Job flexibility and job satisfaction among Mexican professionals: a socio-cultural explanation
| Pages | 921-942 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-12-2016-0236 |
| Date | 06 August 2018 |
| Published date | 06 August 2018 |
| Author | Miguel A. Baeza,Jorge A. Gonzalez,Yong Wang |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Job flexibility and job satisfaction
among Mexican professionals:
a socio-cultural explanation
Miguel A. Baeza
Tarleton State University, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Jorge A. Gonzalez
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, Texas, USA, and
Yong Wang
West Chester University, West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to study how job flexibility influences job satisfaction among
Mexican professionals, and focus on the role of key socio-cultural moderators relevant to Mexican society.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper explore how this relationship may be more important for
women, employees with dependents such as children and elder parents and younger generations of
professionals (e.g. Millennials).
Findings –The authors find that job flexibility is positively related to job satisfaction. This relationship is
stronger for employees without dependents, as well as for younger generations of professionals (e.g.
Millennials). Surprisingly, the relationship between job flexibility and job satisfaction does not differ by
gender. The findings explain why job flexibility is more conductive to job satisfaction for employees without
dependents, who tend to belong to younger generations.
Originality/value –Overall, the findings present important implications for managing job flexibility in
Mexico and other Latin American countries, particularly for younger professionals.
Keywords Gender, Mexico, Job satisfaction, Generation, Job flexibility
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Job flexibility, one of the most important aspects of one’s job, has the potential to influence a
number of significant work-related attitudes and behaviors. Job flexibility refers to
employees’ability to determine and change their work schedule to manage and balance
work and life responsibiliti es (Hill et al., 2010; Rothause n, 1994; Rubery, 2015).
The importance of job flexibility to job satisfaction and performance, however, depends
on personal factors, such as gender, age, culture and family status (Rothausen et al., 2009).
One problem, however, is that many of the demographic and socio-economic factors that
shape job flexibility are interrelated. It is important to avoid conflating the moderating
effects based on personal factors such as employee gender, age and the presence of
family dependents.
Job flexibility may be more important for female professionals because women are
more involved in family caregiving roles than men are and, thus, should be more
concernedwithfamilybalance(Rubery,2015). Traditional gender roles have ascribed
womenwithmorecommunalfamilyresponsibilitiessuchascaringforyoungchildrenand
for elderly family members (Eagly, 1987). These gender roles may also vary around the
world as they may depend on many cultural and institutional factors. For instance, family
duties represent about twice the work for women that for men in Latin American nations,
and most of these duties are unpaid ( Jian, 2013). These differences imply that job
flexibility can help employees meet conflicting work and family demands, particularly for
women in traditional nations low in gender egalitarianism. Job flexibility may also matter
Employee Relations
Vol. 40 No. 5, 2018
pp. 921-942
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-12-2016-0236
Received 12 December 2016
Revised 7 February 2018
Accepted 16 February 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
921
Job flexibility
and job
satisfaction
more for older than younger employees because job flexibility matters to older individuals
because they are more likely to take care of children and other dependents (Chao, 2005;
Eisner, 2005; Gursoy et al., 2008; Kooij et al., 2010). Nonetheless, the literature on
generations argues that younger generations around the world (e.g. Millennials) value job
flexibility more than other age groups do (Susaeta et al., 2013). This reasoning emphasizes
work-life over work-family balance.
Similar to other organizational behavior themes, most job satisfaction and work-life
balance research has been conducted in western societies (Huang and Van de Vliert, 2003;
Powell et al., 2009; Tsui et al., 2007). As job satisfaction is one of the key research topics in
organizational behavior ( Judge et al., 2001), it is actually understudied in developing
economies (Karimi, 2009) and has only recently surfaced in Latin America (Montero and
Vasquez, 2015). More importantly, there is a need to address the role of contextual
moderators and the underlying psychological processes that determine how Latin American
employees become satisfied with their jobs (Unanue et al., 2017). Work-life balance research
is also in the need of international validations. The manner in which Latin American
employees assess the importance of job flexibility may differ from the patterns found in the
west. For example, cultural femininity (Hofstede, 1980), gender egalitarianism (House et al.,
2004) and institutional factors such as age demographics, the economy and family structure
(e.g. family size, patriarchal norms) can influence the importance of job flexibility
(Rothausen et al., 2009; Therborn, 2014). Nations differ in the family obligations, family size,
age to move out of the home and have children, societal norms about the elderly and number
of working hours of their citizens (Spector et al., 2004, 2007). Knowing why employees are
happy, contented or satisfied with their jobs can help managers and organizations fully reap
the rewards of job satisfaction.
Therefore, scholars and managers should better understand why job flexibility matters
and assess how individual factors shape its role in job satisfaction in a Latin American
context. This includes assessing the role of socio-cultural moderators such as gender,
generation and having dependents while minding potential confounding effects.
Accordingly, our objective in this study is to examine how job flexibility influences
overall job satisfaction in Mexico, taking into consideration the moderating role of gender,
generation and dependents (e.g. caring for children and/or elderly, disabled or sick family
members). We begin with a nuanced theoretical look at job flexibility, job satisfaction and
these socio-cultural influences. In the theoretical development, we combine extant literature
developed in the west with the cultural and societal context–Mexico–which is a traditional
collectivistic society.
Theoretical background
Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction is a work attitude that denotes how people feel about their jobs in general
(Spector, 1997). Its importance lies in that it reflects an overall sentiment about an
employee’s well-being, and its relationship to important outcomes such as work
engagement and performance ( Judge et al., 2001). One perspective in job satisfaction
research emphasizes distinct facets or dimensions, and global or overall job satisfaction
can be understood as the sum of the employee’s satisfaction with such facets, including
pay, benefits, opportunities for promotion, supervisor, coworkers and the nature of work
itself, among others (Scarpello and Campbell, 1983).
Job flexibility
In the west, job flexibility has been described as a facet of job satisfaction and an antecedent
to overall job satisfaction (Rothausen, 1994), as well as an important predictor of employees’
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