Impact of Work-Life Balance on Employee Work Performance: The Mediating Role of Employee Creativity

Modern people have many personal and professional obligations. Work-life balance has become a key factor that attracts more people. This study investigates the relationships between work-life balance, employee creativity, and work performance. Five main aspects of work-life balance are explored, including work overload, work stress, flexible work arrangements, family responsibilities, and organizational support. 419 accounting and auditing personnel in Vietnam are surveyed to obtain research data. Qualitative research methods were used to better understand the relationships and improve the pre-designed questionnaire. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method is used to estimate the relationships between concepts. Three dimensions of work-life balance, including work overload, work stress, and family responsibilities, have harmful impacts on work performance, according to the findings. On the other hand, increasing flexible work arrangements and organizational support promote work performance. In addition, employee creativity acts as a mediating variable, enhancing the positive effect of organizational support on work performance. The findings provide important empirical evidence for management recommendations to improve employee work performance by reducing the negative effects of work overload, work stress, and family responsibilities while increasing the positive effects of flexible work arrangements, organizational support, and employee creativity.