高管退休因素：工作和家庭视角

Abstract

With the aging of the population and the gradual increase in the proportion of retired people, retirement is no longer just about an important turning point in an individual's life journey, but an important topic that has a bearing on the stability of the family and even social harmony. Based on self-determination theory, this paper explores how job crafting influences an individual's decision to retire through work passion. Self-determination theory suggests that internal motivation is essential for an individual's continued engagement in an activity (e.g., work) and that external incentives (including money) may diminish internal motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2012). Therefore, the main factor influencing a person's decision to retire may not only be money. According to self-determination theory, an individual has three basic needs including: need for competence, need for autonomy, and need for relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2012). And job crafting can fulfill these three needs by changing work tasks, work environment, and work relationships (Vogel, Rodell, & Lynch, 2016) to enhance work passion and ultimately influence an individual's retirement decision.
Based on the work-family balance model, this paper also explores how work-family enrichment and work-family conflict affect employees' retirement decisions through workfamily balance. The work-family balance model proposed by Greenhaus and Allen (2011) clearly indicates the positive and negative impacts of work-family enrichment and workfamily conflict on work-family balance, respectively. When the level of work-family balance is high, individuals are more agreeable to their level of effectiveness and satisfaction in their work and family roles (Greenhaus & Allen, 2011). In other words, individuals are satisfied with the distribution of duties between work and family, and satisfied employees are more inclined to maintain their current status and therefore have lower retirement decisions. When the level of work-family balance is low, it indicates that the individual's satisfaction with his/her distribution of roles between work and family is also low. At this point, employees may want to change the unsatisfactory status quo by retiring, and thus the retirement decision may be higher for this group of employees.
On December 31, 2024, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the Notice on the Interim Measures for Implementing a Flexible Retirement System. The notice stipulates: "For employees retiring at the statutory retirement age, their employers must promptly complete the necessary retirement procedures." Meanwhile, it further provides that "if an employee reaches the statutory retirement age, the employer and employee may, upon mutual agreement, flexibly delay the retirement, with the extension period not exceeding three years beyond the statutory retirement age." These provisions clearly define the statutory retirement age and establish that most individuals will be subject to mandatory retirement under the stipulated policies. However, for key technical personnel and outstanding managers, enterprises often seek to extend their service period through negotiation, employing scientifically grounded methods to do so. This paper focuses on studying and discussing this specific group, hereinafter collectively referred to as "executives."
The title of this paper is "Factors Influencing Executive Retirement." Given that the definition of "executives" in a corporate context must consider legal provisions, company size, and governance structures — and must further determine whether individuals possess decision-making authority over major corporate matters or bear direct responsibility for business outcomes — specific cases can be quite complex. In this paper, the term "executives" broadly refers to the group defined by companies themselves as "key personnel and outstanding managers" whom they seek to retain, and will be referred to collectively as executives throughout the study.
This study tested the proposed model through questionnaire. Data collection was obtained through the rolling method - a familiar friend commissioned a familiar friend to fill in the questionnaire through the Internet, the questionnaire was filled in by a total of 211 executives, and ultimately remove the invalid questionnaires, and ultimately a total of 210 valid questionnaires were included. The results of the data analysis support most of the hypotheses. In addition, this study also interviewed 15 executives. The executives' responses to the questions of this study varied depending on their personal experiences, values and life stages. Overall, factors that influence retirement decisions include age, health, financial status, career fulfillment, and family factors; work-family balance is perceived to increase willingness to continue working, but the definition of this balance varies from person to person; the importance of work and family is viewed as equally important by most executives but varies with life stage; and the importance of thinking about work while at home and thinking about family matters vary from person to person, but most executives believe that work-life separation should be maintained as much as possible to improve efficiency and quality of life. It can also be seen that the respondents are faced with the challenge of work-family balance, and only when individuals achieve work-family balance need to maintain a certain degree of flexibility in the workplace, can they deal well with dealing with family and work-related matters.

Date of Award	12 May 2025
Original language	Chinese (Simplified)
Awarding Institution	China Europe International Business School
Supervisor	Ho Kwong Kwan (Supervisor) & Katherine Rong Xin (Supervisor)