Impact of Personality Traits on Work-Life Balance: Empirical Evidence from the Non-banking Finance Sector in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Work-life balance is a situation in which employees are able to give the right amount of time and efforts to their work as well as their personal life. Personality traits which are defined by individual’s behaviour, attitudes, beliefs, and appearance are found to have an influence on the way they strike a proper balance between work and life irrespective of the organizational setups and other factors. On this backdrop, this study attempts to examine the impact of personality traits on work-life balance specially focusing on working mothers in the non-banking finance sector in Sri Lanka. Big five personality traits were used as the major theoretical backbone of this study. Following the positivistic research paradigm and the deductive research approach, survey research strategy was adopted. The target population of 200 working mothers yielded an effective response rate of 74%. Multiple regression analysis was used as the main inferential statistical analysis technique. The findings demonstrate that openness to experience has the highest impact on work-life balance of working mothers. Next to openness, extroversion and agreeableness too significantly influence on work-life balance of working mothers. However, conscientiousness and neuroticism do not have a significant role in influencing the work-life balance in the given research setting. Moreover, the findings help management to mold their understanding on the importance of the personality traits in improving the work-life balance of working mothers in the non-banking finance sector in Sri Lanka