Examining The Relationships Between Work Intensification, Work-Life Balance, Employee Engagement And Turnover Intention Through A Gender Lens: The Perspective Of Academics In Malaysian Public And Private Universities
Loading...
Date
2018-08
Authors
Goo, Chuan Chiew
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
The Malaysian government has recently reformed the public and private universities in order to transform Malaysia into a world-class higher education hub. The rapidly growing work demands among academics in public and private universities has caused academic work intensification. Thus, the effects of work intensification on other aspects of work such as work-life balance, coping strategies, employee engagement and turnover intention in the higher education sector are pertinent for further research. This study applied the theory of Job Demand-Resources and Social Role Theory to test the relationships between work intensification, work-life balance and turnover intention among academics in Malaysian public and private universities through a gender lens. The moderating effect of employee engagement on the relationship between work intensification, work-life balance and turnover intention was also explored. This study employed sequential explanatory design of mixed-method approach whereby the qualitative results are used to assist in explaining and interpreting the findings of the quantitative study. Quantitative data were collected through a survey from 190 respondents in public and private universities in Malaysia whereas the qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 academics (6 academics were from public universities and 6 academics were from private universities). As hypothesized, the PLS-SEM analysis on the quantitative data showed that the path relationships among the constructs were in the expected directions. Specifically, work intensification and turnover intention were found to be positively related, whereas work intensification and work-life balance were negatively related. Additionally, work-life balance was negatively associated with turnover intention. Employee engagement was found to moderate the relationships between work intensification and turnover intention. However, employee engagement did not moderate the relationships between work-life balance and turnover intention. The qualitative data were analysed through manually thematic approach. The findings from the qualitative analyses reported richer results on gender differences and public and private universities differences. While the quantitative results did not show any significant gender differences in terms of the study variables, the qualitative results show that academics are still performing traditional gender roles where male academics are more focused on paid work and female academics are more focused on the reproductive work. The qualitative data also revealed that academics engaged in 5 coping strategies (i.e. behavioural strategies, support, outsourcing, cognitive strategies and leisure activities) to manage their work intensification. Several important implications of the study findings for future research and practice are also discussed.
Description
Keywords
Industrial