IDENTIFYING WORK-LIFE CYCLE AND THE MEDIATION EFFECT OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT AND JOB SATISFACTION

Abstract

This empirical study was to identify the statistical evidence to establish Work-lifecycle and the mediation effect of Work-Life Balance on the relationship between Psychological Empowerment and Job Satisfaction. For this purpose, female middle management level bank employees were selected as the sample population due to the intense, stressful work environment in the banking industry. The target group for the study was limited to 300 middle management female bank employees from the Western, Central, and Southern provinces of the island due to time and accessibility constraints. The data was collected using the cluster random sampling of probability sampling method. The objectives of the study were established with the acceptance of all hypotheses, i.e., the positive correlations between i) Psychological Empowerment and Job Satisfaction, ii) Psychological Empowerment and Work-Life Balance, iii) Work-Life Balance and Job Satisfaction, and iv) The mediation effect of Work-Life Balance on the relationship between Psychological Empowerment and Job Satisfaction. Correlations were identified by Pearson correlations and the mediation effect by the Sobel test results. These interrelations among dependent and independent variables identified the Work-Life Cycle of an employee, the cyclical or interdependent nature of the variables, while the mediation effect identified the impact of work-life balance on the association of psychological empowerment and job satisfaction relations. This finding is crucial in the work-life balance literature in identifying the statistical evidence to fill the gap of the linkage of work-life balance with psychological empowerment and job satisfaction. This finding is an eye-opener in employer’s expectation of worker’s productivity optimizations in a performance context, especially of female bank employees and employees to achieve satisfaction in their life balance with work commitments and personal obligations.