Exploring the effects of workplace support on work-life experience: a study of Malaysia

Abstract

To date most studies of workplace support and work-life experience have been of contexts where government policies and legislation to protect employee work-life balance interests are well established, such as US, UK, and other European countries. Little scrutiny has been given to these issues in less developed economies, where support and protection in terms of work-life policies and legislation at the national level is rather limited. Malaysia, the setting of this study, provides such a context. Two types of organizational support, work flexibility and superior support, are studied for their impact on work-life experience of Malaysians. The findings of this study are based on a national survey of working adults in Malaysia. Work-life experience is conceptualized to capture conflict and enrichment aspects, as well as bidirectional effects between work and nonwork. Results show that work flexibility and superior support lower work-life conflict marginally but facilitate greater work-life enrichment among Malaysians. The paper also draws out implications of these findings for human resource development professionals operating in workplace settings within national contexts with limited mandatory work-life provisions.

Beyond the Single Organization: Inside Insights From Gaining Access for Large Multiorganization Survey HRD Research

“…All multiple organization studies report the number of respondents and, where practicable, the size of the population from which they are selected or the associated response rate, very little commentary being provided. Lists compiled by the researcher are used for three multiple organization studies (Table ), being developed from: “multiple publicly available business directories” (Au & Ahmed, , p. 354), professional development bodies serving a specific sector (Fontana et al, ) and researchers’ contacts and word of mouth (Sutton, Williams, & Allinson, ). As before, associated issues are very rarely discussed, at best receiving a brief comment; for example, “Although the response rate is low, there is no reason to believe that the sample is unrepresentative of the overall population” (Fontana et al, , p. 38).…”

Does work passion benefit or hinder employee’s career commitment? The mediating role of work–family interface and the moderating role of autonomy support

“…According to Hong et al [ 74 ], perceived organizational support contributes to increased internal motivation, which subsequently reduces work–family conflict. Au and Ahmed [ 72 ] demonstrated that supervisory support within the organization maximizes resource gain through work–family enrichment and minimizes resource losses through work–family conflict.…”

An examination of job embeddedness and organizational commitment in the context of HRD practices

“…It is argued that just as positive treatment within the workplace leads employees to become emotionally attached to the organization, favourable actions by the organization that foster an employee’s community embeddedness will also make them become more involved and dedicated. Research suggests that positive experiences from non-work domains could positively affect work outcomes when complemented with support from the organization (Au and Ahmed, 2015).…”