Implementing family-friendly employment practices in banking industry: Evidences from some African and Asian countries

We examined the effects of family-friendly policies (child-care benefits and work flexibility benefits) on organizational commitment and work-family conflict in four developing countries: China, India, Kenya, and Thailand. We also explored the boundary condition (e.g., perceived importance of family-friendly programmes) under which family-friendly policies are more (or less) effective in influencing organizational commitment and reducing work-family conflict. Results revealed national similarities on the effect of flexibility benefits on organizational commitment and work-family conflict. Specifically, we found that across the four countries work flexibility-related family-friendly policy was positively related to organizational commitment and negatively to perceived work-family conflict among those who perceived this policy as more important than less important. Instead, national variations are found in the results regarding child-care benefits. Among these four countries, Kenya and Thailand are two countries in which child-care-related family-friendly policies showed a significant and positive relationship with organizational commitment and/or a significant and negative relationship with work-family conflict. We also found child-care-related family-friendly policies had differential effect among people with various perception of policy importance in Kenya and Thailand, but not in China and India. Particularly, child-care-related family-friendly policy results in greater organizational commitment and lower work-family conflict among those who perceived this policy as more important than less important in Kenya and Thailand. Implications for cross-cultural research, theory and practice are discussed.