Effects of Work-life Balance Initiatives on Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Work Stress

Abstract

Using survey data of 564 full-time Japanese workers, I studied the relationship between work-lifebalance initiatives (i.e., shorter working hours and working from home) and their consequences [i.e., organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and work stress]. I also studied how individual factors (networking behavior and work-family segmentation preference) moderate the relationship. Results showed that experience of using shorter working hours increased OCB only when employees were high on networking behavior. On the other hand, experience of working from home was shown to decrease work stress, only when employees preferred work-family segmentation.