Job Happiness in Startups: A Study of Job Autonomy, Work-Life Balance, and Social Support
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Dec 29, 2024
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Abstract
Working in startups has its own dynamics, as it emphasizes flexibility and freedom for employees to complete their work. This study aims to understand the drivers of job happiness for startup employees by looking into their job autonomy, work-life balance, and social support. To obtain the data, we distributed questionnaires through online platforms to 165 startup employees in Bandung and Jakarta who participated as the respondents of this study. The data is then analyzed using multiple linear regression with SPSS 26 software. The findings indicate that job autonomy, work-life balance, and social support partially and simultaneously lead to the job happiness of startup employees. These results suggest that fostering a supportive and balanced work environment with a high degree of autonomy can significantly enhance employee well-being in startups. Organizations can leverage these insights to create targeted HR strategies that promote happiness and, in turn, improve employee retention and productivity.
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References
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Maaravi, Y., Heller, B., Hochman, G., & Kanat-Maymon, Y. (2021). Internship not hard-ship: What makes interns in startup companies satisfied?. Journal of Experiential Education, 44(3), 257-276.
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Salas-Vallina, A., & Alegre, J. (2021). Happiness at work: Developing a shorter meas-ure. Journal of Management & Organization, 27(3), 460-480.
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Usai, A., Orlando, B., & Mazzoleni, A. (2020). Happiness as a driver of entrepreneurial initiative and innovation capital. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 21(6), 1229-1255.
Wood, J., Oh, J., Park, J., & Kim, W. (2020). The relationship between work engage-ment and work–life balance in organizations: A review of the empirical re-search. Human Resource Development Review, 19(3), 240-262.
Yap, W. M., & Badri, S. K. Z. (2020). What makes millennials happy in their work-place?. Asian Academy of Management Journal, 25(1).
Zaman, U., Florez-Perez, L., Farías, P., Abbasi, S., Khwaja, M. G., & Wijaksana, T. I. (2021). Shadow of your former self: exploring project leaders’ post-failure behav-iors (resilience, self-esteem and self-efficacy) in high-tech startup pro-jects. Sustainability, 13(22), 12868.
Akgunduz, Y., Bardakoglu, O., & Kizilcalioglu, G. (2023). Happiness, job stress, job dedication and perceived organizational support: a mediating model. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, 6(2), 654-673.
An, J. S., & Suh, K. H. (2023). Relationship between grateful disposition and subjective happiness of Korean young adults: focused on double mediating effect of social support and positive interpretation. Behavioral Sciences, 13(4), 287.
Brough, P., Timms, C., Chan, X. W., Hawkes, A., & Rasmussen, L. (2020). Work–life balance: Definitions, causes, and consequences. Handbook of socioeconomic determinants of occupational health: From macro-level to micro-level evidence, 473-487.
Clausen, T., Pedersen, L. R. M., Andersen, M. F., Theorell, T., & Madsen, I. E. (2022). Job autonomy and psychological well-being: A linear or a non-linear associa-tion?. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 31(3), 395-405.
Dong, R., Wu, H., Ni, S., & Lu, T. (2021). The nonlinear consequences of working hours for job satisfaction: The moderating role of job autonomy. Current Psychology, 1-22.
Frare, A. B., & Beuren, I. M. (2021). Job autonomy, unscripted agility and ambidextrous innovation: analysis of Brazilian startups in times of the Covid-19 pandem-ic. Revista de Gestão, 28(3), 263-278.
Goel, P., & Singh, A. (2023). Validation of happiness at workplace scale in India–an em-pirical study on EdTech employees. Industrial and Commercial Training, 55(4), 441-456.
Grey, I., Arora, T., Thomas, J., Saneh, A., Tohme, P., & Abi-Habib, R. (2020). The role of perceived social support on depression and sleep during the COVID-19 pandem-ic. Psychiatry research, 293, 113452.
Kanchana, L., & Jayathilaka, R. (2023). Factors impacting employee turnover intentions among professionals in Sri Lankan startups. Plos one, 18(2), e0281729.
Khoshnaw, S., & Alavi, H. (2020). Examining the interrelation between job autonomy and job performance: A critical literature review. Multidisciplinary Aspects of Pro-duction Engineering, 3(1), 606-616.
Kong, F., Yang, K., Yan, W., & Li, X. (2021). How does trait gratitude relate to subjective well-being in Chinese adolescents? The mediating role of resilience and social support. Journal of Happiness Studies, 22, 1611-1622.
Labrague, L. J. (2021). Psychological resilience, coping behaviours and social support among health care workers during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A systematic review of quantitative studies. Journal of nursing management, 29(7), 1893-1905.
Maaravi, Y., Heller, B., Hochman, G., & Kanat-Maymon, Y. (2021). Internship not hard-ship: What makes interns in startup companies satisfied?. Journal of Experiential Education, 44(3), 257-276.
Melie, A. E. F., Schulp, J. A., & de Boer, M. R. (2020). Happiness at work: a phenome-nological study of the experiences of hospitality industry employees. Research in Hospitality Management, 10(1), 63-66.
Niebuhr, F., Borle, P., Börner-Zobel, F., & Voelter-Mahlknecht, S. (2022). Healthy and happy working from home? Effects of working from home on employee health and job satisfaction. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(3), 1122.
Roy, R., & Konwar, J. (2020). Workplace happiness: a conceptual frame-work. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 9(1), 4452-4459.
Salas-Vallina, A., & Alegre, J. (2021). Happiness at work: Developing a shorter meas-ure. Journal of Management & Organization, 27(3), 460-480.
Sawang, S., O’Connor, P. J., Kivits, R. A., & Jones, P. (2020). Business owner-managers’ job autonomy and job satisfaction: Up, down or no change?. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1506.
Setiawan, R., Eliyana, A., Suryani, T., & Handojo, A. (2020). Maximizing happiness at work: the best practices of transformational leadership at food and beverage start-up business in Indonesia (Doctoral dissertation, Petra Christian University).
Thompson, A., & Bruk-Lee, V. (2021). Employee happiness: why we should care. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 16(4), 1419-1437.
Usai, A., Orlando, B., & Mazzoleni, A. (2020). Happiness as a driver of entrepreneurial initiative and innovation capital. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 21(6), 1229-1255.
Wood, J., Oh, J., Park, J., & Kim, W. (2020). The relationship between work engage-ment and work–life balance in organizations: A review of the empirical re-search. Human Resource Development Review, 19(3), 240-262.
Yap, W. M., & Badri, S. K. Z. (2020). What makes millennials happy in their work-place?. Asian Academy of Management Journal, 25(1).
Zaman, U., Florez-Perez, L., Farías, P., Abbasi, S., Khwaja, M. G., & Wijaksana, T. I. (2021). Shadow of your former self: exploring project leaders’ post-failure behav-iors (resilience, self-esteem and self-efficacy) in high-tech startup pro-jects. Sustainability, 13(22), 12868.