Abstract
An increasing number of women are entering the workforce. Many of them are mothers and are therefore expected to combine motherhood with occupation. However, because of the complexity of these two roles, it is difficult to maintain a successful career and a satisfying personal life, and this difficulty can influence women’s commitment and intention to stay with organisations. Nonetheless, when women perceive this experience as enriching, it can enhance their career wellbeing and positively influence their perceptions of their subjective career success. This chapter describes work-family enrichment (WFE) and subjective career success (SCS), as well as an empirical study that the authors conducted. Given the importance of WFE and SCS for the overall wellbeing of employed women, this chapter’s objective is to explore the possible indirect effect of SCS on the relationship between WFE and two retaining factors (i.e. commitment and turnover intention). The empirical study was based on the quantitative survey data obtained from 240 employed females, and mediation analyses were conducted using Mplus software.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Agrawal, S., & Srivastava, S. (2018). Organizational commitment and career satisfaction among women employees. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 54(1), 132–145.
Akram, H., Malik, N. I., Nadeem, M., & Atta, M. (2014). Work-family enrichment as predictors of work outcomes among teachers. Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences, 8(3), 733–743.
Amin, S. (2012). Does work-life balance predict career succcess? International Journal of Social Science Economics Arts, 2(1), 48–52.
Amin, S., Arshad, R., & Ghani, R. A. (2017). Spousal support and subjective career success: The role of work-family balance and career commitment as mediator. Journal Pengurusan, 50, 133–142. https://doi.org/10.17576/pengurusan-2017-50-12.
Amstad, F. T., Meier, L. L., Fasel, U., Elfering, A., & Semmer, N. K. (2011). A meta-analysis of work–family conflict and various outcomes with a special emphasis on cross-domain versus matching-domain relations. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16(2), 151–169. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022170.
Armstrong, D., Riemenschneider, C., Allen, M., & Reid, M. (2007). Advancement, voluntary turnover and women in IT: A cognitive study of work-family conflict. Information & Management, 44, 142–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2006.11.005.
Aryee, S., Srinivas, E. S., & Tan, H. H. (2005). Rhythms of life: Antecedents and outcomes of work-family balance in employed parents. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(1), 132–146. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.1.132.
Bae, K. B., & Yang, G. (2017). The effects of family-friendly policies on job satisfaction and organizational commitment: A panel study conducted on South Korea’s public institutions. Public Personnel Management, 46(1), 25–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026016689669.
Balmforth, K., & Gardner, D. (2006). Conflict and facilitation between work and family: Realizing the outcomes for organizations. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 35(2), 69–76.
Beigi, M., Wang, J., & Arthur, M. (2017). Work-family interface in the context of career success: A qualitative inquiry. Human Relations, 70(9), 1091–1114. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717691339.
Briscoe, J. P., Kaše, R., Dries, N., Dysvik, A., Unite, J., Övgü Çakmak‐Otluoğlu, K., Verbruggen, M. (2014). A cross‐culturally generated measure of perceived career success: Results of a three‐stage study. In J. Humphreys (Eds). 2014 Best Paper Proceedings, 74th Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, P. A. Broderick, E. (2012). Women in the workforce. Australian Economic Review, 45(2), 204–210. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8462.2012.00682.x.
Broderick, E. (2012). Women in the workforce. Australian Economic Review, 45(2), 204–210.
Campbell, D. J., Campbell, K. M., & Kennard, D. (1994). The effects of family responsibilities on the work commitment and job performance of non-professional women. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 67, 283–296.
Case, S., & Richley, B. (2013). Gendered institutional research cultures in science: The post-doc transition for women scientists. Community, Work & Family, 16(3), 327–349. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2013.820097.
Chinyamurindi, W. (2012). An investigation of career change using a narrative and story-telling inquiry. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 10(2), Art. #447. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajhrm.v10i2.447.
Cortese, C., Colombo, L., & Ghislieri, C. (2010). Determinants of nurses’ job satisfaction: The role of work-family conflict, job demand, emotional charge and social support. Journal of Nursing Management, 18(1), 35–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2834.2009.01064.x.
Cropanzano, R., & Mitchell, M. S. (2005). Social exchange theory: An interdisciplinary review. Journal of Management, 31(6), 874–900. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206305279602.
De Klerk, M., Nel, J. A., Hill, C., & Koekemoer, E. (2013). The development of the MACE work-family enrichment instrument. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology/SA Tydskrif vir Bedryfsielkunde, 39(2), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v39i2.1147.
De Villiers, J. R., & Stander, M. W. (2011). Psychological empowerment, work engagement and turnover intention: The role of leader relations and role clarity in a financial institution. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 21(3), 405–412. https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2011.10820474.
Dinc, S., & Kocyigit, Z. (2017). Do job satisfaction and demographic characteristics of female teachers influence their affective commitment to schools? European Journal of Educational Research, 6(4), 475–484. https://doi.org/10.12973/eu-jer.6.4.475.
Ding, C., & Lin, C. (2006). Comparing the effects of determinants of turnover intentions between Taiwanese and U.S. hospital employees. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 17(4), 403–421. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.1183.
Dyke, L., & Duxbury, L. (2010). The implications of subjective career success. Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung, 43(3), 219–229.
Edwards, J. R., & Rothbard, N. P. (2000). Mechanisms linking work and family: Clarifying the relationship between work and family constructs. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 178–199. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2000.2791609.
Ely, R., Stone, P., & Ammerman, C. (2014). Rethink what you “know” about high-achieving women. Harvard Business Review, 92(12), 101–109.
Ferguson, C. J. (2009). An effect size primer: A guide for clinicians and researchers. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40(5), 532–538. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015808.
Grady, G. (2008). Work-life integration: Experiences of mid-career professional working mothers. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23(5), 599–622.
Greenhaus, J. H., & Allen, T. D. (2011). Work-family balance: A review and extension of the literature. In J. C. Quick & L. E. Tetrick (Eds.), Handbook of occupational health psychology (pp. 165–183). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Greenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10(1), 76–88. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1985.4277352.
Greenhaus, J. H., & Kossek, E. E. (2014). The contemporary career: A work-home perspective. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1(1), 361–388. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091324.
Greenhaus, J. H., & Powell, G. N. (2006). When work and family are allies: A theory of work-family enrichment. Academy of Management Review, 31(1), 72–92. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2006.19379625.
Grzywacz, J. G., & Butler, A. B. (2005). The impact of job characteristics on work-to-family facilitation: Testing a theory and distinguishing a construct. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10(2), 97–109.
Guan, Y., Wen, Y., Chen, S. X., Liu, H., Si, W., Liu, Y., et al. (2014). When do salary and job level predict career satisfaction and turnover intention among Chinese managers? The role of perceived organizational career management and career anchor. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 23(4), 596–607. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2013.763403.
Guo, J., & Liang, G. (2012). Sailing into rough seas: Taiwan’s women seafarers’ career development struggle. Women’s Studies International Forum, 35(4), 194–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2012.03.016.
Hanson, G. C., Hammer, L. B., & Colton, C. L. (2006). Development and validation of a multidimensional scale of perceived work-family positive spillover. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 11(3), 249–265. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.11.3.249.
Heslin, P. A. (2005). Conceptualizing and evaluating career success. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26(2), 113–136. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.270.
Hirschi, A., Hermann, A., Nagy, N., & Spurk, D. (2016). All in the name of work? Nonwork orientations as predictors of salary, career satisfaction, and life satisfaction. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 95–96, 46–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2016.07.006.
Jabeen, F., Friesen, H. L., & Ghoudi, K. (2017). Quality of work life of Emirati women and its influence on job satisfaction and turnover intention: Evidence from the UAE. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 31(2), 352–370. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-01-2017-0016.
Judge, T. A., Cable, D. M., Boudreau, J. W., & Bretz, R. D. Jr. (1995). An empirical investigation of the predictors of executive career success (CAHRS Working Paper #94–08). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrswp/233.
Judge, T., Thoresen, C., Bono, J., & Patton, G. (2001). The job satisfaction-job performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 127(3), 376–407. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.3.376.
Konrad, A. M., & Kramer, V. W. (2006). How many women do boards need? Harvard Business Review, 84(12), 22.
Magano, C. F., Thomas, A., & De Bruyn, G. P. (2011). A cross-cultural comparison of organisational commitment amongst vehicle sales staff. South African Journal of Business Management, 42(1), 17–29.
Marais, E., De Klerk, M., Nel, J. A., & De Beer, L. (2014). The antecedents and outcomes of work-family enrichment amongst female workers. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 40(1), a1186. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v40i1.1186.
Marks, S. R. (1977). Multiple roles and role strain: Some notes on human energy, time, and commitment. American Sociological Review, 42(6), 921–936. https://doi.org/10.2307/2094577.
Mayrhofer, W., Briscoe, J. P., Hall, D. T., Dickmann, M., Dries, N., Dysvik, A., et al. (2016). Career success across the globe: Insights from the 5C project. Organizational Dynamics, 42(2), 197–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2016.07.005.
McNall, L., Masuda, A., & Nicklin, J. (2010a). Flexible work arrangements, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions: The mediating role of work-to-family enrichment. Journal of Psychology, 144(1), 61–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980903356073.
McNall, L. A., Nicklin, J. M., & Masuda, A. D. (2010b). A meta-analytic review of the consequences associated with work-family enrichment. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25(3), 381–396. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-009-9141-1.
McNall, L. A., Masuda, A. D., & Nicklin, J. M. (2017). Flexible work arrangements, job satisfaction and turnover intention: The mediating role of work-family enrichment. The Journal of Psychology, 144, 61–81.
Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (2004). TMC employee commitment survey (Academic user’s guide). Ontario: University of Western Ontario.
Ng, T. W. H., Eby, L. T., Sorensen, K. L., & Feldman, D. C. (2005). Predictors of objective and subjective career success: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 367–408. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.00515.x.
Odle-Dusseau, H. N., Britt, T. W., & Greene-Shortridge, T. M. (2012). Organizational work-family resources as predictors of job performance and attitudes: The process of work-family conflict and enrichment. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17(1), 28–40. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026428.
Olckers, C., & Van Zyl, L. (2016). The relationship between employment equity perceptions and psychological ownership in a South African mining house: The role of ethnicity. Social Indicators Research, 127(2), 887–901. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0972-z.
O’Neil, D., Hopkins, M., & Bilimoria, D. (2008). Women’s careers at the start of the 21st century: Patterns and paradoxes. Journal of Business Ethics, 80(4), 727–743. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-007-9465-6.
Porter, S., & Ayman, R. (2010). Work flexibility as a mediator of the relationship between work-family conflict and intention to quit. Journal of Management & Organization, 16(3), 411–424.
Preacher, K. J., Zyphur, M. J., & Zhang, Z. (2010). A general multilevel SEM framework for assessing multilevel mediation. Psychological Methods, 15(3), 209–233. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020141.
Prisecaru, P. (2016). Challenges of the fourth industrial revolution. Knowledge Horizons—Economics, 8(1), 57–62.
Rao, K., Apte, M., & Subbakrishna, D. K. (2003). Coping and subjective wellbeing in women with multiple roles. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 49(3), 175–184. https://doi.org/10.1177/00207640030493003.
Raykov, T. (2009). Interval estimation of revision effect on scale reliability via covariance structure modeling. Structural Equation Modeling, 16(3), 539–555. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705510903008337.
Rhemtulla, M., Brosseau-Liard, P. E., & Savalei, V. (2012). When can categorical variables be treated as continuous? A comparison of robust continuous and categorical SEM estimation methods under suboptimal conditions. Psychological Methods, 17(1), 354–373. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029315.
Rucker, D. D., Preacher, K. J., Tormala, Z. L., & Petty, R. E. (2011). Mediation analysis in social psychology: Current practices and new recommendations. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(6), 359–371. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00355.x.
Saleem, G., & Asir Ajmal, M. (2018). Work-family balance: Experiences of successful professional women in academia in Pakistan. Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research, 33(1), 101–121.
Seibert, S. E., & Kraimer, M. L. (2001). The five-factor model of personality and career success. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.2000.1757.
Simo, P., Enache, M., Leyes, J. M. S., & Alarcon, V. F. (2010). Analysis of the relation between subjective career success, organizational commitment and the intention to leave the organization. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 29, 144–158.
Singh, R., Zhang, Y., Wan, M., & Fouad, N. A. (2018). Why do women engineers leave the engineering profession? The roles of work-family conflict, occupational commitment, and perceived organizational support. Human Resource Management, 57(4), 901–914. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21900.
Sjöberg, A., & Sverke, M. (2000). The interactive effect of job involvement and organizational commitment on job turnover revisited: A note on the mediating role of turnover intention. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 41(3), 247–252. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9450.00194.
Smale, A., Bagdadli, S., Cotton, R., Russo, S. D., Dickmann, M., Dysvik, A., et al. (2019). Proactive career behaviors and subjective career success: The moderating role of national culture. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 40, 105–122. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2316.
Struwig, F., & Stead, G. B. (2001). Planning, designing and reporting research. Cape Town: Pearson Education.
Sullivan, S. E., & Arthur, M. B. (2006). The evolution of the boundaryless career concept: Examining physical and psychological mobility [Electronic version]. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69(1), 19–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2005.09.001.
Thurasamy, R., Lo, M., Yang Amri, A., & Noor, N. (2011). An analysis of career advancement among engineers in manufacturing organizations. International Journal of Commerce and Management, 21(2), 143–157. https://doi.org/10.1108/10569211111144346.
Wang, J., & Wang, X. (2012). Structural equation modeling: Applications using Mplus. Chichester: Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118356258.
Wayne, J. H., Randel, A. E., & Stevens, J. (2006). The role of identity and work-family support in work-family enrichment and its work-related consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69(3), 445–461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2006.07.002.
Weng, Q., & McElroy, J. (2012). Organizational career growth, affective occupational commitment and turnover intentions. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80(2), 256–265. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2012.01.014.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank and acknowledge Ms Cecile Cloete, a Masters student in Industrial Psychology who assisted with the data collection as part of her studies.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Koekemoer, E., Olckers, C. (2019). Women’s Wellbeing at Work: Their Experience of Work-Family Enrichment and Subjective Career Success. In: Potgieter, I., Ferreira, N., Coetzee, M. (eds) Theory, Research and Dynamics of Career Wellbeing . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28180-9_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28180-9_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-28179-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-28180-9
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)