Employee well‐being in organizations: Theoretical model, scale development, and cross‐cultural validation

• Author: Chi Zhang,Xiaoming Zheng,Haixia Zhao,Weichun Zhu
• Published date: 01 July 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.1990
• Date: 01 July 2015

Employee well-being in organizations: Theoretical

model, scale development, and cross-cultural

validation

XIAOMING ZHENG

1

*, WEICHUN ZHU

2

, HAIXIA ZHAO

1

AND CHI ZHANG

1

1

School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China,

2

School of Labor and Employment Relations, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.,

Summary In this study, we explore the theoretical model and structural dimensions of employee well-being (EWB) in

organizations. Specifically, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, we find that EWB comprises

three dimensions: life well-being, workplace well-being, and psychological well-being. We establish the re-

liability and validity of the newly developed EWB scale through a series of quantitative studies, which indi-

cate that EWB is significantly correlated with affective organizational commitment and job performance

based on the data collected from multiple sources at two points in time. We find that EWB has measurement

invariance (configural invariance) across Chinese and American contexts. We also discuss the theoretical con-

tributions of these findings to cross-cultural organizational behavior studies, along with the practical implica-

tions of our results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: employee well-being; life well-being; workplace well-being; psychological well-being

Human beings have pursued well-being since ancient times. China, however, has been in the midst of a critical

societal–economic transformation since the inception of Deng Xiaoping’s Open and Reform Policy in 1978. The

fierce market competition created by these rapid social and economic changes in China and their counterparts in

the rest of the world has brought immense life pressure to people in China (Lu, Kao, Siu, & Lu, 2011; Siu, Spector,

Cooper, & Lu, 2005). One striking phenomenon in this regard is the increase in negative emotions, such as anxiety

and stress, observed among Chinese individuals. Media all too often report unfortunate incidents in which em-

ployees and managers in Chinese business organizations have committed suicide in the face of extremely high levels

of work-related stress. In turn, employees’well-being in organization has attracted increased attention from both ac-

ademia and managers. Many organizations in China, including Microsoft Research Asia, Alibaba, Suning, and

Orange Hotel, have launched various programs and initiatives to enhance their employees’well-being. Similarly,

in the West, employees’well-being in organization has received greater attention from both managers and scholars

over the last few decades (Danna & Griffin, 1999; Robertson & Cooper, 2010).

Employees’well-being is critical to the survival and development of organizations around the world (Spreitzer &

Porath, 2012), and it has emerged as an important research topic in organizational behavior and related areas. In spe-

cial issues on employees’well-being in two renowned journals—Journal of Organizational Behavior (Vol. 4, 2011)

and Human Relations (Vol. 9, 2012)—scholars in the West have reported redirecting their research focus away from

the effect of individual differences on employees’well-being and toward the fluctuations that occur within the differ-

ent life stages of an individual and individuals’perceptions of the events that occur in the workplace as those incidents

affect their well-being (Sonnentag & Ilies, 2011; Xanthopoulou, Bakker, & Ilies, 2012). To date, however, these stud-

ies have been limited largely to measurements of employee job satisfaction (Dimotakis, Scott, & Koopman, 2011;

Wright & Cropanzano, 1997), work attitude (Leavitt, Fong, & Greenwald, 2011), negative affect (NA; Vandenberghe

*Correspondence to: Xiaoming Zheng, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

E-mail: zhengxm@sem.tsinghua.edu.cn

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 23 February 2014

Revised 15 November 2014, Accepted 24 November 2014

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 36, 621–644 (2015)

Published online 25 January 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.1990

Special Issue Article

et al., 2011), or flow (Ceja & Navarro, 2011); that is, they have not focused specifically on employees’well-being in a

broader sense.

In China, academic research in the area of employees’well-being still lags behind the needs of organizations. For

example, the choice of research subjects has not shed much light on this issue: most of the prior studies have focused

primarily on college students (Xie, 2011), urban citizens (He & Pan, 2011), rural migrant workers (Yang, 2013), and

middle-aged and elderly persons (Wang, Tong, & Zhou, 2004). In addition, individuals’overall perception of life,

rather than their well-being in the workplace, has been the focus of prior studies.

Today, working is a vital part of most people’s lives, and, in turn, it exerts a great deal of influence on their well-

being. Workplace situations differ greatly from general life situations; thus, the concept of employee well-being

(EWB) must be distinguished from general well-being. So far, scholars have not reached a consensus on the definition

of EWB (Page & Vella-Brodrick, 2009). Psychological well-being (PWB) and subjective well-being (SWB) or job

satisfaction have often been used as proxies to represent employees’overall well-being in organizations. But to what

degree do such judgments truly reflect well-being at work? Drawing on the mental health and well-being literature,

Page and Vella-Brodrick (2009) proposed a comprehensive theoretical model of EWB, in which they list SWB

and PWB as key criteria for employee mental health. To apply this model specifically to the domain of work, they

added two context-specific constructs—work-related positive affect (PA) and NA and job satisfaction—and used

the Satisfaction with Life scale (Diener et al., 1985; Diener et al., 1999), Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Wat-

son et al., 1988), Workplace Well-Being Index (Page, 2005), Affective Well-Being scale (Daniels, 2000), and Scales

of Psychological Well-Being (Daniels, 2000) to measure different facets of EWB (Page & Vella-Brodrick, 2013). As

yet, this theoretical model has not been validated, nor has a scale been developed on the basis of this model.

Cultural differences between East and West tend to lead to differences in Chinese and Western beliefs about well-

being. Specifically, Western cultures emphasize the importance of environmental mastery, autonomy, and personal

emotions in well-being, whereas Chinese culture places greater emphasis on harmony and social values in achieving

a higher level of well-being (Gao, Zheng, & Yan, 2010). In this study, we seek to explore the connotations and struc-

tural dimensions of EWB and develop a relevant measure using Chinese samples. The significance of this study

touches on multiple areas. First, we combine both qualitative and quantitative approaches to reveal the definition

and structural dimensions of EWB. Our research makes a significant theoretical contribution by deepening the re-

search on EWB in Chinese organizations, and also complements and extends the extant Western literature on

EWB. Second, utilizing qualitative in-depth interviews and a series of quantitative studies, we develop a multidi-

mensional scale to measure EWB that can be utilized in scientific research and managerial practices, both in Chinese

organizations and in firms in other countries. Finally, the findings of this research can guide business managers in

evaluating, monitoring, and elevating EWB in their organizations, thereby improving employees’psychological

health, developing their potential, and increasing firms’overall competitiveness.

Literature Review

Concept, theoretical model, and measure of well-being

Employees well-being is a term for which “everyone understands the meaning but nobody can give a precise defi-

nition”(Lyubomirs, 2001). Ryan and Deci (2001) concluded that there are two major philosophical perspectives

concerning well-being: one is happiness-oriented (i.e., hedonism), defining well-being as the subjective experience

of happiness; the other concerns realizing human potential power (i.e., eudaimonism), which regards well-being as

the result of personal achievement, self-actualization, or self-positioning. Most current research on well-being has

accepted the validity of these two distinct paradigms. Diener, Ryan, and their colleagues (e.g., Diener & Ryan,

2011) inherit the hedonism orientation and use it to propose the SWB research approach. The PWB research ap-

proach, as proposed by some other scholars (e.g., Ryff & Singer, 2008), has evolved from the eudaimonism

622 X. ZHENG ET AL.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 36, 621–644 (2015)

DOI: 10.1002/job