Work-Life Balance as a Mediator between Organizational Support and Employee Performance in Fast-Paced Industries

Abstract

This article examines whether work-life balance mediates the relationship between perceived organizational support and employee performance in fast-paced industries. The study is based on a cross-sectional quantitative dataset collected from employees in Lithuania (n = 175) and Pakistan (n = 175), representing sectors such as healthcare, IT/technology, education and other service-oriented industries. Perceived organizational support was conceptualized as employees' belief that the organization values their contribution and cares about their wellbeing while work-life balance was treated as a multi-dimensional resource including nature of work, work flexibility, workload, compensation organizational support and personal life. Employee performance was measured through overall, task, contextual and counterproductive behaviour indicators. Reliability results indicated acceptable to good internal consistency across all scales, with Cronbach's alpha values ranging from .71 to .88 across the two countries. Descriptive statistics showed slightly stronger organizational support, work-life balance and employee performance in Lithuania while Pakistan reported slightly higher job stress. Correlation and regression results showed that perceived organizational support significantly predicted employee performance in Lithuania (beta = .46, R2 = .39) and Pakistan (beta = .42, R2 = .36). Mediation analysis using 5,000 bootstrap resamples confirmed that work-life balance significantly mediated the organizational support-performance relationship in both contexts: Lithuania indirect effect beta = .21, 95% CI [.12, .33] and Pakistan indirect effect beta = .19, 95% CI [.11, .30]. The findings suggest that organizational support enhances employee performance partly by helping employees manage work and personal demands. The paper concludes with practical recommendations for flexible work design, supervisor training and wellbeing-oriented HR policies.

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