health and has made specific recommendations for the provision of mental health care services in the workplace. (WHO, 2005)
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
This study argues that perception of empowerment is a key factor that affects work-family balance, physical and mental well-being of employees and managers. The effect of empowerment on mental and physical well-being can be direct or through its effect on family balance as seen on Figure 1, below.
Figure 1. Conceptual Illustration of the Interaction between Empowerment, Work-Family Balance and Well-being
Based on these premises we argue that (1) empowerment has a strong and positive effect on physical well-being; (2) empowerment has a strong and positive effect on mental well-being and (3) empowerment has a strong and positive effect on work-family balance. Furthermore we argue that (4) work-family balance has a significant effect on physical and mental well-being. This research also explores the gender differences in the interaction of empowerment, work-family balance and physical/mental well-being.
METHODOLOGY
Sample
Using non-random convenience sampling, this study surveyed 72 employees and managers, 23 of which are female (32%) and the remaining 49 of them (68%) are male. 79% of these respondents are married and 21% are single. Occupational position shows that 14% of the respondents are regular employees, 21% of them are low-level managers, 46% of them are mid-level managers and 19% of them are high-level managers. 51% of these respondents have been working in the workplace for more than 10 years.
Data Collection Procedure
The questionnaires were designed to address the empowerment perception of the respondents, the conflict between their family and work-life, their physical and mental well-being. The questionnaire was administered between April and June 2011 to the respondents.
The questionnaire consists of four parts: demographic aspects, perceived empowerment, work-family balance, physical and mental well-being. Empowerment scale developed by Spreitzer (1995) and was adapted by by Semerciöz (2009). Following Spreitzer (1995) our measure for perception of empowerment is composed of constructs measuring “meaning”, “competence”, “self-determination” and “impact”. Using three items to measure each construct, our perception of empowerment measure is composed of twelve items. Work-family balance scale, developed by Netemeyer, et.al. (1996) and adapted by Özdevecioğlu (2003) is composed of ten items, five of them measured how work-life creates conflict with family life and the remaining five of them measured how family life creates conflict with work-life. Physical well-being scale was developed by Moss (1986) and adapted by Torun (2009), composed of 19 items, whereas mental well being is measured by WEMWBS developed by Warwick-Edinburg (2006) and adapted by Torun (2009) is composed of 14 items.
RESULTS
T-test results show that there is no statistically significant evidence to state that there is a gender based difference in perception of empowerment, work-family balance, mental and physical well-being scores. However, there is a significant difference between single and married respondents on their perception of empowerment and physical well-being scores, single respondents having significantly lower scores on both constructs. Single respondents’ score for perception of empowerment is on average 4,06, where as the score for the married respondents is 4,41. The difference of the scores is -0,35 which is statistically significant at 0.05 level. Similarly single respondents’ average physical score on well-being is 3,7, where as the score for the married respondents is 4,07. The difference of the scores, which is -0,38, is also statistically significant at 0.05 level. The difference between single and married respondents on mental well-being is also visible (-0,12), yet the difference is not statistically significant at 0.05 level.
Table 1. Multivariate Regression Analyses for Testing Effect of Empowerment on Mental Well-Being, Physical Well-Being and Work-Family Balance Controlled for Extraneous Variables
(I)Mental Well-being / (II)
Physical Well-being / (III)
Work-Family Balance
Empowerment / 0,29** / 0,26* / 0,38*
Gender / 0,04 / 0,07 / -0,05
Occupational Position / 0,07 / -0,01 / -0,07
Duration of Work / -0,09* / -0,05 / -0,03
Marital Status / -0,13 / 0,20 / -0,14
Education / 0,03 / 0,11 / 0.15
Constant / 2,21 / 2,39 / 2,31
R2 / 0,27 / 0,20 / 0,13
* p<0,05 **p>0,01 ***p<0,001
Regression analyses result show the significant effect of empowerment on mental well-being, physical well being and work family balance, controlled for marital status, duration of work, occupational position and gender. Among all, the effect of empowerment on mental-well-being emerges as the most significant effect (p<0.01).
Table 2. Multivariate Regression Analyses for Testing Effect of Empowerment on Mental Well-Being, Physical Well-Being and Work-Family Balance Controlled for Extraneous Variables
(I)Mental Well-being / (II)
Physical Well-being
Work-Family Balance / 0.25** / 0.41***
Gender / 0,04 / 0,06
Occupational Position / 0,08 / 0,05
Duration of Work / -0,07 / -0,04
Marital Status / -0,03 / 0,25
Education / 0.04 / 0.25
Constant / 2,18 / 1,73
R2 / 0,30 / 0,40
* p<0,05 **p>0,01 ***p<0,001
Table 2 presents the results of the multivariate regression analysis for testing the effect of work-family balance on mental and physical well-being in two different models. The results show that work-family balance has a significant and positive effect on mental and physical well-being.
Multivariate regression analyses support our hypotheses that empowerment and work-family balance has a strong effect on mental and physical well-being. Furthermore the results also provide evidence for the effect of empowerment on work-family balance. This is very critical for the purposes of this research. Nevertheless for theoretical reasons we are inclined to see work-family balance not as an independent variable, but as dependent on empowerment. For these reasons, in Figure 1, we also depicted work-family balance as dependent on empowerment.
CONCLUSION
Analyses support our hypotheses that empowerment and work-family balance has a strong effect on mental, physical well-being. Furthermore the results also provide evidence for the effect of empowerment on work-family balance. These results have important implications for managers to empower their employees if their priority is high organizational performance and employee well-being and productivity. Furthermore, well-being of employees positively effect their personal lives and also their immediate family members’ lives, for a better quality of life, contributing to a healthier community as described by World Health Organization (WHO) action plans.(2005). This case study will be the groundwork for a more comprehensive research about the effect of empowerment on work-life balance and physical and mental well-being of employees and managers in an emergent market context.
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