Relationship between employee well-being and organizational health: symbiotic or independent?

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand the bi-directional causal relationship (regular and reverse causation) between employee well-being and organizational health, which is grounded in the micro-foundations of institutional theory. Design/methodology/approach In this study, employee well-being has two facets: work engagement and burnout. The positive aspect of employee well-being has been conceptualized by work engagement, whereas the negative aspect has been conceptualized with the help of burnout. As concurrent triangulation method was adopted, the qualitative data, as well as quantitative data, was collected from various laboratories of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – an Indian research and development organization. Findings The findings did not show the existence of a symbiotic relationship between employee well-being and organizational health. The findings indicated the existence of a significant positive relationship between organizational health and employee well-being, but the reverse effect was found to be non-significant. This shows that when organizational health is good, employees’ health will also be good but not vice versa. Originality/value This study shows that health is not a static state, and so, at any given point in time, employee well-being cannot have a positive relationship with organizational health. Employee engagement helps enhance organizational health, whereas burnout can hinder organizational health if not properly mitigated.