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Article

The Effect of Work–Family Facilitation on Employee Proactive Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model

by
Hongyuan Zhang
1,
Chang Liu
1,* and
Shuming Zhao
2
1
School of Business, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang 222005, China
2
School of Business, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2025, 17(4), 1390; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17041390
Submission received: 21 December 2024 / Revised: 28 January 2025 / Accepted: 6 February 2025 / Published: 8 February 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Organizational Psychology—2nd Edition)
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Abstract

:
Work–family relationships play a crucial role in employee performance and organizational sustainability. This study explores the mechanisms and boundary conditions of how work–family facilitation (WFF) influences employee proactive behavior (PB) by constructing a theoretical model that incorporates psychological capital (PC) as a mediator and high-commitment work systems (HCWS) as a moderator. Based on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and Social Exchange Theory, data were collected from 126 enterprises in Nanjing, Hefei, Nantong, and Lianyungang through stratified sampling, and the analysis was conducted using SPSS, MPLUS and HLM software. Cross-level regression analysis and path analysis revealed that WFF positively impacts PB, with PC mediating this relationship. Furthermore, HCWS significantly moderates the effect of PC on PB. The findings highlight the importance of fostering a supportive work–family balance, enhancing employees’ psychological capital, and implementing HCWS to encourage proactive behaviors and drive organizational sustainability. This study offers theoretical insights and practical recommendations for optimizing human resource management practices to unlock employee potential and enhance organizational innovation and competitiveness.

1. Introduction

Under the new wave of industrial change and technological innovation, enterprises are facing increasingly severe external competitive pressure and the need to change their internal management. As the core asset of an enterprise, the behavior of employees directly affects management effectiveness and the sustainable development of the enterprise. Employee proactive behavior refers to the collection of positive behaviors consciously adopted by employees aimed at improving and changing the enterprise environment and their own behavioral patterns [1]. Characterized by going beyond job requirements, being forward-thinking, and being spontaneous, such behavior is widely regarded as a key driver of innovation and development within organizations. Existing studies have shown that employee proactive behavior not only enhances work performance and promotes career development but also reduces operational costs, improves organizational efficiency, and provides strong support for the sustainable development of enterprises [2]. In the era of the digital economy, a new generation of employees has become the backbone of enterprise innovation and development. Born in the 1980s and 1990s, these new-generation employees have been profoundly influenced by globalization and the Internet era and show stronger self-awareness, higher achievement motivation, and an enhanced pursuit of freedom and value realization compared with traditional employees [3]. However, these unique work characteristics also challenge the traditional management mode, and how to stimulate the initiative behavior of the new generation of employees to inject vitality into sustainable development within the enterprise has become an urgent research question.
Existing research on the impact of work–family facilitation on work engagement [4], employee burnout [5], and organizational citizenship behavior requires further exploration [6]. Although there have been studies that have explored many factors affecting employees’ proactive behaviors, such as humble leadership [7], enterprise union practices [8], and learning organizations [9], little attention has been paid to work–family relationships, a social and organizational contextual variable that has a significant impact on employee behaviors. In addition, with the change in labor structure and the increasing demand for a happy life, employees, especially the new generation of employees, are paying increased attention to the balance between work and family. Work–family facilitation, characterized by a positive relationship of mutual support and resource sharing between work and family, not only contributes to the enhancement of employees’ family well-being but may also be an important mechanism to stimulate proactive behaviors [10,11]. This paper examines the link between work–family facilitation and employee proactive behavior from the perspective of positive organizational behavior, thereby enriching and expanding related theoretical research. This paper proposes psychological capital as a key mediating mechanism based on resource preservation theory. Psychological capital is a psychological resource that encompasses dimensions such as self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience, which can help employees acquire more resources [12,13]. We hypothesize that work–family facilitation can significantly enhance psychological capital by providing employees with emotional resources and back-end support, which can further motivate proactive behaviors [14]. In addition, the association between work–family relationships and employee proactive behavior is moderated by organizational factors. High-commitment work systems, as a human resource management practice that emphasizes employee commitment, create supportive work environments for employees by establishing long-term stable emotional relationships [15]. However, existing research has not yet delved into the moderating role of high-commitment work systems in the relationship between work–family facilitation and proactive employee behaviors, and the exploration of this area has important theoretical value and practical significance.
In summary, this paper addresses the following research questions: How does work–family facilitation affect employee proactive behavior? Does psychological capital play a mediating role in this process? What is the moderating role of high-commitment work systems in this relationship? The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it is the first time that a comprehensive model has been constructed and validated from the perspective of work–family facilitation, combining psychological capital and the high-commitment work system, which provides new ideas for enterprises to optimize their human resource management practices in the context of sustainable development.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Relationship Between Work–Family Facilitation and Employee Proactive Behavior

Individual employees receive basic psychological need fulfillment, as well as other meaningful resources (e.g., self-satisfaction, personality integrity, etc.), from different activities in both the work and family dimensions. Chen Yun et al. (2017) employed a random effects model using R software to conduct a cross-matching analysis, demonstrating that the positive impact of work–family facilitation on job performance is significant. Specifically, work–family facilitation can yield beneficial effects for employees [16]. Employee proactive behavior is a positive behavioral characteristic of employees who show a variety of positive behaviors, such as autonomy, constructive behaviors, and other positive behaviors in their usual work [17]. Employees improve their initiative to adapt to the environment and change themselves to realize their value and satisfy their needs [18]. Employees with proactive behavioral traits are generally motivated to act spontaneously to improve their work, organization, etc., and to broaden their roles [1], which means that employees are driven by their personal needs, motivations, ideals, and values and can act according to their plans or set goals [19]. Resource Conservation Theory states that existing resources can generate new resources for an individual, so to be able to withstand the risks that may be encountered in the future, an individual will utilize the resources they already have to obtain more new resources by continuously broadening their path. Therefore, when implementing proactive behaviors, employees need to be driven by elements such as motivation and desirable values, and then a large number of resources, such as motivation and psychological tolerance, will be consumed during the implementation of this behavior. For example, Fay and Hüttges (2017) found through their study that employees feel very tired when they go to sleep every night after implementing proactive behaviors [20]. The promotion of work–family integration can provide abundant emotional resources and supportive encouragement from the family. It serves as a channel for acquiring resources in the workplace. The psychological capital and positive emotions accumulated during this process enhance employees’ positive emotional experiences related to their work, enabling them to fulfill their job roles more effectively. Consequently, employees are likely to express more favorable evaluations of their work and organization, thereby sustaining a lasting, positive, and enjoyable state of engagement at work [21,22]. Therefore, work–family facilitation increases employee proactive behavior.
Hypothesis 1:
Work–family facilitation has a positive effect on employee proactive behavior.

2.2. Mediating Role of Psychological Capital

The role played by psychological capital in the field of human resource management is becoming more and more important [23] and is seen as the fourth largest capital in the enterprise human, financial, and social networking capital [24]. Luthans et al. (2004) consider psychological capital to be a positive psychological trait, a positive state of mind acquired by an employee in the process of acquiring social networking, which can be categorized into four dimensions: self-confidence (self-efficacy), optimism, resilience, and hope [25]. Gruman and Saks (2013) suggest that different social resources, such as training or anticipatory socialization, improve employees’ psychological capital, which in turn positively affects outcomes, including well-being [26]. Many scholars have found that work–family facilitation is a positive experience that enables individuals to obtain more resources [27,28] that can contribute to the four dimensions of psychological capital. According to the Resource Conservation Theory, individuals tend to use the resources they already have to acquire more resources to protect themselves against the risks they may encounter in the future [20]. Employees with high levels of work–family facilitation can use their accumulated resources (e.g., positive emotions, family support, etc.) to become more confident in the face of stress and risk and to increase their self-efficacy to cope with challenging work tasks; sustained work–family facilitation experiences and the support of family resources also allow employees to be more positive in thinking about the present and the future and to increase their level of optimism. The rich emotional resources and family encouragement fostered by work–family facilitation and “no worries” can enhance the psychological resilience of individuals, alleviate the negative impacts of stress, and help them to recover from adversity; positive emotional resources can also inspire individuals to divergent thinking, improve the cognitive level of employees, and make them flexible in their approach to accomplishing their work tasks, thus making them hopeful. The abovementioned analysis shows that work–family facilitation can help individuals gain self-efficacy, positive emotions, and confidence in dealing with challenges and reduce negative emotions when they encounter setbacks. Therefore, work–family facilitation can continuously develop and strengthen the psychological capital of individual employees.
Employee proactive behaviors are shown to be transformative, forward-looking, and proactive. Psychological capital is a positive psychological quality of an individual, the essence of which is presented in the form of capital that can have a closer and more direct impact on employee behavior and performance [29]. Resource Conservation Theory points out that when an individual has abundant resources, the individual will acquire more new resources by continuously broadening the path. For employees, psychological capital is a kind of psychological resource, when the level of employees’ psychological capital is in a low state, employees are generally more conservative and unwilling to act, while when the level of employees’ psychological capital is in a high state, employees tend to take action to obtain more resources. At the same time, the four dimensions of psychological capital will also have a positive impact on employee proactive behavior: Self-confidence refers to the degree of success of an individual who believes that he or she can do something [30], allowing employees to positively face setbacks and improve psychological resilience; self-confident employees also have greater confidence that the organization is willing to accept their proactive behavior and in turn are more willing to initiate work behaviors that are beneficial to the organization [31,32]. Hope is a positive cognitive state; if the employee’s hope level is high, he will make time and operability work plan to achieve the goal, and when encountering difficulties, he will overcome them with perseverance and positive action to produce active behavior continuously [33]. Optimism is an individual’s positive attribution of any event and positive anticipation of the result. Optimistic individuals with positive expectations have strong expectations for the organization to develop in a better direction and are more likely to make proactive behaviors conducive to the development of the organization [34]. Resilience is an individual’s ability to resist and recover from negative events. An individual with a high level of resilience is often able to respond positively and adapt quickly when faced with an active behavior that is defined by a leader or a colleague as something that is outside the scope of his or her responsibilities, which is conducive to identifying the right time to perform the active behavior next time [35]. Therefore, psychological capital is a positive contributor to employees’ proactive behavior. This assertion is also supported by the existing relevant studies. For example, Carlos et al. (2023) showed that an individual’s positive psychological capital can activate social resources and autonomous motivation, which leads to the performance of more innovative behaviors [36]. Irfan et al. (2024) pointed out that psychological capital is the innovative work behaviors of employees as a key influencing factor [37]. According to the connotation definition of innovative behavior in mainstream theories, employee innovative behavior usually refers to employee initiative innovative behavior, i.e., employees engage in innovative behavior proactively and voluntarily [38]; therefore, employee innovative behavior is also a manifestation of proactive behavior.
Through positive interaction and communication with employees, work–family facilitation improves their way of thinking and mental models, helps them shape a more positive mental state, enhances their psychological capital, and equips them with stronger self-confidence and executive power when facing additional work tasks and challenges, thus making it more likely that they will adopt proactive behaviors to achieve their goals in the work process.
Hypothesis 2:
Psychological capital mediates the process of the positive influence of work–family facilitation on employees’ proactive behavior.

2.3. The Regulating Role of the High-Commitment Work System

Employees’ proactive behaviors consume resources; however, that does not mean that all employees have to consume their resources to support themselves. High-commitment work systems are able to generate psychological resources that can support and facilitate employees to carry out proactive behaviors at work. Social Exchange Theory is an important theory that explains the impact of human resource management practices on the attitudes and behavioral outcomes of employees. Employees can learn about the attitudes of enterprises toward them through the policies and procedures implemented by the enterprises and form an exchange relationship with the enterprises [39], whose exchange content mainly consists of more recognition, commitment, and so on. A high-commitment work system can improve employees’ organizational commitment, which, in practice, covers employment guarantee, training and development programs, team-based performance appraisal, rotation, flexible work design, participation in decision-making, etc. [40]. Therefore, in the high-commitment work system, the organization analyzes the current status of employees’ competence and then conducts targeted training, which improves the employees’ skills and, at the same time, conveys the organization’s expectation of implementing proactive behaviors to the employees [41]. Providing competitive salaries, career development opportunities, etc., will make the employees feel that the organization attaches great importance to them and that they have the opportunity to secure a promotion within the organization, which will lead to the employees having a greater sense of obligation to reciprocate [42], which not only builds employees’ psychological commitment to their employer but also promotes higher motivation to take risks.
In addition, given the risks associated with proactive behaviors, employees may have concerns before implementation. The high-commitment work system empowers employees through the implementation of participatory decision-making, information sharing, and team-based work practices and reduces employees’ worries by letting them know that the organization is inclusive of their initiatives. High-commitment work systems reduce the perceived cost of mistakes and increase psychological security, which in turn makes employees more willing to engage in proactive behaviors [43]. High-commitment work systems can also make employees realize that they are valued by the organization in terms of competence, performance, and other aspects of improvement through a variety of human resource management practice measures, which will motivate employees to continue to learn and pursue excellence, and employees may be more active and spontaneous in promoting proactive behaviors under this organizational management model. On the contrary, when the organization implements low-commitment HRM practices, the organization treats the employees more in line with their current performance appraisal, which to some extent will place a psychological burden on the employees; in the long run, the employees will be afraid of making mistakes and being punished, thereby reducing proactive behaviors, and then the employees will inhibit exploratory behaviors and will be more inclined to maintain the status quo instead of changing. Thus, the proactive behaviors of the employees will be continuously reduced. Therefore, the greater role of psychological capital in influencing the proactive behavior of employees will be in organizations that implement high-commitment work systems.
Hypothesis 3:
High-commitment work systems significantly enhance the moderating effect of psychological capital on employee proactive behavior. Specifically, the influence of psychological capital on proactive behavior is more pronounced in organizations that adopt high-commitment work systems compared to those with low-commitment human resource practices or no such systems in place.

2.4. The Role of Regulated Intermediaries

In conjunction with the abovementioned hypotheses, we further argue that the indirect role of work–family facilitation in influencing employees’ proactive behaviors through psychological capital may also vary depending on the differences in high-commitment work systems. Viewing the high-commitment work system from the perspective of resources, it can be regarded as an organizational practice measure or an organizational situational factor, thus providing external conditions for employees to access resources. Employees can obtain resources conducive to their development through the high-commitment work system. According to the Social Exchange Theory, after employees feel that the organization attaches importance to them, the psychological capital of the employees will be strengthened, and in return, the employees will exhibit more active behaviors. The higher the level of commitment demonstrated by human resource management practices in an organization, the stronger the impact on the individual, and the stronger the indirect effect of work–family facilitation on employees’ proactive behaviors through psychological capital.
Hypothesis 4:
A high-commitment work system moderates the mediating effect of psychological capital in the relationship between work–family facilitation and employee proactive behavior.Specifically, when human resource management practices within an organization demonstrate a higher level of commitment, the indirect impact of family facilitation on employee proactive behavior through psychological capital becomes more substantial. Conversely, this indirect effect weakens when the level of commitment is lower.
Synthesizing the abovementioned analysis, the hypothesized model is illustrated in Figure 1.

3. Research Design

3.1. Research Sample

3.1.1. Pre-Research Stage

To initially test the validity of the measurement scale used in this paper and simultaneously conduct a preliminary test of the rationality of the main effect of the research model constructed in the paper, small-sample pre-research was conducted before the formal research. This pre-research is mainly anonymous research conducted in some enterprises in the Lianyungang area, with data collection completed through the on-site distribution and recovery of paper questionnaires. A total of 90 questionnaires were distributed in the pre-research stage, and 78 questionnaires were recovered, with an effective recovery rate of 86.7%.
In the pre-research stage, there were 32 females, accounting for 41.03% of the total survey sample. The number of people between the ages of 26 and 30 accounted for 26.92% of the total sample. A total of 78.21% of the respondents possessed a bachelor’s degree or higher, which indicated that the respondents of the test were predominantly highly educated. A total of 83.33% of the employees had more than 3 years of work experience in their workplace at the time of the survey. Among the respondents, 27 (34.62% of the total) were employed in the sales field, 29 (37.18% of the total) were employed in the functional management field, and the remaining 22 (28.21% of the total) were employed in other specialized fields, such as production. In addition, the marital status research shows that the survey respondents were more sensitive to personal information, such as “divorced, widowed” and other private information, and only the two options of “unmarried, married” will be retained in the official research.
In the pre-research questionnaire, the measures of work–family facilitation, psychological capital, and employee proactive behavior are listed, of which the reliability of work–family facilitation is 0.782, the reliability of psychological capital is 0.825, and the reliability of employee proactive behavior is 0.907; the reliability of the related scales meets the requirements. In addition, after the analysis of the preliminary test results, it can be verified that there is a certain correlation between work–family facilitation and employee proactive behavior.

3.1.2. Formal Research Stage

This study obtained sample data through a questionnaire survey method and distributed questionnaires to a total of 126 enterprises in Nanjing, Hefei, Nantong, Lianyungang, and other regions, involving industries such as manufacturing, Internet, pharmaceuticals, new energy, and so on. On the one hand, the research team went directly to the research enterprises to distribute questionnaires and provided on-site explanations regarding the content, process, completion of the questionnaire, and precautions. The questionnaires were collected on-site or mailed back to the contact person at the enterprise after they were filled out. On the other hand, the research team mailed the questionnaire, instructions for completing the questionnaire, notes, and other paper copies to the research enterprises, entrusting the contact person at the enterprise to organize the completion of the questionnaires and send back the research questionnaires after receiving all of them.
The research issued 1561 questionnaires for employees, and 1412 questionnaires were recovered, of which 1354 were valid questionnaires and 58 were invalid questionnaires; the effective recovery rate of the questionnaires for employees was 86.7%. A total of 198 questionnaires were issued for human resources supervisors, and 142 sets of valid questionnaires were recovered and filled out; the effective recovery rate of supervisors’ questionnaires was 71.7%.

3.2. Measurement of Variables

3.2.1. Work–Family Facilitation (WFF)

Using middle-aged individuals in the United States, Grzywacz and Marks (2000) [44] developed a scale exploring the positive interactions between work and family. The scale consists of four items. In this study, the measurement of the work–family facilitation variable adopts this scale, with a Cronbach’s α coefficient of 0.831.

3.2.2. Proactive Behavior (PB)

Based on the workplace environment in Australia, Griffin et al. (2007) [1] developed a seven-item scale to comprehensively evaluate employees’ proactive behavior at the task, team, and organizational levels. We adopted this scale to measure proactive behavior variable, with a Cronbach’s α coefficient of 0.932.

3.2.3. Psychological Capital (PC)

Luthans et al. (2007) [25] developed the Psychological Capital Scale based on U.S. enterprises and universities, providing a scientific and systematic measurement tool for the field of organizational behavior. Translated and refined by domestic scholars in the Chinese context, the original 35 items were reduced to 24 items. Psychological capital includes four dimensions: self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resilience. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of this scale is 0.938.

3.2.4. High-Commitment Work System (HCWS)

Xiao and Tsui (2007) [45] developed a high-commitment work system scale to assess the practice level of high-commitment work systems in Chinese enterprises and their impact on employee and organizational performance. Based on the original 10 items, this study splits some items for clarity into a total of 17 items. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of this scale is 0.908.

3.3. Control Variables

An analysis of the literature on work–family relationships, employee proactive behaviors, and psychological capital reveals that the demographic characteristics of employees, such as gender, age, education, length of service, and marital status, may be correlated to some degree with the research topic of this paper [46]. To exclude the influence of other relevant variables on the statistical results, this study controls for the basic demographic variables mentioned above. Among the control variables, the genders are male and female, coded as 1 and 0. Age, according to the common categorization in statistical yearbooks, is usually divided into intervals of 5 years of age, which is specified as 20 years and below, 21–25 years, 26–30 years, 31–35 years, 36–40 years, 41–45 years, 45–50 years, 51–55 years, 56–60 years, and 60 years and above. Education level is generally classified as senior/secondary, vocational/junior college, adult bachelor’s degree, full-time bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and doctorate degree. For the duration of service, specifically the number of years and months, the duration of service is converted to months after recovery for statistical purposes, e.g., 4 years and 6 months is converted to 54 months. Marital status is generally divided into unmarried, married, divorced, and widowed.

3.4. Data Analysis

This study employs SPSS 20, MPLUS 6, and HLM 7 to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, path analysis, and cross-level regression analysis. SPSS, known for its ease of use, is utilized for the confirmatory factor analysis to assess the structural validity of the scale. MPLUS, with its flexibility and efficiency in structural equation modeling (SEM), is applied to examine correlations and path relationships between latent variables. HLM, which specializes in multilevel data analysis, is used for the cross-level regression analysis to address nested data structures. By leveraging the strengths of each tool, this study ensures the rigor and scientific validity of the data analysis.

4. Data Analysis and Results

4.1. Descriptive Statistical Analysis

In the formal research, this paper covers a survey sample of 1354 individual employee-level samples. In terms of gender, the number of male and female employees is equal, with a total of 712 males (54.4%) and 598 females (45.6%). In terms of age, young and middle-aged people were predominantly concentrated in the age groups of 26–30 and 31–35 years, accounting for 33.1% and 24.5%, respectively, followed by 21–25 years, with a total of 234 people, accounting for 17.7%. In terms of educational attainment, vocational high school/college and full-time undergraduate degrees were the most common; there were 412 people with vocational high school or college degrees, accounting for 31.5%, and 489 people with full-time undergraduate degrees, accounting for 37.3%. A total of 10.9% indicated that they have senior high school or middle school degrees, 15.4% indicated that they have adult undergraduate degrees, and 4.9% indicated that they have postgraduate degrees. In terms of years of working experience, there was an average of 67.88 months (about 5.5 years) of corporate tenure, with the longest being 449 months (about 37 years). In terms of marital status, 863 (63.73%) were married and 480 (35.45%) were unmarried. Overall, the sample of this study covers a wide range and is well-represented.

4.2. Correlation Analysis

Table 1 presents the correlation between the individual-level and organizational-level variables. At the individual level, it can be seen that work–family facilitation is positively related to psychological capital (r = 0.265, p < 0.01); work–family facilitation is positively related to employee proactive behavior (r = 0.225, p < 0.01); and psychological capital is positively related to employee proactive behavior (r = 0.606, p < 0.01). At the organizational level, a high-commitment work system is positively correlated with work–family facilitation (r = 0.079, p < 0.01) and employee proactive behavior (r = 0.059, p < 0.05) and is not correlated with psychological capital (r = 0.048, p > 0.05).

4.3. Validity Tests

This paper presents a confirmatory factor analysis of the Work–Family Facilitation, Psychological Capital, Employee Proactive Behavior, and High-Commitment Work System scales. Table 2 presents the factor loadings, composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE) for each scale. The results demonstrate that the standardized factor loadings for each variable were all close to or greater than 0.60, the AVE values were all close to or greater than 0.50, and the CR values were all greater than 0.70, indicating that the aggregated validity of the scale was acceptable. In Table 2, some item factor loadings are lower than 0.7 (e.g., WFF_1 = 0.599, HCWS_1 = 0.571); however, the CR values of the overall model are all greater than 0.8, and the AVE is close to 0.6. Overall, the model has a high level of internal consistency and convergent validity, and the instrument reflects the corresponding concepts effectively.
Moreover, according to the Fornell–Larcker criterion, the square root of AVE of each latent variable in this paper (WFF = 0.744, PC = 0.774, PB = 0.814, HCWS = 0.705) is greater than its correlation coefficient with other latent variables (see Table 1), indicating that each latent variable has good discriminant validity.
We also compared the fit indices of the four-factor model, three-factor model, two-factor model, and one-factor model consisting of four variables, namely, work–family facilitation, psychological capital, high-commitment work system, and employee proactive behavior, respectively. The following results are shown in Table 3: the four-factor model is optimal, and the four-factor model CMIN/DF is 3.383 lower than 5, the TLI and CFI reach the standard of 0.8 or more, the RMSEA is 0.044 less than 0.08, the within-group SRMR is 0.060 less than 0.1, and the between-group SRMR is 0.160 slightly greater than 0.1, all of which are at the ideal value, indicating that the four-factor model is optimal.

4.4. Null Model Test

The null model serves as a foundational step in multilayer linear model analysis, demonstrating the existence of variance in psychological capital and employee proactive behavior at both the individual and organizational levels. To verify this finding, we performed a null model test on these variables. As detailed in Table 4, for psychological capital, the between-group variance (t00) is 0.184, the within-group variance (σ2) is 0.805, and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) is 0.187. This result indicates that 18.7% of the total variance is attributable to between-group differences, highlighting the necessity of considering organizational-level factors. Similarly, for employee proactive behavior, the between-group variance (t00) is 0.335, the within-group variance (σ2) is 0.792, and the ICC is 0.298, suggesting that 29.8% of the total variance arises from organizational-level factors. These findings confirm that both psychological capital and employee proactive behavior include variance at the organizational level, which contributes to the explanation of individual-level outcomes.

4.5. Hypothesis Testing

4.5.1. Tests for Main Effects

We applied linear regression to test the main effect Hypothesis 1. In Table 5, we can see that proactive behavior is significantly predicted by the independent variable, work–family facilitation (β = 0.176, p < 0.01, Model 2), after controlling for the employees’ gender, age, education, tenure, and marital status. In addition, ∆R2 (the increment of R2 after comparing each model with Model 1) was significant at the 0.01 level. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 is supported.
In addition, we conducted an SEM path analysis with work–family facilitation as the independent variable at the individual level, psychological capital as the mediator variable at the individual level, employee-initiated behavior as the dependent variable at the individual level, and a high-commitment work system as the moderator variable at the organizational level. The results show that work–family facilitation has a significant positive effect on psychological capital (β = 0.176, p < 0.001), work–family facilitation has no significant direct positive effect on employee initiative behavior (β = 0.044, p > 0.05), and psychological capital has a significant positive effect on employee initiative behavior (β = 0.571, p < 0.001); the hypotheses basically hold.

4.5.2. Intermediation Tests

There were three models involved in the analysis of mediating effects regarding psychological capital: PC~Gender + Age + Education + Tenure + WFF, PB~Gender + Age + Education + Tenure + WFF, and PB~Gender + Age + Education + Tenure2 + WFF + PC. The results of the analysis in Table 6 show that in the first step, work–family facilitation was significantly and positively related to psychological capital (β = 0.246, p < 0.01). In the second step, work–family facilitation was significantly and positively related to employee proactive behavior (β = 0.176, p < 0.01). In the third step, psychological capital was significantly and positively related to employee proactive behavior (β = 0.808, p < 0.01). In the fourth step, when the mediating variable psychological capital was added, the effect of work–family facilitation on employee proactive behavior weakened and was no longer significant, and the value of β decreased from 0.176 (p < 0.01) to 0.017, which indicated that psychological capital fully mediated the effect of work–family facilitation on employee proactive behavior; therefore, Hypothesis 2 was verified.
Further, this study employs the Bootstrap sampling method to examine the mediating effect, with a total of 1000 resamples. The findings reveal that in the analysis of psychological capital as a mediator between work–family facilitation and employee proactive behavior, the 95% confidence interval (95% CI: 0.159–0.242) does not include zero. This result confirms that psychological capital significantly mediates the relationship between work–family facilitation and employee proactive behavior. Specifically, work–family facilitation positively influences psychological capital, which, in turn, enhances employee proactive behavior through its mediating effect.

4.5.3. Tests of Regulation

This paper uses HLM to analyze the moderating role of high-commitment work systems. To determine whether the high-commitment work system has a moderating role between psychological capital and employee proactive behavior, this paper constructs the Mixed Model as follows: PBij = γ00 + γ01 × HCWSj + γ10 × PCij + γ11 × HCWSj × PCij + γ20 × AGEij + γ30 × EDUCATIONij + γ40 × TENURE3ij + u0j + rij. The results of the run are shown in Table 7.
The cross-level interaction of the high-commitment work system between psychological capital and employee proactive behavior reached significance (p < 0.01), suggesting that Hypothesis 3 of the moderating effect is valid.
To ensure that the moderating effect observed in the analysis aligns with the proposed hypothesis, this study generated a moderating plot. The plot illustrates the relationship between the variables at levels one standard deviation above and below the mean, providing a visual representation of the interaction effect.
Figure 2 shows the moderating effect of a high-commitment work system. The positive influence of psychological capital on employee proactive behavior will be stronger in a high-commitment work system than in a low-commitment work system.

4.5.4. Testing of Moderated Mediation Effect

To further investigate whether the high-commitment work system is able to moderate the mediating effect of work–family facilitation, psychological capital, and employee proactive behavior, the system was tested for a moderated mediating effect, and the results of the test are shown in Table 8. The differences between the mediating effect of work–family facilitation, psychological capital, and employee proactive behavior in the moderating effect of the high-commitment work system was 0.040, and the 95% confidence interval [0.025, 0.055] does not contain 0, indicating that the mediating effect is moderated.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

5.1. Theoretical Implications

The marginal contributions of this paper mainly include the following findings: (1) Regarding work–family facilitation, it provides theoretical support for the antecedent research on employee proactive behavior. This paper also explores the influence mechanism between work–family facilitation and employee proactive behavior from the perspective of the Conservation of Resources Theory. Compared with the influence of the social exchange mechanism, the influence of the resource preservation mechanism on employee proactive attitudes and behaviors is easily neglected, and the research in this paper enriches and expands the understanding of the Conservation of Resources Theory. (2) Considering the macro background of China’s active response to population aging and the further optimization of fertility policy, the study of the impact of the work–family relationship on employee proactive behavior expands the direction of work–family relationship research and helps to provide a new theoretical basis for enterprise management and policymaking. (3) From the perspective of enterprise human resource management practice, it is important to explore what moderating impacts the human resource management model will have on the organization and employees, breaking through the current status quo of primarily exploring the high-commitment work system as the antecedent variable.

5.2. Management Insights

The first insight is for management to build a harmonious work–family relationship. While requiring and encouraging employees to contribute more to the organization, enterprises should also genuinely care about personal factors, such as their employees’ families. They should take the initiative to help employees manage the relationship between work and family, ensuring harmony rather than conflict between the two. This can enhance employees’ sense of well-being and, in turn, boost their proactive behaviors. To keep up with the changing times, enterprises should no longer adhere to the previous management rules and regulations. Instead, they should implement relatively flexible work controls. Rather than specifying exact tasks at specific points, enterprises should provide a broader time frame, allowing employees to freely and reasonably manage and coordinate their work and personal affairs. Enterprises should fully integrate the characteristics of employees in organizational and job design and adopt flexible working methods such as working from home, job sharing, flexible leave, etc., optimizing job settings around work–family balance [47]. Enterprises should strengthen their degree of contact with the family members of employees, which can be accomplished during the daily work of the employee’s family advocacy, so that the employee’s family members feel the significance of the employee to the enterprise. They should also interpret relevant management policies to eliminate the negative impact that information asymmetry may bring to family members and alleviate a source of conflicts between the employee and their family.
Second, management should build a high-commitment work system. Nowadays, the main force of enterprises has been the new generation of employees who are available and passionate. To stimulate their initiatives, the enterprises should build high-commitment systems around all aspects of the work system. Enterprises should keep abreast of the changing environment and continuously optimize existing human resource management policies in response to environmental changes, especially regarding labor structure. They should improve employees’ adaptability to the environment; pay attention to recruitment modes based on development potential; and enhance training in knowledge and skills aligned with competency requirements. Additionally, they should implement flexible organization design, job design and work design and encourage the active participation of employees, especially in performance appraisal focusing on both the sustainable development of employees and their sense of security. The performance appraisal centered on the sustainable development of employees and an employment policy that provides a sense of security can stimulate employees’ behavioral initiative and enhance their commitment to the enterprise, thus fostering more transformative thinking and awareness of sustainable development. Second, managers should carry out management policies with different directions and targets according to the varying states of internal employees. For example, for employees with a high level of psychological capital, the enterprise can improve the recognition of the value of their work through the optimization of human resource management policies, such as job enrichment and expansion, job rotation, and job autonomy and flexibility, which encourage employees to engage in more proactive behaviors. For employees in a negative mood, enterprises should be good at identifying them and then improving their mood through employee care mechanisms. At the same time, they should provide more extensive training, job rotation, and greater opportunities for participation in management and decision-making to help employees adjust their mood and improve their self-confidence in their abilities and organizational status.
Third, we recommend the implementation of employee psychological capital development programs. According to the abovementioned analysis, psychological capital has a significant positive impact on employee proactive behavior; therefore, enterprises can make full use of the role of psychological capital to increase employee proactive behavior. Like human capital, psychological capital has the characteristics of development and enhancement. Enterprises can formulate development plans based on the four core elements of psychological capital, including the implementation of work enrichment and expansion, to enhance self-confidence in work enrichment and expansion. Management should foster a relaxed and inclusive organizational culture, providing employees with various guidance on work and life; cultivate employees’ values for future development; support employees assigned tasks beyond their ability level and scope by giving them incentives and promises to encourage them to complete tasks to the best of their ability; and implement Employee Assistance Program (EAP) management to create a positive team atmosphere and corporate culture, strengthen psychological guidance for employees, and cultivate an optimistic mindset. Management should pay attention to the emotional state of employees and provide more organizational care to those who are emotionally depressed. The implementation of an employee psychological capital development program not only has an important impact on the employees themselves but also plays a significant role in the development of corporate talent.

5.3. Limitations and Prospects for Future Research

First, the work–family relationship is a two-way dynamic in which both work and family roles can influence each other in meaningful ways [48]. This paper focuses on work–family facilitation, emphasizing how work can positively influence family life. However, the reverse dynamic—how the positive support and facilitation of work by family life impacts employee proactive behavior—remains an important area for future research and should be explored in greater depth. Second, the research in this paper focuses on the individual and organizational levels, but other team-level and leadership-level factors may also have an impact on employee proactive behaviors, and future research can explore the antecedent variables that influence proactive behaviors among leadership, organizational, team, and individual levels from these and other cross-level perspectives. In addition, psychological need satisfaction as a trigger for behavior may play a chained double-mediating role in the mediating mechanism of psychological capital, and further attention is necessary at a later stage [43]. Finally, other control variables, such as the situation of children in the family, should be considered in future research. Previous studies have shown that family child situations can impact work–family relationships and employee work behavior in the Chinese context [49], especially intergenerational parenting in China’s specific socio-cultural context, which can affect employees’ work motivation. Recognizing the challenges of China’s aging population, the study of proactive behavior among the special group of knowledge-based older employees requires future research attention.

5.4. Conclusions

This study investigated the mechanism of work–family facilitation and employee proactive behavior. We focused on three specific aspects: (1) Work–family facilitation has a positive role in promoting employee proactive behavior. Work–family facilitation can have a positive influence on employees by providing channels to obtain resources and support, so that employees can engage in active behavior driven by personal needs, motives, ideals, and values. (2) Psychological capital plays a mediating role in the influence of work–family facilitation on employee proactive behavior. Work–family facilitation enables employees to obtain abundant resources, alleviates the negative impact of work pressure, and continuously strengthens their psychological capital. Employees with stronger psychological capital have more advantages when facing changing environments and challenges; they are optimistic, persevering, confident, self-reliant, and willing to make changes and innovations, so they will engage in more proactive behaviors. (3) A high-commitment work system has a moderating effect on the relationship between psychological capital and employee proactive behavior. High-commitment work systems can generate psychological resources that promote employee proactive behaviors through a series of practical measures that build employees’ psychological commitment to the organization and simultaneously promote their risk-taking motivation. Under this management model, employees are more active and spontaneous in promoting proactive behaviors. The role of psychological capital in influencing employee proactive behaviors is greater in organizations that implement high-commitment work systems.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, methodology, and software, H.Z.; validation, H.Z., C.L. and S.Z.; formal analysis, investigation, and resources, H.Z. and S.Z.; data curation and writing—original draft preparation, H.Z.; writing—review and editing, H.Z. and C.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research is the part of the “Research on Digital Intelligent Human Resource Development and Management in Human-Computer Interaction Scenarios” supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No.: 72342027).

Institutional Review Board Statement

This study did not require ethical review or approval according to local legislation and institutional requirements.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in this study.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China for supporting this research (Project No.: 72342027).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Sustainability 17 01390 g001
Figure 1. Hypothesized model. The plus signs indicate positive relationships, and the arrows indicate the direction of influence.
Figure 1. Hypothesized model. The plus signs indicate positive relationships, and the arrows indicate the direction of influence.
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Figure 2. Moderating role of high-commitment work systems between psychological capital and employee proactive behavior.
Figure 2. Moderating role of high-commitment work systems between psychological capital and employee proactive behavior.
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Table 1. Means, variances, and correlation coefficients of variables.
Table 1. Means, variances, and correlation coefficients of variables.
MeanSDGenderAgeEducationTenureWFFPCHCWSPB
Gender1.4510.4981
Age3.7531.457−0.113 ***1
Education2.9371.161−0.021−0.237 ***1
Tenure3.7191.085−0.0440.545 ***−0.209 ***1
WFF3.9861.366−0.0450.086 **−0.0110.0161
PC5.1670.992−0.025−0.003−0.014−0.0500.265 ***1
HCWS4.9081.016−0.0480.0120.107 ***0.0130.079 **0.0481
PB5.4951.0580.0030.052−0.074 **0.0080.225 ***0.606 ***0.059 *1
Note: * p < 0.05 ** p < 0.01 *** p < 0.001. WFF = work–family facilitation. PC = psychological capital. HCWS = high-commitment work system. PB = employee proactive behavior.
Table 2. Results of factor loadings, composite reliability, and average variance extracted.
Table 2. Results of factor loadings, composite reliability, and average variance extracted.
ConstructsItemsFactor LoadingsCRAVE
Work–family facilitation1. The things I do at work help me deal with personal and family matters.0.5990.8320.554
2. The skills I have gained at work benefit me in accomplishing things at home.0.878
3. I achieve things at work that make me funnier and happier in my family.0.855
4. Because of my work, I have more energy to take care of things in my family.0.716
Psychological capital1. I am confident that I can analyze long-term problems and find solutions to them.0.7220.9080.599
2. I am confident in presenting things within my scope of work in meetings with management.0.673
3. I believe I can contribute to the discussion of the company’s strategy.0.648
4. I believe I can help to set goals within my area of work.0.62
5. I am confident that I can contact and discuss issues with people outside the company (e.g., customers, suppliers, etc.).0.85
6. I believe that I can present information to some of my coworkers.0.861
7. If I find myself in a difficult situation at work, I can think of a number of ways to get out of it.0.839
8. Currently, I am fulfilling my work objectives to the fullest extent possible.0.855
9. There are many solutions to any problem.0.85
10. Currently, I consider myself to be quite successful at my job.0.593
11. I can think of many ways to achieve my current work goals.0.768
12. Currently, I am achieving the work goals I have set for myself.0.512
13. When I have a setback at work, it is difficult for me to recover from it and move forward.0.619
14. At work, I try to solve problems no matter what.0.676
15. At work, if I have to do it, so to speak, I can handle it alone.0.597
16. I am usually comfortable with stress at work.0.512
17. I am able to get through difficult times at work because I have been through a lot before.0.542
18. In my current job, I feel like I can handle a lot of things at once.0.562
19. In my job, I usually hope for the best when I am not sure about something.0.580
20. If something is going to go wrong, it will go wrong even if I work wisely.0.624
21. I always look on the bright side of things when it comes to my work.0.632
22. I am optimistic about what will happen to my job in the future.0.617
23. In my current job, things never go the way I want them to go.0.629
24. At work, I always believe that “there is light behind the darkness, no need to be pessimistic”.0.524
Employee proactive behavior1. I take the initiative to solve problems.0.8050.9320.662
2. Whenever a problem arises, I look for a solution immediately.0.822
3. I will take the opportunity to be active whenever it arises.0.845
4. I will take the initiative immediately, even when others do not.0.839
5. I am quick to seize opportunities to achieve goals.0.844
6. I usually do more than is required of me.0.807
7. I am particularly good at realizing ideas.0.737
High-commitment work system1. Promoting from within rather than recruiting from the outside.0.5710.9130.497
2. There is a careful selection process when recruiting employees.0.539
3. The company has a lot of training.0.624
4. The company organizes a lot of activities.0.608
5. Do not easily dismiss employees.0.585
6. Employees work in a wide range of fields.0.617
7. Employees are widely rotated within the organization.0.702
8. Performance appraisals emphasize team performance rather than individual performance.0.679
9. Performance appraisals emphasize behavior, effort, rather than results.0.649
10. Performance appraisals emphasize future skill development rather than past goal achievement.0.698
11. Employees are treated well in terms of salary and various benefits compared to their peers.0.729
12. Employees widely hold equity, options, or dividend rights.0.626
13. Employees at all levels are as equal as possible in terms of income, status, and culture.0.579
14. Employees are involved in decision-making through employee suggestion systems, employee complaint systems, and employee morale surveys.0.734
15. Supervisors communicate openly and share all kinds of information with employees.0.785
16. Emphasize the pursuit of achieving high goals.0.542
17. Emphasize teamwork and collectivism rather than individual struggle.0.522
Table 3. Comparative analysis of multifactor models.
Table 3. Comparative analysis of multifactor models.
MoldFactor StructureCMINDFCMIN/DFRMSEACFITLIWithin-Group
SRMR		Between-Group SRMR
Model 1WFF, PC, HCWS, PB1840.4295443.3830.0440.9010.8910.0600.160
Model 2WFF + PC, HCWS, PB4275.4505517.7590.0750.7160.6910.1280.188
Model 3WFF + PC + HCWS, PB4406.3235537.9680.0760.7070.6810.1310.308
Model 4WFF + PC + HCWS + PB6155.57655511.0910.0910.5730.5380.1550.314
Note: WFF = work-family facilitation, PC = psychological capital, HCWS = high-commitment work system, PB = employee proactive behavior, CMIN = chi-square value, DF = degrees of freedom, CMIN/DF = chi-square divided by degrees of freedom, RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation, CFI = comparative fit index, TLI = Tucker-Lewis index, SRMR = standardized root mean square residual.
Table 4. Null model test for psychological capital and employee initiative behavior.
Table 4. Null model test for psychological capital and employee initiative behavior.
Between-Group Variance t00Within-Group Variance σ2ICC
Psychological capital0.1840.8050.187
Employee proactive behavior0.3350.7920.298
Note: ICC = intraclass correlation coefficient.
Table 5. Test results of the main hypothesis.
Table 5. Test results of the main hypothesis.
VariantEmployee Proactive Behavior
Model 1Model 2
Control Variable
Gender−0.072−0.057
Age0.0380.033
Education−0.056 *−0.060 *
Tenure0.013−0.001
Marital Status0.0650.059
Independent Variable
Work–family facilitation 0.176 **
R20.0070.066
R2 change0.0040.062 **
Note: n = 1354; * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.
Table 6. Analysis of mediating effects of psychological capital.
Table 6. Analysis of mediating effects of psychological capital.
VariantPsychological CapitalEmployee Proactive Behavior
Model 1Model 2Model 3
Constant4.202 **4.948 **1.551 **
Control variable
Gender−0.046−0.057−0.02
Age0.040.0330
Education−0.051 *−0.060 *−0.018
Tenure−0.001−0.0010
Marital status0.0170.0210.025
Independent variable
Work–family facilitation0.246 **0.176 **0.017
Psychological capital 0.808 **
R20.1640.0660.471
R2 change0.1610.0620.469
Note: * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.
Table 7. Moderating analysis of high-commitment work system between psychological capital and employee proactive behavior.
Table 7. Moderating analysis of high-commitment work system between psychological capital and employee proactive behavior.
VariantEmployee Proactive Behavior
Regression CoefficientStandard Error
Intercept term5.03 ***0.36
LEVEL-1 Control Variables
Age−0.0030.02
Education0.0080.02
Tenure0.0030.01
LEVEL-1 Independent Variables
Psychological capital0.61 ***0.16
LEVEL-2 Moderating Variables
High-commitment work system0.07 *0.07
cross-level interaction
Psychological capital * High-commitment work system0.01 **0.03
R20.27 **
R2 change0.12 **
Notes: (1) * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001; (2) Level 1, n = 894, Level 2, N = 79.
Table 8. Moderated mediation test.
Table 8. Moderated mediation test.
HCWSStandardized CoefficientSETpLower IntervalUpper Interval
Low0.0580.0183.2220.0000.0360.080
High0.0980.0195.0200.0000.0600.136
Difference0.0400.0104.0000.0000.0250.055
Note: HCWS = high-commitment work system, SE = standard error, T = t-value.
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Zhang, H.; Liu, C.; Zhao, S. The Effect of Work–Family Facilitation on Employee Proactive Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model. Sustainability 2025, 17, 1390. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17041390

AMA Style

Zhang H, Liu C, Zhao S. The Effect of Work–Family Facilitation on Employee Proactive Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model. Sustainability. 2025; 17(4):1390. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17041390

Chicago/Turabian Style

Zhang, Hongyuan, Chang Liu, and Shuming Zhao. 2025. "The Effect of Work–Family Facilitation on Employee Proactive Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model" Sustainability 17, no. 4: 1390. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17041390

APA Style

Zhang, H., Liu, C., & Zhao, S. (2025). The Effect of Work–Family Facilitation on Employee Proactive Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model. Sustainability, 17(4), 1390. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17041390

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