Work-life balance policies and organizational financial performance: a scoping review
| Date | 22 August 2023 |
| Pages | 103-120 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-09-2022-0417 |
| Published date | 22 August 2023 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Zuzana Opatrná,Jakub Prochazka |
Work-life balance policies
and organizational financial
performance: a scoping review
Zuzana Opatrn
a and Jakub Prochazka
Department of Business Management, Faculty of Economics and Administration,
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Abstract
Purpose –Work-life balance (WLB) policies have become a popular topic in both academic literature and
organizations. However, previous studies in this area have provided mixed results, and the impact of WLB
policies on various indicators of organizational financial performance remains unclear. There has been no
comprehensive review that synthesizes the current state of knowledge and indicates future research directions.
This review addresses this gap and provides a systematic review of published papers investigating the
relationship between WLB policies and organizational financial performance.
Design/methodology/approach –The review follows the PRISMA-ScR guidelines for scoping reviews.
An analysis of 421 relevant records in Web of Science and Scopus databases identified 22 original empirical studies
that focusedon the relationshipbetween WLBpolicies and financialperformance atthe level of the organization.
Findings –Most reviewed studies indicated a weak positive relationship between WLB policies and financial
performance. There was the strongest support for the effectiveness of flexible working hours and job sharing,
while there was mixed support for the policy of working from home. There were a higher proportion of positive
results in studies conducted in Western countries compared to Asian countries, which indicates a potential
moderating effect of culture. This review also describes the primary limitations of previous studies, namely,
low test power and insufficient evidence about causality.
Originality/value –This review summarizes the growing body of quantitative research on the relationship
between WLB policies and organizational financial performance. It presents a model that includes moderators
and mediators of this relationship and indicates potentially fruitful areas for future research.
Keywords Work-life balance, Work-life balance policies, Organizational financial performance,
Organizational performance, Financial performance, Scoping literature review
Paper type Literature review
Introduction
In recent years, companies especially in Western Europe have been reducing working hours and
offering longer or even unlimited leave (Shin and Enoh, 2020). All of these practices have the
common goal of promoting work-life balance (WLB), enhancing employee well-being (Wood et al.,
2020),andenablingthecompanytogainacompetitiveadvantage(Klind
zi
candMari
c, 2019). From
a resource-based perspective, such HR practices contribute to performance by creating an
environment that creates and protects human capital (Liu and Wang, 2011;Giardini and Kabst,
2008). The appropriate use of human resource management (HRM) focused on the WLB of
employees can influence a wide range of variables in organizations, such as reducing conflicts,
enhancing life and job satisfaction, improving employees’commitment to work, keeping employee
turnover low and increasing well-being (Akter et al., 2021;Klind
zi
candMari
c, 2019;Parkers and
Langford, 2008;Pasamar, 2020;Zheng et al., 2015).
Work-life
balance
policies and
performance
103
© Zuzana Opatrn
a and Jakub Prochazka. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is
published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce,
distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial
purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence
may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The support of the Masaryk University internal grant No 2168 is gratefully acknowledged.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 6 September 2022
Revised 3 January 2023
16 May 2023
25 July 2023
Accepted 25 July 2023
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 45 No. 7, 2023
pp. 103-120
Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-09-2022-0417
Most current research in the field of WLB addresses the relationship between various
WLB practices/policies and individual outcomes (work performance, work engagement,
turnover intentions, etc.) (Bj€
orkman and Welch, 2015;Thakur and Bhatnagar, 2017), but
significantly fewer studies have focused on the relationship between WLB policies and
various organizational level outcomes including organizational financial performance (e.g.
Akter et al., 2021;Liu and Wang, 2011;Shin and Enoh, 2020). Nevertheless, the relationship
between WLB practices and organizational financial performance may be crucial for
organizational decision-making, as it could be a significant factor in an organization’s
decision whether or not to introduce WLB policies.
Individualstudies that have investigated WLBpractices and their organizationaloutcomes
have provided mixed results (Akter et al., 2022;Beauregar d and Henry, 2009;De Menezes and
Kelliher, 2011). Thispoints to the needfor a review studythat would identifythe conditionsfor a
positive relationship between WLB practices and such outcomes. As far as know, there have
been four reviews on organization-level outcomes of WLB practices, including organizational
financialperformance(Akter et al., 2022;Beauregard and Henry, 2009;Chaudhuri et al., 2020;De
Menezes and Kelliher, 2011). However,these reviews eitheronly described themain results of a
number of reviewed studies or their analysis did not differentiate between the various
organization-leveloutcomes,such as financialperformance,general job satisfaction or employee
turnoverrate. This is mostlikely due to the very generalfocus of these reviews(i.e. a focus on all
the outcomes of WLB policies or all organization-level outcomes) and thefact that there were
insufficient primarysources for the authorsto analyze the relationship between WLB practices
and organizational financial performance in depth, as most of the primary studies have only
been published recently.Of the 22 studies weidentified, 18 havebeen published since2011, and
therefore they were not included in the earliest reviews (Beauregard and Hen ry, 2009;De
Menezes and Kelliher, 2011). Although the other two reviews were published after 2020, they
included only 41% of the studies we identified in 2023.
Previous reviews have indicated that much of the research supports the existence of a
significant relationship between WLB policies and individual outcomes, such as
organizational commitment, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, job-
related stress and intention to leave (Beauregard and Henry, 2009;De Menezes and
Kelliher, 2011;Chaudhuri et al., 2020), and with organizational outcomes, such as
employee turnover rate and absenteeism (De Menezes and Kelliher, 2011). Other reviews
connect these outcomes to organizational financial performance (e.g. Kessler et al., 2020;
Suliman and Al Kathairi, 2013). Nevertheless, they have not provided unambiguous
conclusions as to a direct relationship between WLB practices and organizational
financial performance. Akter et al. (2022) conducted a review of five studies that were
published before 2020, three of which found a positive significant relationship between
certain WLB practices and organizational financial performance. Their review considered
financial performance as one of several outcomes and did not discuss the conditions under
which the effect of WLB practices on financial performance occurred. Our review aims to
addressthisgap.Asweidentified22mostly new studies on WLB practices and
organizational performance, we are able to make assumptions about the factors that
influence the effects of WLB practices on organizational financial performance, describe
the limitations of existing studies, and make recommendations for further research on
WLB practices and financial performance.
Theoretical background
Work-life balance policies
Work-life balance can be defined as the harmony or balance between the domains ofwork and
personal life (Chang et al., 2010;Kelliher et al., 2019;Parkers and Langford, 2008). Aspects of
ER
45,7
104
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