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Work-life balance and its relationship with organizational pride and job
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JMP
31,2
586
Received 14 September 2014
Revised 10 April 2015
5 December 2015
Accepted 16 January 2016
Journal of Managerial Psychology
Vol. 31 No. 2, 2016
pp. 586-602
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0268-3946
DOI 10.1108/JMP-09-2014-0272
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0268-3946.htm
Work-life balance and its
relationship with organizational
pride and job satisfaction
Marta Mas-Machuca, Jasmina Berbegal-Mirabent and Ines Alegre
Department of Economy and Business Organization,
Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between work-life balance,
organizational pride and job satisfaction. When evaluating employee work-life balance the present
paper takes into consideration two relevant antecedents: supervisor support and job autonomy; and
explores their link with organizational pride and job satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach – To verify the hypothesis, a questionnaire survey was used to
collect data in a Spanish pharmaceutical organization; 374 responses were obtained. Structural
equation modeling was used for the data analysis.
Findings – Data confirms the relationship between the analyzed constructs. The results support the
hypothesized relationships of supervisor work-life balance support and autonomy with employee
work-life balance. In addition, employee work-life balance is positively related with organizational
pride and job satisfaction.
Practical implications – This study provides a useful measurement model that employers and
employees can use to evaluate and improve work-life balance through job autonomy and supervisor
support. Companies should pay attention to employee work-life balance to enhance organizational
pride and job satisfaction. The research tries to help companies to more effectively use their human
capital resources.
Originality/value – The paper addresses gaps in the current literature in work-life, organizational
pride and job satisfaction. The results may serve as the criteria for managers to better enhance
employee job satisfaction in organizations.
Keywords Autonomy, Organizational pride, Job satisfaction, Employee work-life balance,
Supervisor work-life balance support
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The daily schedule of millions of people is divided between the time at work and time
outside work. Academicians have studied the interaction between those two domains,
what has been called work-life or work-family literature, for decades. The seminal
paper of Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) defined work-family conflict as “a form of inter-
role conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are
mutually incompatible in some respect.” Although the field initially focussed on the
conflict that heavy work demands could generate in the family sphere, it rapidly
evolved into the study of the bidirectional relationship, with studies taking into
consideration both work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict (Frone et al.,
1992b). More recently, literature has spanned its scope to consider not only the conflict
that may arise between the demands of work and family but also the enrichment that
these two domains might generate for each other (Greenhaus and Powell, 2006) and
the advantages of achieving a certain balance between the two ( Jain and Nair, 2013).
This paper was part of the INBAM 2014 conference.
How the work and the home domain are interrelated both in terms of positive and Work-life
negative spillover is an important research issue (Lourel et al., 2009). balance
The antecedents and consequences of work-life conflict have been largely studied.
On one hand, antecedents comprehend organizational level factors, such as company
policies (Saltzstein et al., 2001); inter-personal factors like the employee’s relationship
with colleagues and direct supervisor (Wu et al., 2012); and particularities of the job
itself, for instance the degree of autonomy the job possesses (Morganson et al., 2010). 587
On the other hand, the consequences that have been mostly studied are the impact of
work-family conflict on job satisfaction, turnover intentions (Kossek and Ozeki, 1998)
and health (Frone et al., 1992a).
Most studies consider the effect of work-life conflict on job satisfaction as a direct
relationship. In this study we explore the role of organizational pride as a mediator of
this relationship. Research on organizational pride suggests a significant and positive
relationship between pride and job satisfaction (Gunter and Furnham, 1996). Kraemer
and Gouthier (2014) refer to organizational pride as the provision of a positive,
encouraging work environment, which requires high social identification with the
company. Organizational pride was studied in service industry as an important driver
to turnover intentions (Gouthier and Rhein, 2011).
Some of the studies on work-life conflict have focussed on women (Hoobler et al.,
2009) or employees with family responsibilities, assuming that only those with a
certain level of conflict between work and family would value family-friendly
policies or change their turnover intentions; in this research, we would like to
broaden the scope. We consider that an organization that enables employees to
balance their work and personal life will be considered a better organization not only
by the employees that have family duties but also by those that have not. Although
the terms work-life balance and work-family balance have been used interchangeably
in the literature, we will refer here to work-life balance, as we want to take into
account any type of activity conducted out of work, whether leisure activities,
family time or others that both men and women might enjoy (Greenhaus and Powell,
2006). Still, to be consistent with previous literature, potential gender differences
are also examined.
Hence, the objective of this study is to explore the relationship between some of the
most relevant antecedents of work-life balance, supervisor support and job autonomy,
with work-life balance and job satisfaction taking into consideration the potential
mediation of organizational pride.

Background and hypotheses

As summarized in Table I, in the last 20 years, a number of quantitative studies have
studied the relationship between the constructs analyzed in our study (autonomy,
supervisor support, employee work-life balance, organizational pride and satisfaction).
But to the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to examine them simultaneously,
and also, the first to determine the role of organizational pride in the relationship between
work-life balance and job satisfaction.
Social exchange theory has been used as the theoretical rationale of our paper. Social
exchange theory states that employee’s behavior toward the organization is strongly
influenced by their perception of the organization’s behavior toward them (Eisenberger and
Huntington, 1986). In this case, we posit that when employees feel that they can balance
work and life duties, they would respond by being proud with the organization they
belong. Organizational pride, in turn, would increase employees’ job satisfaction.

studies
Table I.
Relevant previous
Studies Factors identified
Thomas and Ganster Flexible schedules;
(1995) supervisor support; Control;
Journal of Applied work-family conflict; job
Psychology satisfaction and other
strain outcomes
Adams et al. (1996) Job involvement; family
Journal of Applied involvement; Family social
Psychology support; family interfering
with work; work interfering
with family; job satisfaction;
life satisfaction
Griffin et al. (2001) Autonomy; supervisor
Journal of support; teamwork;
Organizational job satisfaction
Behaviour
Dixon and Sagas (2007) Organizational support; Covariance structure models
Research Quarterly for work-family conflict; job (testing mediations in SEM)
Exercise and Sport satisfaction; life satisfaction
Hoobler et al. (2009) Family-work conflict; Structural equation model (SEM)
Academy of person-organization fit;
Management Journal person-job fit;
promotability; nominations
for promotion; in-role
performance
Methodology
Least square regressions
Series of hierarchically nested
regression equations
Hierarchical linear models
31,2
JMP
588
Key findings
Supportive practices, especially flexible scheduling and
supportive supervisor, had direct positive effects on employee
perceptions of control over work and family matters
Results suggested that relationships between work and family
can have an important effect on job and life satisfaction and that
the level of involvement the worker assigns to work and family
roles is associated with this relationship
The extent of teamwork at the company level of analysis
moderated the relationship between individual perceptions of
supervisor support and job satisfaction. Also, the extent of
teamwork would be positively related to perceptions of job
autonomy but negatively related to perceptions of supervisor
support
Results supported full mediation of the direct effect from
organizational support to life satisfaction. Work-family conflict
partially mediated the relationship between organizational
support and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction partially mediated
the effect of organizational support and work-family conflict to
life satisfaction
Results show bosses’ perceptions of family-work conflict
mediated the relationship between subordinate sex and
perceptions of person-organization fit, person-job fit, and
performance
(continued )
Studies Factors identified Methodology Key findings
Baral and Bhargava Work-to-family enrichment; Multiple regressions Job characteristics were positively related to all measures of job
(2010) job satisfaction; outcomes. Supervisor support and work-family culture were
Journal Managerial organizational citizen positively related to job satisfaction and affective commitment.
Psychology behavior; affective Job characteristics and supervisor support were positively related
commitment; work-life to work-to-family enrichment. Work-to-family enrichment
benefits and policies; job mediated the relationships between job characteristics and all job
characteristics; supervisor outcomes and between supervisor support and affective
support; work-family commitment
culture
Md-Sidin et al. (2010) Work-family conflict; Structural equation model Findings propose work-family conflict has relationship with
Journal Managerial quality of work-life; quality (SEM) approach to study quality of life; quality of work-life and non-work-life are “partial”
Psychology of non-work-life; quality of moderator effects mediators between work-family conflict and quality of life; and,
life; supervisor support; among the various roles of social support, its role as an
spouse support independent variable of quality of life gives the best results
Morganson et al. (2010) Work-life balance (WLB) Multiple regression analysis Findings proposed that main office and home based had similar
Journal Managerial support; job satisfaction high levels of WLB support and job satisfaction. Main office
Psychology workers reported higher levels of WLB support than satellite and
client-based workers. Also, main office workers reported the
highest levels of workplace inclusion
Kraemer and Gouthier, Job resources (autonomy, Structural equation model (SEM). Autonomy, supervisor consideration and team support strongly
(2014) supervisor consideration, Two multi-groups analyses influence organizational pride. Also, emotional exhaustion and
Journal of Service team support), job demands, (gender and tenure) organizational pride essentially determine turnover intentions
Management organizational pride,
emotional exhaustion,
turnover intentions
balance

Table I.
589
Work-life
JMP Hypotheses
31,2 Currently, managing conflict between work and life is a big challenge for organizations
and individuals (Zhang et al., 2012). Previous research shows that abusive supervision is
related to higher levels of work-life conflict (Tepper et al., 2011; Wu et al., 2012) in the USA
and Western cultures. In contrast, individual or group autonomy have long been
considered an antecedent of work-life balance. Patterson et al. (2005) define autonomy as
590 “designing jobs in ways which give employees wide scope to enact work.” Autonomy
reproduces the extent to which a job permits an employee’s self-determination, freedom to
organize his/her own work or make decisions (Hackman and Oldham, 1975). Increased
autonomy will allow employees more flexibility in how, where or when they define their
daily work (Morgeson et al., 2005). Employee autonomy has a positive effect on employee
motivation and productivity. Autonomy seems to be a relevant characteristic, enabling
employees to balance their work more easily with other social and personal activities
(Annik and den Dulk, 2012). According to Grzywacz and Marks (2000), a low level of
decision latitude, a measure that captures aspects of both autonomy and variety, is
associated with low levels of work-life enrichment. In this sense, autonomy in the decision-
making process implies low levels of work-life conflict because employees have the ability
to choose the best way to work. As a result, we suggest that employees who have
autonomy are likely to experience high levels of work-life balance. Therefore, we propose
the following hypothesis:
H1. Autonomy is positively related to employee work-life balance.
One of the most important determinants of interdependence and workplace relations is
support at work (Ahmed et al., 2013). Supervisor support creates a sense of reciprocation in
employees, who then perform better; because of this, supervisor support is another critical
factor related to employee work-life balance (Baral and Bhargava, 2010). Work-life balance
has implications for employee’s attitudes, behaviors and well-being and also has an impact
on organizational effectiveness (Eby et al., 2005). This fact has forced companies to
incorporate new forms of management providing social support and supervisor support.
Bosses’ perceptions of employee work-life conflict also play an important role in
employees’ career progress. Hoobler et al. (2009) found that managers’ perception of
employees’ work-life conflict influenced the bosses’ perceptions of employee fit and
performance. According to Baral and Bhargava (2010), supervisor support in work-life
issues is a reflection of employee’s perception of whether the immediate supervisor is
sensitive to their non-work activities. Employees who perceive their supervisors as
supportive are found to report higher levels of job satisfaction (Aryee et al., 2005). Based on
previous research and experience, the following hypothesis can be made:
H2. Supervisor work-life balance support is positively related to employee work-life
balance.
Pride has traditionally been linked with feelings of joy and meaningfulness (Tracy and
Robins, 2007). Accordingly, one of the challenges faced by a manager is to promote
organizational pride. Because pride relates to a person’s self-esteem and self-worth,
organizational pride is a valuable psychological resource that people should enhance
and constitutes an intrinsic motivator for employees. The Hill (2004) report states that it
is possible for employees to develop a stable inner-pride attitude toward the
organization for which they work. Pride can be considered an emotion (Elfenbein, 2007),
but previous research considers pride to be a construct grounded in employee group
membership (Arnett et al., 2002).
 Although organizational pride has not yet achieved large scientific attention, this Work-life
construct is envisioned to be an important factor for business success (Gouthier and balance
Rhein, 2011). In the same sense, Kraemer and Gouthier (2014) state that organizational
pride plays a central role in companies. Particularly, these authors posit that
organizational pride is negatively affecting turnover intentions. Their results indicate
that organizational pride increases stress resistance, and, consequently reduces
turnover intentions. A similar conclusion is reached in the study of Appleberg (2005), 591
who finds that organizational pride positively influences the decision to stay in a
company and stimulates employee commitment. The model of Kraemer and Gouthier
(2014) also includes as organizational pride antecedents autonomy, supervisor
considerations and team support. These drivers can also be considered antecedents of
work-life balance (Griffin et al., 2001; Dixon and Sagas, 2007; Md-Sidin et al., 2010).
So, as shown in Figure 1, we propose a full mediation of organizational pride between
work-life balance and job satisfaction.
All in all, these studies show that organizational pride essentially influences
organizational behaviors. In view of that, we aim to contribute to this stream of
research and explore how this construct is related to job satisfaction. We posit that an
organization that enhances employee work-life balance will increase organizational
pride among employees, which in turn will result in higher job satisfaction. Specifically,
work-family balance initiatives can cause strong pride emotions to employees.
Organizational pride involves high appreciation for and a strong emotional
attachment to the organization. Because of this double dimension, Gunter and Furnham
(1996) and Kraemer and Gouthier (2014) distinguished between emotional and
attitudinal organizational pride. For the purpose of this paper we will only concentrate
on attitudinal organizational pride. The reason is twofold. First, our aim is to capture
the perceptions toward one’s organization, not their emotional involvement. Second,
according to Fairfield and Wagner (2004) attitudes typically result from experiences,
which are acknowledged to be more durable than emotions (Fairfield and Wagner,
2004). For simplicity, from now on we will refer to attitudinal organizational pride
as organizational pride. Given the aforementioned considerations, we propose that
(see Figure 1):
H3. Employee work-life balance is positively related to organizational pride.
Research on organizational pride has shown the impact of pride on job satisfaction
(Arnett et al., 2002). Research on the consequences of attitudinal organizational pride
suggested a significant and positive relationship between pride and employee behavior
(Gouthier and Rhein, 2011). Organizational pride enhances commitment to customer

Autonomy H1

Employee H3 H4
work-life Organizational Satisfaction
balance pride
Figure 1.
Supervisor Conceptual model
work-life H2
and hypothesized
balance support
relationships
JMP service, enthusiasm or creativity. Employees who are identified and proud to work
31,2 in a company are also satisfied in their jobs (Van Dick et al., 2004). Additionally,
organizational pride is related to, in some characteristics, organizational commitment,
and an antecedent of job satisfaction when it is referred to employee’s emotional
attachment to, identification with and involvement in the organization (Lok and
Crawford, 2001). Motivation and job satisfaction are concepts that are frequently used
592 to present a framework through which companies can affect their employees’ drive to
work and increase their interest and passion toward their work (Furnham et al., 2009).
According to Crossman and Abou-Zaki (2003), job satisfaction is one criterion for
assessing the health of an organization. Based on the foregoing, we suggest that
(see Figure 1):
H4. Organizational pride is positively related to job satisfaction.

Methodology
Sample and procedure
Study participants were employees of a company in the pharmaceutical industry in
Spain. To ensure that respondents would be able to understand all the questions
included in the survey, a pilot test was conducted. To this end, five employees from
different hierarchical levels in the organization were randomly chosen. They were
asked to complete the survey individually and to provide feedback in regard to the
meaningfulness of the language used, as the questionnaire was designed for all levels
of the workforce. The emphasis at this early stage was to enhance readability and
clarity of the questions. Based on their comments, changes were made to strengthen the
accuracy of the survey by deleting troublesome language and rewording parts that
were confusing to the respondents.
The survey was sent to all employees. Respondents were informed that their
participation was voluntary. The first page contained an explanation of the purpose of
the study, the estimated time for completing it, as well as a promise that any information
provided would remain confidential. In addition, respondents provided information about
their department, job position, seniority within the company and work shift.
The fieldwork was completed in March 2013. To maximize responses rates, both
online (office workers) and paper-and-pencil (factory-workers) format questionnaires
were made available to employees. The paper questionnaire was sent out to employees
at their place of work in personally addressed envelopes and included a link to the
online questionnaire. Altogether, 463 surveys were administered. Returned
questionnaires were manually checked against protest responses or those with more
than two unanswered items. Missing data points were imputed with the mean of
nearby points in each case. After discarding incomplete questionnaires, 374 valid
surveys remained for analysis (response rate of 80.78 percent).

Measures
All items in the survey were presented as statements to which respondents indicated
their level of agreement/disagreement on a four-point Likert scale of (1) definitely false,
(2) mostly false, (3) mostly true and (4) definitely true. This rating scale was
recommended to minimize ambivalent neutral ratings (Lynn, 1986, cited in Thrush et al.,
2007). Adaptation of validated scales was used. Items in the scales were originally in
English. A back translation process was used to ensure the quality of the measurements
(Brislin et al., 1973). A further explanation of each construct follows below.
 Autonomy. Autonomy was operationalized using the scale on organizational climate Work-life
of Patterson et al. (2005) (the Organizational Climate Measure), which in turn is based balance
on Quinn and Rohrbaugh’s (1981) Competing Values Model. We only included the first
three items from the original scale, excluding reversed items.
Supervisor work-life balance support. For the purpose of our study, we consider two
items (adapted from Carlson et al., 2013) where employees were asked to evaluate the
position of the company and their managers with respect to work-life balance. 593
Employee work-life balance. The scale used to evaluate work-life balance was built
upon the work-life conflict scale of Hayman (2005). Four items were included. The first
one considers work interference with personal life, that is, the feasibility of maintaining
relationships and social contacts. The second item takes into account the perceived
sufficiency of time, asking respondents about their routines and the need to work extra
hours to complete the assigned tasks. The third item accounts for time spent in
recreation activities. Lastly, the fourth item measures the value of the social benefits of
the company.
Organizational pride. Organizational pride was measured by using the “attitudinal
organizational pride” scale developed by Gouthier and Rhein (2011). One item was
eliminated from the original scale (“I feel proud to contribute to my company’s success”)
because we assumed that the underlying aspect of this question goes beyond our
interpretation of organizational pride as it entails a more comprehensive definition,
including economic challenges.
Job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was assessed using a single-item overall measure.
According to Dolbier et al. (2005) and Nagy (2002), from a psychometric perspective,
single-item measures to operationalize this construct compare favorably with multiple-
item measures. First, their reliability and validity have been demonstrated to provide
an effective measure to represent job satisfaction. Second, they are easier to
understand, are completed more quickly and change scores are more interpretable.
Previous research states that a single item that assesses job satisfaction is stable,
reproducible and more accurately reflects job satisfaction (Scarpello and Campbell,
1983).
Table II shows all items included in the questionnaire, how they were arranged in
the five aforementioned constructs and their loadings.

Results
The analysis consisted of a two-step process. First, we assessed the validity and
reliability of the measurement scale using exploratory and confirmatory factor
analysis. Second, the hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The
data were analyzed using EQS (Bentler and Wu, 2002), a software package for
structural equation modeling.

Assessment of fit
An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to corroborate that all items listed in
Table II were correctly grouped according to the construct they were referring to.
The dimensional scales for each of the multi-item constructs were then evaluated.
According to Bagozzi and Yi (1988), factor loadings should be 0.60 or higher. Because
the lowest factor loading in our model is 0.59, there is support for convergent validity
(see Table II).
JMP Construct Scale (Likert scale 1-4) Mean SD Factor Adapted from
31,2
Autonomy (F1) I have the necessary resources to do 2.94 0.81 0.74 Patterson et al. (2005)
my job
Management trust people to take 2.86 0.83 0.82
work-related decisions without getting
permission first
594 Management let people make their 2.85 0.87 0.81
own decisions much of the time
Supervisor work- The company facilitates 3.05 0.89 0.92 Carlson et al. (2006)
life balance work-life balance
support (F2) Managers emphasize work-life balance 3.02 0.92 0.92
Employee work- There is enough time for recreation 2.73 0.97 0.80 Hayman (2005)
life balance (F3) activities
I do not need to work overtime as I use 2.82 0.92 0.59
to finish work within working hours
I have enough time for my family and 2.90 0.86 0.85
friends
I value the social benefits that the 3.27 0.71 0.62
company offers me
Organizational I feel proud to work for 3.46 0.68 0.77 Gouthier and Rhein
pride (F4) my company (2011)
I feel proud to tell others for which 3.56 0.66 0.78
Table II. company I am working
Measurement scales Satisfaction (F5) Generally speaking, I am very satisfied 3.58 0.62 – Dolbier et al. (2005),
and questionnaire with this job Nagy (2002) and
items Wanous et al. (1997)

Reliability of the constructs was then evaluated. Table III reports that both the
Cronbach’s α and composite reliability exceeded the threshold value of 0.6 (Malhotra,
2004), indicating good internal consistency among the items within each dimension.
The correlation results presented in Table III further corroborate that the square
root of the AVE (shown in italic in the diagonal) of each of the scales, was greater than
the correlations between each construct and all other latent variables (Fornell and
Larcker, 1981).
We statistically tested for the impact of common method variance using different
approaches (Podsakoff et al., 2003). First we performed Harman’s one-factor test for all
latent variables in the model. This test involves a confirmatory factor analysis where
all variables are loaded onto a single factor. No single factor explained a substantial

Cronbach’s Composite reliability

Construct α (CR) 1 2 3 4

1. Autonomy 0.70 0.77 0.63

Table III. 2. Supervisor work-life balance
Properties of support 0.85 0.84 0.53 0.85
measurement scales 3. Employee work-life balance 0.69 0.70 0.54 0.67 0.62
and correlation 4. Organizational pride 0.71 0.72 0.55 0.44 0.45 0.75
matrix of latent 5. Satisfaction – – 0.32 0.20 0.21 0.47
factors Note: The italic numbers in the diagonal row are the square root of the AVE
amount of covariance, only 37 percent of the variance is explained by the one-factor Work-life
test. Second, the partial correlation method was used. Using factor analysis we balance
identified the first unrotated factor, and partialled out its effects to determine whether
the structural relationships between the variables of interest were still significant.
Results obtained revealed no significant changes. Both tests indicate suggest hat is
unlikely that common method variance endangered the validity of our study.
595
Structural model
The overall validity of the model was evaluated with respect to best-fit indices; χ2
Satorra-Bentler was 150.64 with 50 degrees of freedom and a p-value of 0.00, being χ2/df
3.01, which is clearly below the limit of 5. Both CFI (0.91) being higher than 0.9, and the
RMSEA below 0.08 (0.07) indicate good fit (Hu and Bentler, 1998). Taking the
significance of the robust χ2 statistic with caution, and considering the above fit indices,
the model fit was acceptable (Bollen and Long, 1993).
All hypotheses were confirmed at a confidence level of 99 percent, which supports
the appropriateness of the proposed model (see Table IV).
Specifically, our findings show that autonomy relates to employee work-life balance
( β ¼ 0.41), supporting H1. And also associated to supervisor work-life balance support
( β ¼ 0.57), validating H2. The results also support H3, stating that employee work-life
balance is positively related to higher levels of organizational pride ( β ¼ 0.66). In turn,
this factor is positively linked with job satisfaction ( β ¼ 0.42), thus confirming H4.

Gender differences
We also used multigroup CFA to test the gender invariance. Multigroup CFA is
appropriate to test whether both the factor structure and the factor loadings are
invariant across gender. Moreover, it has the advantage of replicating the CFA across
groups, demonstrating the reliability of the factor structure. Following the procedure
recommended by Bryne (1998) independent CFAs are first performed for each group
(men and women). The five factors that conform the model provide a good fit for both
men and women, indicating that the full model proposed also holds for both samples
when they are considered separately. The standardized solution of the structural model
for each group is presented in Table V.
We then estimated a model where the factor loadings were constrained to be equal
for both men and women, with an unconstrained model in which this relation was set to
be invariant. To locate parameters that are different across groups, we check the
probability values associated with the incremental univariate χ2 values that are o 0.05.
These values are reported in Table VI and reveal that all parameters are operating
equivalently across men and woman, indicating no gender differences.

Path Coefficienta t-valueb

H1: Autonomy→employee work-life balance support 0.41 4.04

H2: Supervisor work-life balance support→employee work-life balance 0.57 5.94 Table IV.
H3: Employee work-life balance→organizational pride 0.66 6.48 Standardized
H4: Organizational pride→job satisfaction 0.42 5.78 solution of the
Notes: aSignificant at p-value 1 percent; brobust statistic structural model
JMP Discussion and practical implications
31,2 The present study sought to expand our understanding of job autonomy, work-life
balance, organizational pride and job satisfaction. First, job autonomy allows
employees to have flexibility in managing their time and work. This freedom helps to
balance time spent in the job with family or leisure activities. This balance has mutual
profit and synergies for workers and for the organization. Autonomy allows employees
596 more flexibility in their daily work, increasing the level of work-life balance.
Results also confirm previous literature on the relationship between supervisor
work-life balance support and employee work-life balance. If managers believe and
support all the work-life initiatives, it is easier for workers to perceive a high level of
work-life balance. Family-supportive work cultures were usually related to higher
employee satisfaction. In particular, work environment and employee outcomes
improve clearly if managers provide autonomy in decision making and supervisor
support to employees. So, the consideration of a manager as a guide that helps
employees in their work play an important role in determining work-life balance and
job satisfaction.
Our findings extend previous work-life research that focussed on employee work
outcomes; that is, our findings demonstrated a new relationship: employee work-life
balance is positively related to organizational pride. Although pride has been linked to
constructs such as organizational commitment, turnover intentions or job involvement,
it is a new construct in the work-life literature. Our results seem to indicate that
employees that feel comfortable in their jobs and have an effective work-life balance are
proud to work for their companies. Previous researches pointed out that organizational
pride has a negative influence on turnover intention (Gouthier and Rhein, 2011;
Kraemer and Gouthier, 2014). Our results show that this effect is a strong and
perdurable feeling that enhances an employee’s satisfaction. So, organizational pride is
a full mediator between employee work-life balance and job satisfaction.

Originality
The originality of our research can be outlined in two main contributions. First, it offers
a model which shows the relationships between variables related to work-life balance

Path Men Women

Table V. H1: Autonomy→employee work-life balance 0.71 0.37

Standardized H2: Supervisor work-life balance support→employee work-life balance 0.35* 0.61
solution of the H3: Employee work-life balance→organizational pride 0.78 0.60
structural model H4: Organizational pride→satisfaction 0.51 0.37
for each group Note: All factors are significant at 1 percent level; *Significant at 10 percent

Constraints χ2 Probability

(1,F3,F1)−(2,F3,F1) ¼ 0 3.02 0.08

(1,F3,F2)−(2,F3,F2) ¼ 0 0.00 0.96
Table VI. (1,F4,F3)−(2,F4,F3) ¼ 0 0.01 0.94
Univariate increment (1,Satisfaction,F4)−(2,Satisfaction,F4) ¼ 0 3.64 0.06
and organizational pride. According to Carlson et al. (2013), the major gap in the Work-life
work-family research is the absence of theoretical foundations that link work-life balance
balance to organizational facts such as organizational pride or job satisfaction.
Research on these constructs is an original contribution, as no existing literature has
paid enough attention to these relations. We extend our understanding of the
consequences of work-life balance by examining whether employee work-life balance
fosters organizational pride and examining its differences by gender. 597
Second, the theoretical model proposed has practical implications for companies
interested in implementing work-life policies. These policies, such as flexible work
hours, autonomy in employee decision making, or supervisor support on work-life
balance, will increase employee work-life balance. Our results also suggest that these
policies may increase organizational pride and job satisfaction, though this relationship
is stronger in men. However, different policies and strategies are needed for employees
of different ages, job type or seniority.

Theoretical and managerial implications

Our findings offer some suggestions to improve job satisfaction through employee
work-life balance and organizational pride. This idea is a relevant implication for
academics. According to a study by Nadeem and Abbas (2009), the role of supervisor is
very important, as managers can increase flexibility with respect to the work hours of
subordinates. Employees can work fewer hours by prioritizing their efforts. On the
other hand, a supportive manager is required to reduce the conflict between work and
life. If managers realize the relevance of employee work-life balance, it will enhance
job satisfaction.
From a managerial perspective, our results include organizational pride as a
mediator between organizational pride between work-life balance and job satisfaction.
So, managers should consider increasing organizational pride offering a culture of
recognition. Our findings suggest fostering organizational pride to increase
job satisfaction. On the other hand, it is an unsolved problem for companies to have
the same proportion of women and men in high levels of responsibility due to problems
related with work-life balance. Therefore, it is need to implement work-life policies in
companies in an effective way. In this sense, there are a number of different policies and
practices such as flexible work hours, autonomy in employee decision making or
supervisor support on work-life balance.

Limitations and future research

This study presents some limitations suggesting new research avenues. First, future
research should broaden its scope, extending the analysis to other firms, avoiding
potential common variance problems emerging from the fact of considering only one
company in which to conduct the study. Another limitation relates to the antecedent
conditions and the scales. Despite relying on validated scales, we acknowledge that the
construct of supervisor work-life balance support can be improved by adding more items
in the scale. Future research should investigate how to better differentiate between the
two dimensions of work-life balance (supervisor support and employee’s perceptions) and
design a scale that accurately captures its essence. Similarly, more attention must be
given to the degree to which autonomy and supervisor work-life balance support can
impact employee work-life balance when companies adopt a family-friendly culture vs no
promotion of work-life activities. Future investigation could also consider the nature of
JMP positive spillovers between work-life balance, organizational pride and job satisfaction.
31,2 It is clear that these constructs can foster the organization’s values, employee’s work
satisfaction and employee well-being. Finally, future studies should consider conducting
longitudinal analysis, in order to see whether the implementation of work-life balance
policies improve job satisfaction over time.
Although this paper provides an original contribution to the existing literature, we
598 hope that these findings encourage further research and applications of work-life
policies in organizations to achieve a better work environment and retain talented
employees. Rather than focussing on balance, organizations and society need to
reframe the relationship between work and life. That is, work-life balance positively
affects social support, increases networking opportunities and leads to higher
productivity than does treating the two concepts as conflicts (Putnam et al., 2014).
In conclusion, our study empirically supports the relationship between job
autonomy, work-life balance, organizational pride and job satisfaction. We believe this
study provides a useful measurement model that employers and employees can use
to evaluate and improve work-life balance. Companies should pay attention to
job autonomy and work-life balance to enhance organizational pride and job
satisfaction. Our research tries to help companies more effectively use their human
capital resources.

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About the authors

Marta Mas-Machuca, PhD in Business Administration from the Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya (UPC), Spain and graduated in Business Administration from the University of
Navarra (UN), Spain. Tenure-track lecturer accreditation by the Quality Catalan Agency of the
University System (AQU). For six years, she was a Manager of a Business Unit in a consulting
JMP company of Altran Group. Since 2013, she is working as an Associate Professor at the
Department of Economy and Business Organization at the Universitat Internacional de
31,2 Catalunya (Spain) and the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Economy and Business Organization.
She is teaching on the areas of strategic management and human resources. She collaborates on
research at Chair at our university, dedicated to research on company missions, culture and
climate. She has participated in several research projects and she is the author of several books,
articles and working papers. Marta Mas-Machuca is the corresponding author and can be
602 contacted at: mmas@uic.es
Jasmina Berbegal-Mirabent, PhD in Business Administration and MS in Industrial
Engineering and in Engineering Management, all from the Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya (UPC), Spain. Since 2013 she is working as an Associate Professor at the
Universitat Internacional de Catalunya and as a part-time Lecturer at the Department of
Management at UPC. She has also been a Visiting Research Associate at the Institute of
Education at the University of London. Her works have been published in peer-reviewed
international journals such as The Service Industries Journal, Journal of Business Research,
Management Decision, International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, European
Management Journal. She is in the editorial board of the Journal of Business Research, Journal of
Industrial Engineering and Management and Management Decision. Her research interests are
in the areas of strategic planning and management of higher education institutions; academic
entrepreneurship; knowledge and technology transfer; business innovation and service quality.
Assistant Professor Inés Alegre, PhD in Business Administration from the IESE Business
School and MS in Industrial Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC),
Spain. Since 2013 she is working as an Assistant Professor at the Universitat Internacional de
Catalunya and as a Lecturer at the IESE Business School. She has taught courses on decision
analysis and quantitative methods in several universities including ISM in Lithuania or UPF in
Spain. Her research is focussed on social entrepreneurship and non-profit management.

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