| Abstract [eng] |
Relevance of the topic. The rapid growth in consumption, decisive by growing public income in industrial countries, became a source of environmental degradation and stress, posing negative effects on the environment, thus resulting in ever larger debate both in public and political levels (Safarzyńska, 2013). It is generally accepted that most of these problems are decisive on consumption, so it can be solved only by changing consumer behavior in order to reduce the impact on environment. There is a broad agreement that the main long-term sustainable consumption goal is to reach that growing production and services do not impair condition of environment, giving priority to favorable environmental services and products for which production and exploitation consume less energy and other natural resources, not using toxic substances and seeking the minimization of negative environmental impact throughout the product life cycle. This leads to an increasing tendency of consumer sustainable consumption research relevance. According to the current demographic trends in developed countries, when both spouses seek career, as well as the increasing trend of single-parent family raising and maintaining children alone, sustainability promoting and ensuring when combining career and family care becomes an increasing social problem. Work-life interaction, when working life runs certain areas of private life, was studied in various aspects (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). But the most important thing is that working life can affect individual's sustainable consumption. Working hours, working conditions, work and home separation are often mentioned as working life factors, which have a negative impact on sustainable consumption (Muster, 2012). According to the importance of sustainable consumption, important thing is to assess how it occurs in the context of work-life balance. The aim of this work was to theoretically substantiate interfaces between work-life balance and sustainable consumption and empirically examine the impact of work life balance on sustainable consumption in private life. Research object: work-life balance and sustainable consumption. In order to reach the aim of this work, the following research objectives were set: 1. To disclose work-life and sustainable consumption research relevance and issues; 2. To disclose the essence of the concept of sustainable consumption and the expression of it in the personal life of individuals; 3. To analyze work-life balance research models and to reveal the work-life balance interfaces with sustainable consumption; 4. To develop conceptual work-life balance impact on sustainable consumption model; 5. To develop empirical research methodology for testing the impact of work-life balance on sustainable consumption; 6. To make conclusions and recommendations referring to the results of work-life balance impact on sustainable consumption testing results. The main results of this research showed, that the discourse of sustainable consumption is important and need to be studied when developing new, environmentally friendly consumption patterns and finding the causes and factors that determine the level of sustainable consumption. Research problems mainly occures in small number of complex sustainable consumption evaluation cases, because mostly such studies investigate one specific aspect of sustainable consumption. There are almost no empirical studies revealing the work-life balance impact on sustainable consumption in scientific literature, but theoretical assumptions let us to perceive possible links. Generally, sustainable consumption is perceived as the main step towards sustainable development. It includes many different areas - food and drink, housing, personal mobility, tourism, as well as other aspects – customer satisfaction, quality of life, resource efficiency, renewable energy sources use and so on. Sustainable consumption expression in personal life mostly occurs within consumption patterns, energy saving behavior at home, eco-conscious buyer behavior – product and service purchase decisions, waste recycling, reuse. Conceptual model of this study was designed to measure the impact of work-life balance on sustainable consumption. Demographic factors were also analyzed as having relationship with the constructs. The empirical results of the study revealed that the research instrument measured composed constructs reliably, but significant link between variables were not discovered. Correlation analysis revealed weak statistical relationship between the balance and sustainable consumption. Also demographic factors were identified as affecting both constructs. |
