Employee Satisfaction With Work‐life Balance Policies And Organizational Commitment: A Philippine Study
| Author | Ji Sung Kim,Sangyub Ryu |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1794 |
| Published date | 01 October 2017 |
| Date | 01 October 2017 |
EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION WITH WORK-LIFE BALANCE POLICIES
AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT: A PHILIPPINE STUDY
JI SUNG KIM
1
AND SANGYUB RYU
2
*
1
Korea University, Korea
2
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea
SUMMARY
This study investigates the relationship between public employees’satisfaction with work-life balance policies (WLBPs) and
organizational commitment in the relatively unexplored Philippine context. Our findings show that (i) employees’overall
satisfaction with WLBPs is positively related to organizational commitment, (ii) when specific WLBPs are examined, only sat-
isfaction with health and wellness programs are positively associated with organizational commitment, and (iii) when account-
ing for employees’preferences for WLBPs, compensatory time-off, childcare policy, health insurance benefits, and paid sick
leave are positively related to organizational commitment. The findings indicate that understanding which WLBPs employees
prefer is important before implementing WLBPs. The article discusses the theoretical and practical implications of this study
in the developing country context. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words—work-life balance; organizational commitment; employee satisfaction; job involvement; role clarity; the Philippines
INTRODUCTION
Research in the field of public administration for development has evolved over the decades (Puppim de Oliveira
et al. 2015), and the area of human resource management (HRM) is no exception. HRM research conducted in pub-
lic sector organizations, largely in the developed country context, has explored the relationship between various
HRM practices associated with recruitment, selection, retention, training and development of public officials,
and a number of correlates such as public service performance (Bertucci 2006; Brown 2004; Melton and Meier
2016). Challenging HRM topics in developing countries include performance, staff competency, decentralization,
training, and compensation, to name a few (Berman 2015). Although the quantity of research on HRM to tackle
challenging topics has expanded, the quality of life of human resources in the workplace has received relatively
less attention. Considering that the well-being of employees is a significant issue in HRM, work-life balance
policies need practitioners’and scholars’attention. Work-life balance policies (WLBPs) are designed to help
employees integrate their work and personal life while reducing inter-role conflicts between the two domains (Fels
2004; Greenhaus and Beutell 1985). WLBPs are particularly important in the developing country context. First,
WLBPs need to be understood in the line of strategic HRM, which is currently emphasized in both practice and
academia in developing countries (Berman 2015). Moreover, the composition of workforces is diverse. More
women actively participate in the labor markets of developing countries, and individual values now put more
emphasis on quality of personal life, which leads researchers and practitioners to focus more on WLBPs (Ezra
and Deckman 1996; Lambert 2000). Finally, in developing countries where public sector salaries barely match
the market rates, WLBPs can supplement the salary gap for public employees by providing life/health insurance
benefits, childcare, or elder care. Despite the needs for WLBPs in developing countries, few studies touched upon
this theme, and this research may be one of the first investigations of its kind.
*Correspondence to: S. Ryu, Department of Public Administration College of Social Sciences, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul,
Korea. E-mail: sryu@hufs.ac.kr
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 37, 260–276 (2017)
Published online 24 February 2017 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1794
Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
WLBP studies in developing countries could benefit from the knowledge on WLBPs accumulated in the de-
veloped countries. Recently, scholars attempted to understand WLBPs in the US context using the Federal Em-
ployee Viewpoint Survey (Caillier 2013; Kim and Wiggins 2011; Ko and Smith-Walter 2013; Lee and Hong
2011). However, their studies have limitations. Because WLBPs have been introduced into the workforce quite
recently, most research focused on the effect of adopting WLBPs on various outcome variables such as em-
ployees’job attitudes and work performance (Anderson et al. 2002; Eaton 2003; Perry-Smith and Blum
2000; Thompson et al. 1999; Wise and Bond 2003) or lateness, absenteeism, and turnover (Anderson et al.
2002; Behson 2005). Few studies focus on employees’satisfaction with WLBPs. Having WLBPs does not nec-
essarily guarantee employees’satisfaction with it, and varying levels of satisfaction with WLBPs may produce
different outcomes.
As stated, the current literature on WLBPs is limited to whether or not the adoption of WLBPs affects various
outcomes, and the findings are mostly from Western countries, which have different work and family environ-
ments. By exploring employee satisfaction with WLBPs in the Philippine context, this study expects to deepen
our knowledge on the role and effects of WLBPs in the developing countries. Our findings may help both re-
searchers and practitioners understand WLBPs and apply them to the public sector employees in developing
countries, who share similarities with public employees in the Philippines. The next section provides a review
of the theoretical concepts used in this study and develops the research hypothesis. The third section describes
the method and data used in this study. After presenting the results of the data analysis, the discussion section
argues the implications for theory and practice, limitations, and areas for future research. The last section pre-
sents the concluding remarks.
WORK-LIFE BALANCE POLICIES
Work-life balance policies (WLBPs) are formal or informal employer-initiated HRM policies or practices designed
to help employees integrate their work and life (Glass and Finley 2002; Ngo et al. 2009), also called family-friendly
programs (e.g., Grandey 2001; Still and Strang 2003) and work–family policies (e.g., Kossek and Ozeki 1999;
Perry-Smith and Blum 2000), among other similar titles. Over the last decade, several scholars have tried to differ-
entiate WLBPs from “family-friendly”policies in order to connect work–family issues to a broader managerial
orientation towards employees’quality of life (Still and Strang 2003).
Overall, the names and categories of WLBPs are diverse and have not reached a consensus in the academic or
trade literature. Research on WLBPs has focused on specific types of WLBPs, such as flexible working arrange-
ments, leave arrangements, and child/dependent care support (Beauregard and Henry 2009; Estes and Michael
2005). Nonetheless, employees are likely to use these policies to manage demands from work and home, rather
than their personal lives generally, and to cope with their role conflict (Still and Strang 2003).
Recent WLBP studies have worked to identify organizational antecedents for the adoption of these policies
and/or the impact of implementing organizational-level WLBPs on employees’job attitudes or performance. In
terms of antecedents, researchers found that organizational culture, organizational demographics such as the per-
centage of women in the organization (especially women with children), and size are organizational characteristics
that have significant effects on the likelihood that a firm will adopt WLBPs
1
(Davis and Kalleberg 2006; Ingram
and Simons 1995; Lee et al. 2008).
With respect to policy outcomes, many management studies have tried to assess the effects of WLBPs,
investigating the impact of these policies on variables such as employee job attitudes, for example, job satisfac-
tion (Anderson et al. 2002; Butts et al. 2013; Ezra and Deckman 1996), organizational commitment (Butts et al.
2013; Eaton 2003; Saltzstein et al. 2001; Thompson et al. 1999; Wang et al. 2008; Wang and Walumbwa
2007), work withdrawal (Anderson et al. 2002), organizational attraction (Honeycutt and Rosen 1997;
1
General findings from several empirical studies (Davis and Kalleberg 2006; Durst 1999; Perry-Smith and Blum 2000) indicate that larger
organizations and those with more female employees are more likely to offer more WLBPs.
261WORK-LIFE BALANCE POLICIES AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. 37, 260–276 (2017)
DOI: 10.1002/pad
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