Implications of Location Flexibility for the Psychological Well-Being
of Employees
15th of June 2016
Marijke Ariane Boersma
S1932705
Van Schendelstraat 52, 9721 GX Groningen m.a.boersma@student.rug.nl
Supervisor:
prof. dr. B.A. Nijstad
Master Thesis, MSc Human Resource Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen
ABSTRACT
Organizations need to adapt to a changing environment, therefore, it is more often expected of people to work at multiple locations. The main objective of this study is to compare these so called ‘mobile workers’ with ‘non-mobile workers’ and see how this characteristic of their job affects their psychological well-being. This was investigated by conducting a survey among employees of an education facility in the Netherlands in May 2016. The results showed that location flexibility, through business related travel hours, did not significantly affect the psychological well-being of employees. Nor did the presumed lack of perceived social support of co-workers due to location flexibility negatively affect psychological well-being. However, exploratory analyses showed a negative relation between location flexibility and job satisfaction mediated by business related travel hours. The strength of the negative relation between business related travel hours and job satisfaction was moderated by the extent to which employees valued self-direction.
Keywords: location flexibility, psychological well-being, mobile workers, autonomy,
INTRODUCTION
Over the past decades, the unpredictable, dynamic and continuously changing environment has been a topic of interest for industries and academia (Sherehiy, Waldemar & John, 2007). In order for organizations to meet the demands of uncertainty and change they are changing their strategies and structures rapidly (Hannan & Freeman, 1984; Eisenhardt & Sull, 2001). The economy has transformed from agriculture and industrial manufacturing to a service and knowledge driven economy (Blok, Groenesteijn, Schelvis & Vink, 2012). This has led to a revolution of new ICT (Information Communication Technology) applications and communication networks that changed our perceptions of work and have made is possible to work at any location at any time (Lee & Brand, 2005). Flexibility in the workplace is a topic that has received much attention over the last few decades. Jackson and Johansson (2003) observed that agility is needed to compete in the competitive markets that are formed by uncertainty and change, and “Organizational agility requires an agile workforce” (Muduli, 2013: 57). This organizational agility has changed the demands made on employees, since this kind of flexibility allows for employees to work whilst traveling, being at home, or at other sites away from the traditional workplace (Brocklehurst, 2001; Tietze & Musson, 2005; Wilson, O’Leary, Metiu, & Jett, 2008).
I argue in this study that there are two implications of location flexibility that influence whether or not an employee is capable of dealing with the new situation. Firstly, being a mobile worker necessarily implies spending a lot of hours on the road whilst traveling. Secondly, location flexibility limits social interaction among co-workers, causing a lack of social support. Whether or not they can cope with these implications of location flexibility might depend on compensating or buffering effects of other variables.
Firstly, commuting time and business related travel hours have similar characteristics (time away from home, participation in traffic, driving alone), and the negative consequences of commuting (like stress) may also occur when people travel from one location to the other during work hours. Work-related travel is time-intensive and causes that employees are temporarily not available to fulfill their family-related obligations (Roehling & Bultman, 2002). If people are in a situation where they are not capable in dealing with the demands of their environment, this will negatively affect their well-being, causing stress to the individual (Erkutlu & Charfra, 2006). According to Moen and Wethington (1992), individuals, couples, and families try to maximize their ability to meet work and personal needs by creating adaptive strategies, and “when workers are able to realize their strategies, they experience compatibility and low distress” (Gareis, Barnett, & Brennan, 2003: 1042). Therefore, I argue that when employees have many work-related travel hours this will negatively affect their well-being since they experience difficulties balancing other factors of their life, which causes stress.
beneficial to know what an organization can do to bring the costs of stress down to a minimum, since it influences the performance of employees and thus the profits made by an organization. A factor that might influence the ability and realization of the balance between capabilities and demands is autonomy. If people have autonomy or control over how to schedule their appointments, or at what time they start and end their workday, this will decrease their stress-levels since they might be enabled to cope with the different requests with adequate time-management. Even more, this is supported by research that showed that people with more autonomy in managing their time reported greater well-being (Moen et al., 2016; Hackman & Oldham, 1980).
Secondly, business related travel hours might not be the only implication of location flexibility for psychological well-being. A different factor that might affect one’s well-being is the lack of social support. Much research found that the presence and extent of perceived social support mitigates psychological distress (Ullah, Banks & Warr, 1985; McKee-Ryan, Song, Wandberg, Kinicki, 2005). When employees have many business related travel hours in order to perform their job, this traveling consumes a lot of their available time (Roehling & Bultman, 2002) and this disables them to interact with their colleagues. Furthermore, by traveling and being on the road people are physically away from their co-workers, which makes maintaining the relationship harder and deprives them from support (Wilson, et al. 2008), which negatively affects their well-being.
with the same feelings of being loved and cared for, and therefore this might compensate the lack of social support of co-workers due to location flexibility.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Changes in the economic en technological environments demand organizations to become more flexible (Gunasekaran, 1999; Zhang, Vonderembse, and Lim, 2002, 2003), which gives them the ability to change or react quickly, effortless, with little costs or loss in (Upton, 1994). The increased flexibility also demands changes from the employees because “Organizational agility requires an agile workforce”(Muduli, 2013: 57). Therefore, geographical mobility is growing in today’s working life (Casinowsky, 2013). This results in a steady, still increasing, trend of people who travel at work or commute to work over great distances (Nathan & Doyle, 2001; Swedish Government, 2007). This trend can been seen as a result of the technical development and economical state of the world: fast transportation is available to a lot of people and also affordable to organizations and individuals in the Western societies. Even though there are numerous options available for people to communicate without physical presence, there is still a need for face-to-face communications at locations that are remote from each other. This means that the employees, while practicing their job, have to overcome the distance by traveling (Davidson & Cope, 2003). This face-to-face contact can be important to provide service to a geographically distributed population and can be challenging in many contexts. There are various settings in either private or in the public sector that ask for these kinds of challenges (Smith, Nauss, Banis & Beck, 2002). For example, it can be the case for hospitals with satellite clinics that are from time to time require specialized staff, or that education institutions are required to provide support services at other campuses. (Smith, et al., 2002).
Location Flexibility Mobile Workers Non-mobile workers Autonomy Perceived Social Support of co-workers
Figure 1: conceptual model
Considerate Leadership Business related travel hours Psychological well-being of employees H1 - H2 H3 + H5 + H4 + - + -
legislation, ‘Wet Passend Onderwijs’(which could be translated as ‘Matching Education’), demand that each child that is in need of special care/education receives this – if possible – on a regular school near his/her home (Van der Meulen, 2016). Therefore, in order to provide the same quality of care and education for these children, the employees now have travel to different schools, which demands a higher degree of location flexibility and in turn increases the business related travel hours. This makes it interesting to compare employees with high versus low location flexibility in terms of their psychological well-being.
Theoretical Framework
Flexibility and well-being
One of the dimensions of organizational flexibility that is relevant for this research in particular is workplace flexibility. This dimension can be divided into different categories; time (e.g. compressed work week), location/connectivity (e.g. telecommuting), amount of work (e.g. part-time employment or job sharing), and continuity/ time off (e.g. taking a long holiday) (Kossek, Hammer, Thompson & Burke, 2014; Civian, Richman, Shannon, Shulkin, & Brennan, 2008). Workplace flexibility may not only have potential benefits for the organization (living up to customer need or expectations) but this kind of flexibility can also have advantages for employees (Pitt-Catsouphes & Matz-Costa, 2008), it may for example provide possibilities to create a better work-life balance (Moen et al., 2016; Hackman & Oldham, 1980). The category that is the main focus in this study is: ‘flexibility in location/connectivity’. The degree of location flexibility in this study is determined by the number of locations that an employee has to visit in order to perform his/her job.
a psychologically healthy employee feels satisfied, happy and capable of balancing the different demands of the environment and pressures of the job.
When work circumstances cause unrealistic demands, for example due to a lack of autonomy and job control, the employee is not capable of balancing resources and claims, which causes a misalignment between an employee and the environment resulting in occupational stress (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Leka, Griffiths, & Cox, 2004; Kaplan, 1983; Rees, 1997; Holmlund-Rytkönen & Strandvik, 2005). When people constantly have to change workplaces and locations they continuously have to adapt to a new setting. If adapting to the new environment is not accomplished or employees struggle to do so, they are not able to meet the demands of the environment, this in turn causes stress and will negatively affect the psychological well-being of employees. Based on this I hypothesize that:
(H1) Location flexibility is negatively related to the psychological well-being of employees.
Location flexibility, work-related travel hours and well-being
hours to fulfill their family-related obligations (Roehling & Bultman, 2002). This again can create a misalignment between one’s abilities and the demands made by others, and in turn causes stress. Prior research showed that working conditions with factors like stress and work-life balance affect well-being (Mellor & Webster, 2013; Noor, 2003). As work-related travel hours make it harder for employees to balance work and private life, and this imbalance induces stress, as a consequence this may negatively affects one’s psychological well-being. Therefore, the second hypothesis states:
(H2) Location flexibility increases business related travel hours, which in turn, negatively influence the psychological well-being of employees.
Autonomy
Being employed influences one’s identity, meaning, routine, and status, as well as income, and is a huge part of live (Moen et al., 2016) and together with workplace flexibility can make it difficult to combine work with other aspects of one’s life. A factor that might help with combining work and private life are high levels of autonomy. Karasek (1979: 290) defines job control as “potential control of an employee over his tasks and his conduct during the working day,” based on this job control is operationalized as “decision authority” and “intellectual (or skill) discretion.”
requests made at a person. Moen and Wethington (1992) assume that individuals, couples, and families try to maximize their ability to meet work and personal needs by creating adaptive strategies. Autonomy being a form of empowerment (Ford, Fottler, Russ, & Millam, 1995) provides employees the resources to cope with excessive work-demands (Andrews & Kacmar, 2014). Employees who have the ability to balance their work and private live, by weighting and integrating various parts of their work-family strategy, experience low distress and feel compatible (Gareis, Barnett & Brennan, 2003) which is related to one’s psychological well-being (Huppert, 2009). Therefore, autonomy might enable employees to achieve a better alignment between work and private life despite the work-related travel hours and make employees feel more compatible in balancing their responsibilities and other obligations and allows maximizing their family strategies, which positively affects one’s psychological well-being. Based on these findings I theorize that:
(H3) Autonomy negatively moderates the relation between business travel hours and the psychological well-being of employees: this relation becomes weaker when job autonomy is high.
Perceived social support of co-workers
A second reason why location flexibility may reduce employees’ psychological well-being is perceived social support of co-workers. Social support can be defined as “the perception or experience that one is loved and cared for by others, esteemed and valued, and part of a social network of mutual assistance and obligations” (Taylor, 2007: 145).
personal identity (Hogg & Terry, 2000; Ragins & Dutton, 2007) which can provide social support (Barrera, Sandler & Ramsey, 1981).
The disconnection from the physical worksites (Sewell, 2012) might not only disconnect employees from the workplace, it can also reduce the feeling of proximity or relatedness between colleagues (Wilson, et al. 2008). This might result in a feeling of isolation or exclusion by the employees. Fox and Stallworth (2005) found that various factors of social exclusion were experienced by 19% of the employees of the in-group and 66% by employees from the out-group. By being away from the majority of the employees, they might no longer belong to the in-group, and thereby lose social support. This is supported by Richman and colleagues (2002: 11) who found that “only 35% of customer site workers interact daily with colleagues at other locations”. Social support in general but of co-workers in particular is a coping resource that provides a buffer to the influence of stress on health and well-being (e.g., Cohen, 2004; Taylor & Stanton, 2007) and has been linked to employees’ stress management (Viswesvaran, Sanchez, & Fischer, 1999), burnout (Halbesleben, 2006), and other physical strains (Schwarzer & Leppin, 1989). Even more, Baumeister and Leary (1995) and Philippe and colleagues (2011, 2012) say that fulfilling the need to belong has a positive effect on psychological and physical well-being. Therefore, I argue that:
(H4) The negative relation between location flexibility and psychological well-being of employees is mediated by the perceived social support of co-workers.
Considerate Leadership style
to the level of their capabilities, are lack motivation, and may be dissatisfied (Mujtaba, Khanfar & Khanfar, 2010).
Early studies on leadership (e.g. study conducted in the Ohio State University during the 1940s and 1950s) divided behavior of leaders into two dimensions; initiating structure (task-orientation) and consideration (relationship-orientation) (Halpin & Winter 1957; Fleishman, 1967). Considerate leaders “show concern and respect for followers, look out for their welfare, and express appreciation and support” (Judge, Piccolo, & Ilies, 2004: 36; Bass, 1990). McShane and Von Glinow (2002) add that leaders engaging in considerate leadership show their subordinates that they trust, respect, and care about them. Thus, consideration is focused on “the quality of the relationships within the team or between subordinates” (Homan & Greer, 2013: 108). If leaders engage in initiating structure, they will focus on making employees accomplish tasks, make schedules and they will encourage compliance (McShane & Von Glinow 2002). Both styles are not mutually exclusive, meaning a leader can be high on both, low on both, or high on one and low on the other (Jones & George, 2009). Nevertheless, for this study the focus lays on considerate leadership exhibited by supervisors, because considerate supervisors will try to make people feel safe, supported and they will help with personal problems of employees (Bass, 1999).
behavior of the supervisor may compensate for the lack of support perceived by co-workers. Therefore I hypothesize that:
(H5) Considerate leadership negatively moderates the relation between social support of co-workers and the psychological well-being of employees: this relation becomes weaker when considerate leadership is high.
METHOD
To examine the hypotheses, I conducted an online questionnaire using Qualtrics that was sent by e-mail to employees of a Dutch Education and Health care institution that stimulates full participation in society for people that are auditory and/or communicatively challenged (Kentalis, 2016). The institution employs approximately 4,700 employees, divided over several regions of the Netherlands. The Northern region participated in the present study and the survey was set out to education facilities in Zwolle, Drachten and their flex pool in May 2016.
The questionnaire was compiled of different measurement instruments that measured the different constructs as described in the theory. All the questions were formulated in Dutch, using the standard "forward-backward" procedure, meaning that the questions that were originally English were translated to Dutch and then translated back to English by a different person to overcome translating problems. The respondents were assured of the confidentiality of their responses and only after marking the consent box, they were able to complete the questionnaire.
between twenty-seven and sixty-two years. Thirty-five people (60%) still had children living at home. The highest received education on average was higher vocational education (70%; SD=1.48). The functions can be categorized in descending order as Ambulatory service (35%), Teacher (24%), Others (16%), Education Assistant (14%), Speech Therapist (9%), and Administrative services (3%). Thirty-five people (60%) had one workplace, against twenty-three people (40%) who worked on multiple locations. There were forty-one people (71%) who had a regular schedule, nine people (15%) had a varying schedule and eight people (14%) had regular and varying components in their schedule. While thirty-seven people (64%) reported to work more than three years at the same location(s), twenty-one people (36%) worked for a less than three years at their current location(s). Of all people, fifty-four (93%) had a permanent contract and four people (7%) had a temporary contract. The average organizational tenure was eleven years (SD=7.18), with a maximum of thirty-one years. The numbers of hours worked each week was on average 28.5, varying from a minimum of 15 hours to a maximum of 42.5 (SD=8.02). Work-related travel time ranges from 0 hours to a maximum of 20 hours, with an average of 2.5 hours per week (SD=4.05).
Measures
To measure Location Flexibility the participants were asked to answer the question “What is the best way to describe your work situation?” with two answering possibilities 1) “Normally I work at one workplace” or 2) “Normally I don’t have one workplace, since I am flexible and work at multiple places”.
measure of psychological well-being and has proved to have sufficient external validity (del Pilar Sánchez-López & Dresch, 2008). It contains questions like: “Did you feel capable of making decision about things?” and “Did you enjoy your common, daily activities?”
Autonomy (α= 0.81) was measured using the 10-item survey of De Jonge,
Landeweerd and van Breukelen (1994). A 5-Likert scale ranging from 1 “Totally Disagree”- 5 “Totally Agree” was used with questions like: “I have the possibility to choose my own working hours”.
Social Support was measured using items measuring social support of the New Brief
Job Stress Questionnaire (New BJSQ) which measures psychological factors at work. The New BJSQ scales were reliable and proven valid through the analysis of Inoue, Kawakami, Shimomitsu, Tsutsumi, Haratani, Yoshikawa, Shimazu, and Adagiro (2014). Three types of social support were measured with three items each; supervisory support (α= 0.87), co-worker support (α=0.72) and family/friends support (α= 0.87). The questions were asked as: “How freely can you talk with (..)” or “How well will the following people listen if you ask for personal advice?” at a 5-Likert scale ranging from 1 “Absolutely not true”- 5 “Absolutely rue”.
Business related travel hours were measured with an open question designed for this
study ‘How many hours of work-related travel do you have a week?’
Leadership dimensions were measured with questions of the consideration (α= 0.76)
regulations”. All the questions regarding leadership were asked with a 5-Likert scale ranging from 1 “Totally Disagree”- 5 “Totally Agree”. The considerate leadership style was reliable but the initiate leadership style was not, and the initiate leadership was not used in the analyses.
Other measured variables
Psychological well-being of employees is a broad concept and therefore might be determined by various other factors that are not measured in this study. Job satisfaction on the other hand is a concept that is more closely related to job-related attitudes, and therefore was included in the questionnaire. Further, I included work values as a construct as it might influence how people respond to work conditions.
Global measures of job satisfaction were designed to capture an individual’s satisfaction with his/her overall job, instead of measuring the satisfaction level of specific aspects of the job. (Brayfield & Rothe, 1951). Research found that global measures of overall job satisfaction are of better use to measure overall job satisfaction and they have fewer methodological implications than do measurements of facets (Ironson, Smiths, Brannick, Gibson & Paul, 1989). That is why for this study the overall job satisfaction (α= 0.76) of the participants was measured with 5 items adapted from the Job Satisfaction Inventory (JSI) of Brayfield and Rothe (1951). The participants are asked on a 5-Likert scale ranging from 1 “Totally Disagree”- 5 “Totally Agree” to what extent they for example “really enjoy their work”.
Work values were measured using the 10-item Short Schwartz’s Value Survey
scores were displayed in a circle in a way that is identical both to the structure obtained in a variety of cultures and to the theoretical structure of values (Schwartz, 1992, 1994). The respondents were asked to report to what extent, ranging from 0 “contradicting with my principles” - 8 “extremely important”, they consider the values as being part of their overall life convictions. The ten values that were measured were: Power, Achievement, Hedonism, Stimulation, Self-direction, Universalism, Benevolence, Conformity, Tradition and Security.
RESULTS
Descriptive statistics and correlations
Means, standard deviations, and zero-order Pearson correlations among all variables in this study are presented in Table 2. Firstly, the results that are related to the hypothesis are reported. A negative relation between location flexibility and psychological well-being, however, this correlation was not significant (r= -.23, n.s.). As expected, location flexibility was positively correlated to business related travel hours (r= .54, p<.001). Even more, a negative correlation between business related travel hours and the psychological well-being of the employees was expected also, however this correlation was not significant (r= -.13, n.s.). Further, a negative correlation between location flexibility and perceived social support of co-workers, (r= -.06, n.s.) was predicted, however, the outcomes showed that this correlation was not significant. Furthermore, a positive correlation between perceived social support of co-workers and psychological well-being was expected, however this correlation was not significant (r= .16, n.s.).
TABLE 2: Correlations
Predictors Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Hypothesized Model
1 Location Flexibility 0.4 .49
2 Psychological Well-Being 3.41 .29 -.23 (.73) 3 Business Related Travel
Hours 2.54 4.05 .54
** -.13
4 Autonomy 3.37 .53 .25 .06 .32* (.81) 5 Perceived Social Support
Co-workers 4.29 .44 -.06 .16 .18 .02 (.72) 6 Considerate Leadership 4.07 .46 .011 -.18 .14 -.02 .23 (.76) Exploratory analyses 7 Job Satisfaction 4.25 .48 -.32* .44** -.25 -.03 .31* .09 (.76) 8 Self-direction 6.72 1.07 .14 .09 -.05 .07 -.02 .01 .15 9 Power 3.29 1.56 .07 -.05 .12 .18 -.05 -.17 .00 -.02 10 Achievement 5.21 1.25 -.08 .14 .00 .16 -.04 -.10 .12 .34** .42*** 11 Hedonism 5.31 1.79 -.10 .11 -.13 .00 .05 -.37** .06 .25 .41*** .29* 12 Stimulation 6.22 1.01 .14 .16 .03 .08 -.19 -.08 .20 .76*** .09 .45*** .14 13 Universalism 6.67 1.19 .14 -.11 .15 -.20 -.09 -.04 -.16 .44*** -.21 .02 -.02 .28* 14 Benevolence 7.16 .88 .02 -.08 -.07 -.06 -.01 -.06 .10 .23 .38** -.13 -.18 .08 .39** 15 Conformity 5.90 1.22 -.05 -.02 .06 -.03 .04 .12 .11 -.05 -.08 -.28* -.15 -.19 .25 .23 16 Tradition 5.66 1.26 .08 -.09 .08 .02 -.04 .32* .10 -.06 -.04 -.20 -.25 -.17 .13 .22 .73*** 17 Security 6.22 1.24 .11 -.01 .12 .02 -.09 .00 .16 .10 -.13 -.21 -.15 -.04 .32* .24 .54*** .66*** Control 18 Age 44.78 10.37 .20 -.08 .32* -.02 .16 .32* .13 -.16 -.28* -.14 -.09 .05 .30* .07 .21 .07 .06
N=58, for all variables except for business related travel hours, where N=55. Alpha coefficients of reliabilities are displayed in parentheses on the diagonal.
Test of the Hypothesized Model
The predictors were standardized before testing the hypotheses. A conditional process analysis of Hayes was used with model 14, which stands for a mediated-moderation model, to test the hypotheses 1-5. The model was tested in two steps.
Step 1 tested whether there was a mediated-moderation relation between location flexibility and psychological well-being (H1) with business related travel hours as mediating variable (H2) and autonomy as moderating variable (H3). The outcomes of the process test of Hayes are shown in Table 3. The results indicate that hypothesis 1: “Location flexibility is negatively related to the psychological well-being of employees”, was rejected, since there was no significant relation between location flexibility and psychological well-being of the employees (β= -.09, n.s.). Hypothesis 2 predicted that: “Location flexibility increases business related travel hours, which in turn, negatively influence the psychological well-being of employees.”, the relation between location flexibility and business related travel hours is significant (β= .49, p<.001). However, business related travel hours did not have a significant negative influence on the psychological well-being of employees (β= -.23, n.s.). Therefore, the mediation of business related travel hours on the relation between location flexibility and psychological well-being of employees was rejected. The third hypothesis stated that: “Autonomy negatively moderates the relation between business travel hours and the psychological well-being of employees: this relation becomes weaker when job autonomy is high”, this moderating effect of autonomy was not found (β= .16, n.s.). Therefore, the third hypothesis was rejected.
TABLE: 3 Results of Regression Analyses
Outcome Variables
Path 1 Path 2
Predictors Business Related Travel hours Psychological Well-Being Perceived Social Support Co-workers Psychological Well-being Hypothesized Model Location Flexibility .49(4.17)*** -.09(-.44) -.09(-.69) -.22(-1.61) Psychological Well-Being
Business Related Travel Hours -.23(-.87)
Autonomy . .17(1.15)
Autonomy X Business Related
Travel Hours .16(.88)
Perceived Social Support
Co-workers .20(1.43)
Considerate Leadership -.23(-1.62)
Perceived Social Support Co-workers X Considerate Leadership .02(.12) Control Variable Age .20(1.75) -.05(-.34) .17(1.29) .01(.04) R² .33*** .075 .033 .12
Conditional indirect effect(s) of Location Flexibility on Psychological Well-being at values of Autonomy (path 1) and Considerate Leadership (path 2)
Path 1
Autonomy LLCI ULCI
Low -.19 -.63 .11 Medium -.11 -.37 .08 High -.03 -.21 .15 Path 2 Considerate Leadership Low -.02 -.14 .02 Medium -.02 -.10 .01 High -.02 -.11 .01
N=58, for all variables except for business related travel hours, where N=55.
*p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001
Exploratory Analyses
TABLE 4: Results of Exploratory Regression Analyses
Outcome Variables
Predictors Business Related Travel
Hours Job Satisfaction
Control Variable
Age .20(1.75) † .21(1.62)
Variables Conceptual Model
Location Flexibility .49(4.17)*** -.23(-1.48)
Business Related Travel Hours -.30(-1.80) †
Self-direction .21(1.67) †
Business Related Travel Hours X Self-direction -.35(-2.20)*
R² .33*** .28**
Direct effect of Location Flexibility on Job Satisfaction
LLCI ULCI
-.23 -.48 .03
Conditional indirect effect(s) of Location Flexibility on Job Satisfaction by values of Self-direction
Self-direction LLCI ULCI
Low .03 -.12 .13
Medium -.15 -.38 -.04
High -.32 -.60 -.12
N=58, for all variables except for business related travel hours, where N=55.
† p<.10 * p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001
significant for medium (β= -.15; LL=-.38, UL=-.04) and high (β= -.32; LL=-.60, UL=-.12) values of the moderator self-direction.
DISCUSSION
The aim of this study was to examine whether, when, and why location flexibility has negative implications for the psychological well-being of employees. I argued that there are two implications of location flexibility that might have consequences for the psychological well-being of employees. Firstly, mobile-workers necessarily spent a lot of hours on the road whilst traveling to perform their job and this may negatively affect their psychological well-being. Secondly, I argued that location flexibility limits social interaction among co-workers, causing a lack of social support, which negatively influence the psychological well-being of employees. Furthermore, it was examined whether these negative effects of location flexibility on well-being can be mitigated by autonomy and considerate leadership. I tested my hypotheses through a survey in an education facility in the Netherlands, who had increased the business related travel hours, due to increased location flexibility of their employees.
related travel hours increased as a consequence of visiting various workplaces. Further, the results did not provide evidence for the moderating effect of autonomy on the strength of the relation between business related travel hours and psychological well-being. In other words, whether or not the employees had autonomy did not affect the strength of the relation between business related travel hours and psychological well-being of the employees.
The results of the analysis of the second path did not show a significant negative relation between location flexibility mediated by a lack of perceived social support on the psychological well-being of employees. Thus, visiting multiple workplaces did not decrease the psychological well-being of employees through a lack of perceived social support of co-workers. Even more, considerate leadership was not found to be a significant moderator of the relation between the perceived lack of social support of co-workers and psychological well-being of employees. In other words, considerate leadership of the supervisor did not buffer the expected lack of perceived support of co-workers as a consequence of working on multiple workplaces.
satisfaction was negatively influenced by location flexibility through increased business related travel hours as a consequence of multiple workplaces. Even more, the negative effects of location flexibility through business related travel hours on job satisfaction were stronger when employees valued self-direction. Self-direction values entail concern for “creativity, freedom, independence, curiosity, and choosing of own goals, and the value refers to the independence of an individual to decide on his/her actions and choices based on his/her creativity and exploration” (Choi, et al., 2016: 148). One possible explanation for why the relation between business related travel hours and job satisfaction was affected by values of self-direction might be that travel hours affect the remaining hours in the workday. If an employee for example has a workday of eight hours, whereof five hours are used for work related travel, this leaves only three hours to perform the duties and responsibilities of the job. Work-related travel reduces the experience of self-direction, because much time is spent on the road. This will mainly affect those who value self-direction, and therefore the effect is stronger and negative for those with high self-direction values. It should be noted that these outcomes are results of exploratory analyses, and they should be interpret with care.
Practical implications
turnover intentions (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001; Van Beek, Hu, Schaufeli, Taris & Schreurs, 2012). In order to assess the implications for flexible employees who work at different locations and have much work-related travel hours, managers can monitor their job satisfaction. When the job satisfaction of these employees is monitored, low job satisfaction can be signaled and through an open dialogue the roots of the distress can be discovered and the discomfort can be handled. Therefore, this may prevent unnecessarily high costs for organizations due to for example turnover, knowledge loss, burnouts or poor performance.
Limitations
research should find out whether location flexibility has different effects on job-specific well-being is.
In multiple studies, work commute has been found to increase one’s stress-level (Novaco & Gonzales, 2009), especially for work commutes that take place in busy traffic (Novaco et al., 1990). However, the type of transport also has been found to influence one’s stress-level. Public transport, for example, increases the complexity of the journey and thereby increases one’s stress-level (Wener, Evans, Phillips & Nadler, 2003). A study of Singer, Lundberg and Frankenhauser (1977) added that the crowdedness of the transport vehicle also has a negative impact on the perceived stress-level of people. This is linked to the present study since stress is negatively related to one’s psychological well-being, and since commuting has the same characteristics as work related travel hours. The current study did not investigate what transport vehicle was used or how the traffic situation was, nor did it look at the complexity of the journey. Therefore, this study was limited because it did not include other moderating variables of the relation between business related travel and perceived well-being of the employees. Further research should include the type of transport and the situational context of the journey itself in order to examine whether these factors influence the relation between business related travel hours and one’s emotional state, stress-levels or psychological well-being.
Further Research Directions
These arguments suggest that there might be an additional moderator in this relation. In the stress literature there is a large body of research on the coping mechanisms of people, and three broad categories of coping behaviors are defined: Problem-focused, emotion-focused (Ben-Zur, Yagil & Oz, 2005; Carver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and avoidant (Roth & Cohen, 1986) coping behaviors. It might be that coping capabilities of employees influence whether or not someone perceives having autonomy as a positive or negative aspect of their job, and future research should therefore include coping strategies of employees in order to distinguish whether or not autonomy contributes to higher occupational stress or that this is influenced by for example one’s capabilities in stress management.
In the exploratory analyses it was found that self-direction moderated the negative effect of location flexibility, mediated by business related travel hours, on job satisfaction. In order to determine what the precise reason is why self-direction affects the strength of the relation between business related travel hours and job satisfaction more research is needed. It may be that work-related travel hours reduce one’s sense of self-direction, as people might feel constraint by the amount of hours necessarily spent on the road, since it leaves less available time for other activities. This can go against their “motivation to follow one’s own intellectual and emotional interests” (Lindeman & Verkasalo, 2005: 171). Whether or not this is true could be tested by including a measure of experienced self-direction.
the group norms would suggest that work related travel hours are ‘normal’ and ‘accepted’, the employees are more likely to accept it, which might mitigate the effects of location flexibility on job satisfaction. Future research should include group norms and attitudes towards business related travel hours in order to see if this effect is significant. This will help establish the context of influencing factors on job satisfaction and location flexibility.
CONCLUSION
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