IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i21p9291-d442078.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Improving Health Professionals’ Involvement Whilst Sustaining Work–Life Balance: Evidence from an Empirical Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Rocco Palumbo

    (Department of Management & Law, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Via Columbia, no. 2, 00133 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Most sustainability studies applied to healthcare primarily focus on external viability. In particular, they look at the ability of healthcare institutions to establish an economic, environmental, social, and political consonance with their context. Conversely, limited attention has been paid to issues related to internal sustainability. The article discusses health professionals’ involvement as a human resource management practice which contributes to the viability of healthcare organizations. A sequential mediation analysis was designed to shed light on the effects of employees’ involvement on work–life balance, which is an essential ingredient of the recipe for internal sustainability. The study findings suggest that health professionals’ involvement may determine an intensification and an extensification of work efforts, which undermine their work–life balance. Nevertheless, the implications of employees’ involvement on work–life balance are positively and significantly mediated by supportive relationships at work and positive organizational climate. From this standpoint, health professionals’ involvement may act as an effective strategy to enhance the internal sustainability of health care organizations if matched with better relationships with supervisors and improved organizational climate. Whilst calling for further research to enlighten issues and challenges related to internal sustainability, the article stresses that health professionals’ involvement should be paired with an improvement of the organizational climate to contribute to an increased viability of health care institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Rocco Palumbo, 2020. "Improving Health Professionals’ Involvement Whilst Sustaining Work–Life Balance: Evidence from an Empirical Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-21, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:21:p:9291-:d:442078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/9291/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/9291/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fabio Pammolli & Massimo Riccaboni & Laura Magazzini, 2012. "The sustainability of European health care systems: beyond income and aging," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(5), pages 623-634, October.
    2. Mark Le Fevre & Peter Boxall & Keith Macky, 2015. "Which workers are more vulnerable to work intensification? An analysis of two national surveys," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(6), pages 966-983, September.
    3. Liviu Florea & Yu Cheung & Neil Herndon, 2013. "For All Good Reasons: Role of Values in Organizational Sustainability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 114(3), pages 393-408, May.
    4. Elio Borgonovi & Paola Adinolfi & Rocco Palumbo & Gabriella Piscopo, 2018. "Framing the Shades of Sustainability in Health Care: Pitfalls and Perspectives from Western EU Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-20, November.
    5. Bethencourt, Carlos & Galasso, Vincenzo, 2008. "Political complements in the welfare state: Health care and social security," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 609-632, April.
    6. Kloutsiniotis, Panagiotis V. & Mihail, Dimitrios M., 2020. "Is it worth it? Linking perceived high-performance work systems and emotional exhaustion: The mediating role of job demands and job resources," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 565-579.
    7. Adrian Furnham, 2005. "The People Business," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-51009-8, September.
    8. Yoshio Yanadori & Danielle D. Jaarsveld, 2014. "The Relationships of Informal High Performance Work Practices to Job Satisfaction and Workplace Profitability," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 501-534, July.
    9. Adedapo Adewunmi Oluwatayo & Olufunmilayo Adetoro, 2020. "Influence of Employee Attributes, Work Context and Human Resource Management Practices on Employee Job Engagement," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 21(4), pages 295-308, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lucian-Ionel Cioca & Mihaela Laura Bratu, 2020. "Sustainability of Youth Careers in Romania—Study on the Correlation of Students’ Personal Interests with the Selected University Field of Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lucian-Ionel Cioca & Mihaela Laura Bratu, 2020. "Sustainability of Youth Careers in Romania—Study on the Correlation of Students’ Personal Interests with the Selected University Field of Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Tetsuo Ono, 2015. "Public education and social security: a political economy approach," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-25, February.
    3. Santana, Monica & Cobo, Manuel J., 2020. "What is the future of work? A science mapping analysis," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 846-862.
    4. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2011. "Old-age Social Security vs. Forward Intergenerational Public Goods Provision," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 11-26-Rev.2, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics, revised Aug 2013.
    5. Louis W. Fry & Mai Chi Vu, 2024. "Leading Without a Self: Implications of Buddhist Practices for Pseudo-spiritual Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 41-57, February.
    6. Allen, Nicola & Pichler, Franz & Wang, Tina & Patel, Sundip & Salek, Sam, 2013. "Development of archetypes for non-ranking classification and comparison of European National Health Technology Assessment systems," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(3), pages 305-312.
    7. Jol Stoffers & Beatrice van der Heijden & Ilse Schrijver, 2019. "Towards a Sustainable Model of Innovative Work Behaviors’ Enhancement: The Mediating Role of Employability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, December.
    8. Anselm Schneider, 2015. "Reflexivity in Sustainability Accounting and Management: Transcending the Economic Focus of Corporate Sustainability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 525-536, March.
    9. Tetsuo Ono, 2016. "Marital Status and Derived Pension Rights: A Political Economy Model of Public Pensions with Borrowing Constraints," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 18(1), pages 99-124, February.
    10. M. Guerci & Giovanni Radaelli & Elena Siletti & Stefano Cirella & A. Rami Shani, 2015. "The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices and Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Ethical Climates: An Employee Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 325-342, January.
    11. Siew Ling Yew & Jie Zhang, 2018. "Health spending, savings and fertility in a lifecycle‐dynastic model with longevity externalities," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 186-215, February.
    12. Bethencourt, Carlos, 2022. "Crime and social expenditure: A political economic approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    13. Meliyanni Johar & Glenn Jones & Michael Keane & Elizabeth Savage & Olena Stavrunova, 2010. "The demand for private health insurance: do waiting lists or waiting times matter? CHERE Working Paper 2010/8," Working Papers 2010/8, CHERE, University of Technology, Sydney.
    14. Aleksandra Marcikic Horvat & Branislav Dudic & Boris Radovanov & Boban Melovic & Otilija Sedlak & Monika Davidekova, 2020. "Binary Programming Model for Rostering Ambulance Crew-Relevance for the Management and Business," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-13, December.
    15. Rawan Mazen Abukhait & Shaker Bani-Melhem & Rachid Zeffane, 2019. "Empowerment, Knowledge Sharing And Innovative Behaviours: Exploring Gender Differences," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(01), pages 1-28, January.
    16. Vicent Blanes-Selva & Ascensión Doñate-Martínez & Gordon Linklater & Jorge Garcés-Ferrer & Juan M. García-Gómez, 2021. "Responsive and Minimalist App Based on Explainable AI to Assess Palliative Care Needs during Bedside Consultations on Older Patients," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-11, September.
    17. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2014. "Old-age Social Security versus Forward Intergenerational Public Goods Provision," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 282-315, September.
    18. Annachiara Longoni & Davide Luzzini & Marco Guerci, 2018. "Deploying Environmental Management Across Functions: The Relationship Between Green Human Resource Management and Green Supply Chain Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(4), pages 1081-1095, September.
    19. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2009. "The Political Economy of Social Security and Public Goods Provision in a Borrowing-constrained Economy," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 09-38, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    20. Floriana Fusco & Marta Marsilio & Chiara Guglielmetti, 2018. "La co-production in sanit?: un?analisi bibliometrica," MECOSAN, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2018(108), pages 35-54.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:21:p:9291-:d:442078. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.