Editorial Board

A Refereed Monthly International Journal of Management

Occupational Stress and Work-Life Balance among Jurisdiction Professionals: A PLS-SEM Approach

Dr. Chand P Saini

Associate Professor,

School of Management & Commerce,

Manav Rachna University, Gurugram, India

E- Mail- chandsaini03@gmail.com

Nisha Gaur

Research Scholar,

Faculty of Commerce & Management,

SGT University, Gurugram, India

E- Mail- nishagaur816@gmail.com

Dr.Ritu Yadav

Assistant Professor,

Department of Management,

Gurugram University, Gurugram, India

E- Mail- rituyadav49@gmail.com

Abstract

Jurisdiction professionals are working under huge stress impacting their health and personal life. This empirical investigation attempts to identify the occupational stress of jurisdictional professionals and its impact on their work-life balance. Using snowball sampling, a sample of 130 jurisdictions professionals from National Capital Region (NCR), India, has been taken. PLS-SEM has been used for analyzing the data collected using a questionnaire. Based on the literature review, four occupational stress have been taken for this investigation: job demand-based stress, earning-based stress, time-based stress and personal competency-based stress. The study's findings showed that job-demand-based stress, time-based stress and personal competency-based stress significantly create work-balance issues among jurisdictional professionals, while earning-based stress did not significantly impact work-life balance issues. The finding of the study shows theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords: Jurisdiction professionals; PLS- SEM; Occupational stress; Work-life balance.

Introduction

Job insecurity, inflexible work nature, and high workloads cause increased stress issues (Confederation of British Industry, 2013). The growth in the Indian economy has put forth a more grounded defence for work-life balance in India. The Indian workforce is a more prominent worry than partners in created countries (Lucas, Weidner and Janisse, 2012). Personal and career objectives are the most crucial goal in a person's life. In every sector, organizations seek the output from the performance of the employees.

What one individual may see as unpleasant, be that as it may, another may see as trying. Regardless of whether an individual encounter work stress relies upon the activity, the individual's mental make-up, and different components (Tsai and Chan, 2010). The state recruits judges and prosecution officers to advocate and sustain integrity. Therefore, judges and prosecutors are entrusted with extracting the truth from contradictory sources of information and interrogating suspects. Nowadays, criminal offences are increasing rapidly, creating immense pressure on judges and lawyers. Various analysts have considered the pressure that judges and legal hearers experience. The major factor that gets affected by work stress is balancing work life (Tsai and Chan, 2010). Work-life balance helps to increase the person's productivity; otherwise, it leads to many issues facing judges and the lawyers. So the study is to discuss the impact of work stress on work-life balance in the lives of judicial officers to show how important it is in the current scenario.

Theoretical framework

Occupational stress:

Stress is a situation where psychological equilibrium is disturbed because of greater demands than the individual's capability (Levy and Wegman, 1988). Recently, the economy is witnessing rapid increase in work stress due to job insecurity, inflexible work nature, high workloads etc. (Confederation of British Industry, 2013). Occupational stress or work stress refers to a condition of mental and physical exertion generated due to dissatisfying elements and harassing events at the workplace (Okebukola and Jegede, 1989) and generated due to high demands and undue work pressure placed before the employee (Health and Safety Executive, 2015). Workplace stress passes from five stages: the honeymoon stage; full throttle stage; chronic symptom stage; crisis stage; Hitting the wall stage (Pestonjee, 1992). The same research highlighted that the employee was full of enthusiasm and excitement during the honeymoon stage of stress. During the throttle stage, a feeling of dissatisfaction is generated due to the depletion of resources. At the chronic stage, symptoms like physical illness, anger and depression occur. At the crisis stage persistence of chronic symptoms generate other health issues like headache, high BP, and insomnia, and at hitting the wall stage, a person surrenders before the situation and reaches the end of one's professional career.

Unlike other professions, Jurisdiction is one of the oldest professions but is not free from stress. Bienen(1993), Hafemeister (1998), and NCSC (2002) accepted the presence of substantial stress among jurisdiction professionals. NCSC (2002) notified that the major cause of judges' stress was exposure to gruesome evidence. Their concern towards their safety was also identified as a cause of work stress among them. Lyon (2015) found that every professional lawyer faces stress at some point in their career. The nature of the work was found to be the major cause for their stress, along with workload, disciplinary issues, bullying and financial problems. A survey by Key point law (2016) highlighted that demand for better benefits, a shorter commute, better management, flexible working hours, and better collaboration is still an unresolved problem for law professionals. Samarasekara et al. (2015) reported that the law profession has the problem of high job control and psychological job demand. They also highlighted the issues of personal and client-related burnout. 

Work-life balance:

Clark (2000) defines work-life balance as "satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home, with a minimum of role conflict." It denotes the making harmony between one's personal and professional life. Spiralling of work and focus on the quality of home and social life leads to an increase individual concern for work-life balance (Guest, 2002). A healthy balance between work and personal life results benefits both employer and employee in the form of family satisfaction, job satisfaction, job performance, and organizational commitment (Sirgy and  Lee 2017) and poor work-life balance leads to poorer work quality, lower productivity, higher absenteeism and staff turnover (Seligman, 2011), also creates health problems among individuals (Frone et al., 1997). Work-life balance adversely affects both employer and individual (Guest, 2002; Frone et al., 1997).

Issues in work-life balance is a universal problem prevailing among all professions, industries, type of organizations etc., and only a degree can vary (Casper et al., 2007). Jurisdiction professionals face various issues during their personal and professional life balance (Chamberlain and Miller, 2008; Anleu and Mack, 2013; Schrever et al., 2019). Dissatisfaction based on the work-life balance among judiciary professionals was reported by Anleu and Mack (2013). Significant work-life balance issues were noticed among lawyers because of more involvement in community services that destruct them from family life (Davis, 2011). Female legal professionals struggled more to manage their personal and professional life. They faced challenges regarding the caretaking of children, health and other domestic issues (Gillespie and Temple, 2009).

Occupational stress and work-life balance among jurisdiction professionals

Job demand-based stress and issues in work-life balance

Job demand was defined by Bakker and Demerouti (2007) as the "physical, social, or organizational aspect of the job that requires sustained physical and/or psychological effort or skill and is associated with certain physiological and/or psychological costs." Demerouti et al. (2001) stated that one could exhaust one's energy to cope with job demands, resulting in the depletion of resources that further causes job demand-based stress.   Monika (2019) highlighted that law professional always works under huge pressure generated due to the nature of the profession as they have to deal with critical cases of their clients. A survey by Mondal et al. (2018) reported that work stress causes widespread health and mental issues among law professionals. Samarasekara et al. (2015) researched that law professionals have a high degree of job control and psychological job demand that lead to burnout. Thus, the following hypothesis can be proposed:

H1: Job demand-based occupational stress significantly creates issues in work-life balance among jurisdiction professionals.

Earning-based stress and issues in work-life balance

Money is the most common cause of stress. As per the survey by American Psychological Association, 72% of adults were facing stress due to monetary issues. Scott (2020) reported that financial stress had an adverse effect on physical and mental health. Michie (2002) accepted that financial difficulties cause stress among employees and affect their family life and health.   Lyon (2015) highlighted that law professionals faced stress due to financial issues. Davis (2020) represented money and satisfaction relation as complex and highlighted the prior role of creativity, prestige and play in work over monetary benefits among law professionals. From the above discussion, the following hypothesis can be framed:

H2: Earning-based occupational stress significantly creates issues in work-life balance among jurisdiction professionals.

Time-based stress and issues in work-life balance

Time-based stress denotes the pervasive feeling of an individual about time that there is not enough time to complete the task (Albrecht, 1979). Michie (2002) highlighted that time pressure to complete a task generates mental and physical health issues and disturbs an individual's family life. Teichmann et al. (2015) reported the issue of high workloads with time pressure among legal professionals that results in stress. Poor work-life balance issue was also raised in this investigation. Hence, the following hypothesis can be developed from the above discussion:

H3: Time-based occupational stress significantly creates issues in work-life balance in jurisdiction professionals.

Personal competency-based stress and issues in work-life balance

Rankin (2002) defined personal competence as "a collection of behaviours and skills people are expected to show in their organization." Lewis et al. (2010) highlighted that managing workload and resources, individual consideration, and a participative approach were the required competencies for performing any task and the absence of that caused stress among employees. James (2008) study reported that emotional intelligence is essential for balancing personal and professional values. Mondal et al. (2018) research that competency mapping is the key to work-life balance, and the absence of competency mapping creates issues in employees' work-life balance. From the above discussion, the following hypothesis can be developed:

H4: Personal competency-based occupational stress significantly creates issues in work-life balance among jurisdiction professionals.

Figure 1: Conceptual model based on literature

Source: Compiled by researcher on the basis of extensive literature

Methodology and procedure

The researcher has conducted this empirical investigation to measure the impact of work stress due to job demand, hearing time and personal competencies on the work-life balance among jurisdiction professionals. Using snowball sampling, a sample of 130 jurisdiction professionals has been taken from National Capital Region (NCR), India. A semi-structured questionnaire was shared within our group with a request to forward it to their group. The questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first part contained demographic questions along with a brief note about the confidentiality of their name, position and address. The second part included statements related to work stress and work-life balance. There were a total of 22 statements, out of which 17 were related to work stress grouped under four heads: Job demand based stress (5 items), Earning based stress (4 items); Time based stress (4 items) and Personal competency-based stress (4 items) and remaining 5 statements framed to measure work-life balance issues. The conceptual model for the study is shown in figure 1. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling was applied to analyze the data.

Sampling characteristics

Out of 130 collected responses 125 questionnaires were found appropriate for further analysis after eliminating 5 wrongly filled questionnaires from the final analysis. The final 125 respondents included 45 (36%) males and 80 (64%) females. 25 (20%) respondents were judges, 55 (44%) respondents were law counselors, and the remaining 44 (36%) respondents were working in administrative positions in judiciary machinery.

Results and Discussion

The Partial Least Square based Structure Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to measure work stress's impact on work-life balance issues among jurisdiction professionals. PLS-SEM shows good results even with a small sample size (Fornell and Bookstein, 1982; Willaby et al., 2015). PLS-SEM is not based on distributional assumptions like covariance base structure equation modelling (CB- SEM) and efficiently analyses complex models with many constructs and independent and dependent variables (Hair et al., 2019). In current research impact of work stress generated due to Job demand, Earning, Time and Personal competencies required for performing that job on work-life balance has been analyzed.

Measurement Model:

The measurement model was assessed on the basis of criteria suggested by Hair et al. (2019). Indicator loading, Reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity were computed for evaluating the measurement model. As per the recommendation of Hair et al. (2019), an indicator loading greater than 0.708 was accepted for further analysis. All the indicators in this research achieved the cut-off criteria (table 1).

Table1: Measurement items and indicator loadings

Source: Primary Data

Internal consistency of data was checked using Composite Reliability, Cronbach's alpha (α), and Roh_A with a threshold value of 0.7 (Hair et al., 2019). The model did not show any reliability issues (table 2). Further convergent validity of the constructs was assessed based on the Average Variance Extracted (AVE). Table 2 shows that no convergent validity issue was reported in the model, as all the constructs had AVE> 0.5 (Hair et al., 2019).

Table 2: Reliability and Convergent validity assessment

Source: Primary Data

The discriminant validity of the constructs was evaluated based on Fornell–Lacker criterion and Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio (HTMT) criteria. Discriminant validity assesses the uniqueness of the construct (Hair et al., 2010). No discriminant validity was identified based on the Fornell–Lacker criterion and the Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio (HTMT) criteria. Fornell–Lacker discriminant validity results are shown in Table 3, and the Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio (HTMT) is shown in table 4.

Table 3: Discriminant validity based on Fornell–Lacker criterion

Source: Primary Data

Table 4: Discriminant validity based on Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio (HTMT)

Source: Primary Data

Structure model

Bootstrapping based on 2000 resamples using a bias-corrected and accelerated (BCa) bootstrap approach at a 95% significance level was performed to assess the significance of hypothesized relations. The coefficient of determination (R²), the strength of the effect (f²), and the blindfolding-based cross-validated redundancy measure (Q²) were also used to assess the model. R² was used to assess the explanatory power of the model. The R² value for work-life balance was found to be 0.403, which depicted that independent variables measured 40.3% work-life balance variance. The adjusted R²  value for the model was 0.383. Based on the f² value (table 5), results found that personal competencies (f²= 0.118), professional demand (f²= 0.059), and time-based stress (f²= 0.031) showed a weak effect on work-life balance as per the criteria of Henseler et al. (2015). Blindfolding-based cross-validated redundancy measure (Q²) was used to measure the predictive capability of the parameters. Q² for the model was 0.248, greater than 0 (Hair et al., 2017), confirming the model's predictive relevance. Variance inflation factor (VIF) was also computed for all the hypothesized relations to check the lateral multi-collinearity effect, and results found no multi-collinearity issue among all the relations. The values of VIF (table 5) for all relations were found between 1.313 to 1.965 and less than 3, as Hair et al.(2017) recommended.

The model found a good fit to data based on model fit indices computed under PLS-SEM. The computed value of the Standardized Root Mean Square Ratio (SRMR) was found to be 0.072, that fall under an acceptable range of < 0.08 suggested by Henseler et al. (2015). The computed chi-square value for the model was 410.329 with NFI= 0.773.

The statistical significance of hypothesized relation was assessed by bootstrapping technique. Results found that job demand-based stress (β = 0.263; T= 2.744; P= 0.006) significantly impacted the work-life balance issues. Hence, hypothesis H1 was accepted. A positive sign of β indicated that work stress due to job demand created issues in the work-life balance of jurisdiction professionals. Previous studies by Samarasekara et al. (2015)  and Monika (2019) also supported this study. Contrary to previous studies by Scott( 2020); Michie (2002), in this study, stress based on earning (β= 0.077; T= 1.07; P= 0.285) did not show any significant impact on work-life balance issues, and Hypothesis H2 was rejected at this moment. Davis (2020) also accepted the less prior role of earnings for legal professionals. Time-based stress (β= 0.186, T= 1.985; P= 0.047) was also significantly linked with work-life balance issues, providing an opportunity to accept hypothesis H3. The study of Teichmann et al. (2015) also supported that pressure created because of time adversely affected the work-life balance. Personal competencies required for performing the job (β= 0.304; T= 4.27; P= 0.000) significantly impacted work-life balance issues, and the H4 hypothesis was accepted. This finding was supported by the studies of James (2008); Mondal et al. (2018), which highlighted the importance of competency mapping for managing work stress and maintaining a balance between personal and professional values. 

Table 5: Hypothesis test results

Source: Author's Compilation

(Note: R²= 0.403; Adjusted R²= 0.383; Q²= 0.248; JD- Job demand; EARN - Earning based; PC- Personal competencies; WLB- Work life balance issues)

Figure 2: Structure model with standardized indicator loadings and path coefficients

Source: AMOS outpu

Conclusion, Contribution and Future Scope of the study

The jurisdiction profession is the oldest and most challenging profession because it administers justice in society. Jurisdictional professionals are working under huge stress, and little research has been done to measure their profession's issues. This study highlighted the occupational stress issues among jurisdictional professionals and their impact on their work-life balance. The study's results proved that Job-demand based stress, time-based stress and personal competency-based stress significantly generated work-life balance issues. In contrast, occupational stress due to earnings did not create any significant work-life balance issues among jurisdictional professionals.

This study makes a significant contribution, both theoretical and practical, as the stress and work-life balance of legal professionals is still unexplored. This study adds one quality research and provides strength to existing literature. Through this empirical investigation, researchers and academicians working in this area benefit. The study findings also help the authorities reconsider this neglected issue and take appropriate action for coping with work stress and helping professionals maintain a balance between personal and professional life.

This research has been conducted over a limited sample and geographical area, which created difficulty in generalizing the study results. So that further research can be conducted by taking different samples over a large geographical area, a comparative assessment can be done among male and female law professionals based on occupational stress and their work-life balance.

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