How can work improve family life quality? The influence of thriving at work on family role performance and work–family balance satisfaction

Abstract

This study examined how career success related to employees’ family life quality, with interpersonal capitalisation between employees’ work and family life, controlling for employees’ proactive personality. We sampled married employees from Northwest China (n = 154, females = 53.2%, mean age = 36.9 years, SD = 8.12 years). The multi-level modelling analysis results demonstrate that thriving at work positively impacts family role performance and improves work–family balance satisfaction to a significant extent, primarily through the mediating effect of work–family interpersonal capitalisation. Moreover, proactive personality moderated the relationship between thriving at work and work–family interpersonal capitalisation. Proactive personality contributed to work–family interpersonal capitalisation, strengthening the indirect relationship linking thriving at work to family role performance and work–family balance satisfaction. These findings are consistent with the work–home resources model, in that work and family roles are interconnected, as activities in the work domain can have a positive impact on outcomes in the family domain. Employer organisations should seek to provide corporate practices for employee work–family balance based on this mutually beneficial relationship linking the work and family domains.