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.
akdagf@yeditepe.edu.tr
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, workfamily 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.
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2012 Cambridge Business & Economics Conference
ISBN : 9780974211428
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
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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).
Perceived balance between work and social roles usually is leading to life 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
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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
Physical Wellbeing
Well-being
Empowerment
Work-Family
Balance
Mental 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, workfamily balance and physical/mental well-being.
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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, workfamily 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.
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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 wellbeing 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
Empowerment
Gender
Occupational Position
Duration of Work
Marital Status
Education
(I)
Mental Wellbeing
0,29**
0,04
0,07
-0,09*
-0,13
0,03
(II)
Physical
Wellbeing
0,26*
0,07
-0,01
-0,05
0,20
0,11
(III)
Work-Family
Balance
0,38*
-0,05
-0,07
-0,03
-0,14
0.15
Constant
2,21
2,39
2,31
R2
**p>0,01
0,27
***p<0,001
0,20
0,13
* p<0,05
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).
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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
Work-Family Balance
Gender
Occupational Position
Duration of Work
Marital Status
Education
Constant
(I)
Mental Wellbeing
0.25**
0,04
0,08
-0,07
-0,03
0.04
2,18
R2
**p>0,01
0,30
***p<0,001
* p<0,05
(II)
Physical
Wellbeing
0.41***
0,06
0,05
-0,04
0,25
0.25
1,73
0,40
Table 2 presents the results of the multivariate regression analysis for testing the effect of workfamily 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 workfamily 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,
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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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