Title
Meditation Training in Organization: Effect on work Family Interaction, Stress, and Outcomes.
Abstract
This dissertation validates the use of a spirituality based Blue light Muraqaba Meditation (BLMM) intervention to positively affect work family interaction, stress and job & home outcomes. The dissertation comprise of two related studies on the subject.
In the first study, interrelationship among study variables is examined for the purpose of substantiating the existing reference points. Furthermore the objective was to produce indigenous empirical evidence that may be helpful in explaining the effects of proposed meditation based intervention. The variables include two dimensions of work family interaction (WFI) i.e. work family conflict(WFC) and work family facilitation (FWF). WFC has been studied across job and home domains i.e. work interference with family (WIF) & family interference with work (FIW). Similarly work family facilitation includes work facilitation with family (WFF) and family facilitation with work (FFW). WFI has been conceptualized as a precursor variable to stress and employee outcomes. Stress includes two types of negative and positive stress and termed as ―push stress‖ & ―pull stress‖ respectively in this dissertation. Work outcomes studied in the dissertation include motivation, performance and satisfaction across job and home domains. Work family interaction, both types of stress, motivation, performance and satisfaction across job and home domains are collectively termed as study variables. In the first study, data is collected from a sample of 291 employees of different organizations in service sector. Structured equation modeling has been used to test the fit of six proposed models and to validate the hypothetical relationships among study variables.
In the second study, a Blue Light Muraqaba meditation (BLMM) intervention is implemented in a service sector organization to gauge its effect on work family interaction, stress and outcomes. This study integrates the conceptually rich theories of work family interaction and spirituality to propose and empirically test the possible beneficial effects of BLMM intervention on study variables. Data is collected from a sample of 60 employees through a daily diary study of four weeks, using pretest posttest control group design. Multivariate analysis of variance and related procedures has been used to identify the effect of BLMM intervention on work family interaction, stress and outcomes. Empirical evidence gathered through experiment is explained in the light of first study‘s results and the finding from the previous research on meditation and study variables.
It is concluded that BLMM intervention could be effective in reducing WFC and nurturing FWF. BLMM intervention can also reduce pull stress and induce push stress and has beneficial effects on motivation, performance and satisfaction across job and home domains. Because of the scale and scope of the current study, the results cannot be generalized and findings remain somewhat tentative. However, this study opens new doors of scientific inquiry in the ―intervention‖ domain of work family interaction, stress, motivation, performance and satisfaction across job and home domains.