Job Satisfaction, Health Insurance Benefits, and On-the-Clock Health Insurance Administrative Tasks/Burdens: A Moderated Mediation Model
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for submitting a quality manuscript.
This study examines the impact of employees’ perceived importance of health insurance benefits on job satisfaction. It employs a moderated mediation model to simultaneously test the mediating effect of health insurance satisfaction and the moderating effect of time spent on insurance administrative tasks. The findings indicate that as administrative burden decreases, the indirect effect of insurance importance on job satisfaction through insurance satisfaction becomes stronger.
This study is considered an excellent study as it simultaneously achieves theoretical consistency and analytical sophistication by integrating the mediated relationship of health insurance importance à insurance satisfaction à job satisfaction with the moderating effect of insurance administrative time into a moderated mediation model (PROCESS Model 7). Furthermore, it excels by consistently confirming mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation effects beyond mere correlation, and transparently presenting estimation uncertainty through bootstrap confidence intervals.
I believe that this is a high quality study, both in terms of research objectives and research design.
However, there are several areas that need to be added, supplemented, and revised to make the paper more complete. Overall, it addresses an important research topic, but there are some methodological limitations and areas for improvement. The manuscript could be improved to make it more concise in its presentation. Therefore I am giving the opinion of 'Accept after minor revision'.
I respectfully request the authors to make the following revisions.
- Regarding the claim of complete mediation, it would be beneficial to explain the theoretical possibility of the alternative pathway (insurance importance à direct path to job satisfaction) and the rationale for the analogy using pre-registration logic.
- It would be advisable to align the operational definitions of variables with the standards of prior research and explicitly state the multidimensionality of insurance satisfaction.
- It would be advisable to explain the limitations of the reported Cronbach’s alpha of .68 and improve reliability through measures such as adding items.
- It would be helpful if you could explain the bootstrapping procedure in a bit more detail in the main text.
- On page 3, line 120, it appears that “moderated mediation” has been incorrectly written as “moderated medication.” Please verify this.
- Additionally, please check for any other typos.
With careful consideration and reflection on the above points, this study could be and excellent paper with both academic rigor and practical insights.
Thank you for entrusting me to review such a good paper.
I wish the authors all the best.
Best regards,
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
Hereby I give some comments and recommendations on your proposal.
The paper’s strengths lie in the clarity of its conceptual model and the appropriate use of moderated mediation analysis to address the research questions. The integration of Self-Determination Theory into the discussion of insurance-related tasks is a valuable theoretical step that adds depth to the analysis. The dataset is carefully described, and the methodological decisions, including exclusion criteria and the use of PROCESS Macro, are presented with commendable transparency. The paper’s structure follows a logical flow, moving from theoretical foundations to hypotheses, methodology, results, and discussion, which helps readers understand the argument as it develops.
That said, there are areas where the manuscript would benefit from revision and elaboration. One concern is the use of single-item measures for key constructs such as insurance importance and insurance satisfaction. While the results are statistically sound, single-item measures raise questions about construct validity and reliability. The authors may wish to provide a stronger justification for this choice and discuss the potential limitations it introduces. Similarly, the operationalization of administrative burden as the proportion of personal time spent on insurance tasks is somewhat narrow. Although it captures one dimension of the construct, administrative burden is a broader phenomenon that also includes stress, complexity, and lack of transparency. Expanding on why this particular measure was selected, and acknowledging what it may omit, would strengthen the methodological discussion.
Another point that deserves more attention is the issue of sampling. While the use of Amazon Mechanical Turk is common in social science research, it does raise questions about representativeness and potential self-selection bias. The compensation offered was also very low, which could affect the quality of responses. A more explicit acknowledgment of these issues in the limitations section would improve the balance of the manuscript. In addition, the reported Cronbach’s alpha of 0.68 is described as acceptable, but readers would benefit from a fuller discussion of reliability thresholds and why this value is sufficient in the context of your study.
The results section is informative, but at times the interpretation of coefficients is confusing. For example, the discussion of interaction effects in Hypotheses 2 and 3 alternates between negative and positive coefficients, and it is not always clear how these align with the tables and figures provided. A more consistent presentation of these effects would make the findings easier to follow. Furthermore, while statistical significance is well-documented, the paper could do more to reflect on the practical significance of the results, particularly in terms of effect sizes and their implications for employee well-being.
The theoretical contribution of the article could also be articulated more strongly. At present, the discussion emphasizes confirmation of the proposed mediation and moderation effects, but it is less clear how the findings advance the field beyond confirming existing assumptions. The authors might consider positioning their work more explicitly within debates about administrative burdens, organizational design, and the evolving role of employee benefits in the United States. This would help clarify what is original in the contribution and why it matters beyond the specific dataset.
The manuscript is generally well-written, but it would benefit from careful proofreading. There are occasional errors, such as “medication model” instead of “mediation model,” that distract from the overall professionalism of the paper. The abstract could also be more concise, focusing on the central findings and contributions rather than methodological detail. Finally, the conclusion would be stronger if it reflected more on the broader societal implications of the findings, particularly in the context of the U.S. healthcare system, where administrative burdens are increasingly recognized as not only individual stressors but also organizational and policy-level challenges.
Best
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors,
Your research question about the impact of fringe benefits, particularly health insurance coverage, on employees’ job satisfaction, is very intriguing and timely. I also find your writing to be very clear and easy to follow. I also appreciate the effort you put into the data collection. In the meantime, I also want to share with you several observations, and hope they are helpful.
- Lack of overarching theoretical framework:
There are no overarching theories presented in the writing to support your claims of the relationships stated in your hypotheses. To have a coherent story for the model (Figure 1) and a convincing rationale for the relationships hypothesized, it is necessary to present established theories. A couple of classic motivational theories should fit well with your story, intrinsic/extrinsic rewards and two factor theory. These theories will help you explain why fringe benefits are motivating forces and why the “quality” of the insurance is essential as well. You did mention a motivation theory (self-determination to support your H2 and H3. But the reasoning was not aligned well, in addition to only applying it to H2 and H3. All hypotheses should be theoretical support.
- Lack of proper conceptualization and operationalization of key constructs:
It will help readers to understand the story by providing precise definitions for all the variables hypothesized, at least if not other relevant concepts discussed in the writing. Yes, no definitions were provided. This could be part of the reason for the misconceptualization and operationalization of fringe benefits.
Your research question is about “fringe benefits,” which would be what the organization provides to its employees. It can be operationalized by measuring employees’ perception of what is offered. It is not appropriate to operationalize it as employees’ own beliefs or values about the fringe benefits. The relationship between the offering of the insurance benefit (objective fact, or perceived sufficiency) and the satisfaction with the benefit (employee’s attitude) may depend on how important the benefit is to an employee – in this case, “insurance importance” is a moderator, just like “time spent.” In other words, your choice of variable “insurance importance” does not align with your research question on fringe benefits (something the organization puts in place) and their impact. That means your data cannot really address your research question.
If you have collected any information on the actual fringe benefits (health insurance), then, you could include that in your hypotheses and re-analyze the data accordingly, to actually address your research question.
- Manuscript Structure:
The introduction reads zigzagging in logic and thus lacks of clarity. It might be helpful to think about the structure of the logic as such: the main effect of fringe benefits, then bring in mediation (why), then the moderation (how). This is not the case in your writing. You first introduce the moderator (line 41-line 60, page 2). Then back to the gap in the literature (lines 61 – 66, page 2), without explicitly articulating the mechanism (mediation, why) of the effect of fringe benefits.
4. Other issues
H2 and H3 are the same thing and they are not framed correctly. It might be helpful to find other published articles to learn about framing moderated mediation hypotheses.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for the effort revising the manuscript and providing the details in your response letter. It is very thoughtful of you. The new framing is very coherent now and improved the contribution of the study. You have addressed my concerns. I do not have any additional comments.
