Does Leisure Contribute to the Improvement of Individual Job Performance? A Field Tracking Study Based on the Chinese Manufacturing Industry

Pengfei Wang, Xiang Wei, Diancheng Hu and Fang Meng
Additional contact information
Pengfei Wang: School of Land and Tourism, Luoyang Normal University, Luoyang 471934, China
Xiang Wei: Financial Strategy Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100006, China
Diancheng Hu: Business School, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 102488, China
Fang Meng: School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management, College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: Theories of work–life balance (WLB) examine the dynamics of the relationship between work and life, but no universally accepted conclusion has yet been achieved. This study examines the effect of leisure time on job performance using first-hand data obtained in a field study in the Chinese manufacturing industry. The results reveal that the relationship between leisure participation and individual job performance presents an inverted U-shaped nonlinear relationship. Endogenous testing and robustness testing also demonstrated the reliability of the findings. In this study, we identified an “opportunity window” which promotes the best individual job performance, with an average daily leisure time threshold of 4.7 h. Our analysis of the underlying mechanism showed that leisure participation has an impact on job performance through physical health and happiness. This study advances the literature on the leisure economy and provides insights into work–life balance and optimal leisure time allocation on a daily basis.

Keywords: leisure time; leisure participation; field tracking study; job performance; Chinese manufacturing industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/11/6594/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/11/6594/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:11:p:6594-:d:826163

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().