Recently, many Korean companies are introducing various policies to balance work and life of the staff. Particularly, Bori Book adopted 6-hour work system. It is a meaningful attempt when the average work hours of Koreans is 444 more work hours compar...
Recently, many Korean companies are introducing various policies to balance work and life of the staff. Particularly, Bori Book adopted 6-hour work system. It is a meaningful attempt when the average work hours of Koreans is 444 more work hours compared to 1749 hours of the OECD average in 2010. Companies are adopting many systems in addition to flexible work hour. Doosan Infracore used the welfare system to support the staff’s home (parental leave, maternity leave, housing support), leisure (overseas backpacking, refresh vacation), and growth (educational training, performance management, GLAD). POSCO is providing support not only for the company’s vision but also for individual vision. Smart work, which is one of the main issues for companies in Korea and elsewhere, also ultimately targets balance between work and life in addition to improved productivity. A recent study showed that 81 percent of respondents answered that work-smart will improve balance between work and life.
Despite the importance of balance between work and life of the staff of Korean companies, there is not enough research on it. Most studies have been only concerned about the direct effect of the balance between work and life on organizational effectiveness, neglecting its relevance to motivation of the staff, which is most important for the staff in working..
This study assumes the balance between work and life (work-family balance, work-leisure balance, work-growth balance) as the antecedent that can explain organizational commitment (emotional, continuance, and normative commitment) and attempts to investigate the effect of the former on the latter. Furthermore, the study will look into whether the motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic motivation) which can reveal the potential of the staff behavior to fulfill their unfulfilled desire mediate the relationship of the balance between work and life with organizational commitment.
The purpose of study is a) to analyze how the balance between work and life affect motivation, b) how motivation affects organizational commitment, and c) whether motivation mediates the relationship of the balance between work and life with organizational commitment.
To solve the problems in this study, a survey was conducted with the staff of randomly selected companies and the response of 305 people was used for analysis. To verify the reliability and validity of the survey tool, SPSS was used for each variable in reliability and factor analyses. Also, the relationship among main variables was understood by frequency analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis of Baron and Kenny(1986). The results are as follows:
First, the balance between work and life made different effects on the motivation of the staff. The work-leisure balance and work-growth balance had a positive (+) effect on the intrinsic motivation. Second, intrinsic motivation, among the sub-variables of motivation, had a positive effect on the emotional and normative commitment, and extrinsic motivation had a positive effect on emotional and continuance commitment. Third, in relation between work-life balance and organizational commitment, motivation was mostly found to have mediation effect in part in all sub-variables of work-life balance and emotional commitment. Intrinsic motivation was found to have mediation effect in part in relation between work-growth balance and normative commitment. Lastly, as for extrinsic motivation, it had mediation effect in part in relation between work-home balance and emotional commitment.
This study will be basic data that shows the sub-domains of work-life balance have different motivation paths to organizational commitment. Human resource and training personnel will need to provide institutional support and training by understanding the work and life of the staff for the balance between work and life.
Meanwhile, the limitation of this study in design and analysis and suggestions for future study are as follows: First, caution must be taken in generalized interpretation because the sample is not evenly distributed. Second, because the study did not differentiate the group with higher balance between work and life and the group with lower balance, future studies must investigate whether the level of balance has different effects on motivation. Third, because the sub-variables of motivation were limited to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, future studies must include multi-dimensional motivation. Fourth, future studies must include various variables relating to organizational effectiveness.