Creating Financial and Social Value by Improving Employee Well-Being: A PLS-SEM Application in SMEs

In the business world, the improvement of employee well-being in organizations is important, as there is empirical evidence that it brings social value and economic benefits to organizations. To advance in this line of research, we considered SMEs as the object of study due to their importance in Spanish businesses and the scarcity of empirical studies on the subject. We use the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyse the measurement models and the structural model. Our research focuses on the importance of influential variables on well-being, but also considers how they affect financial performance. In the model that we present, there is a direct effect between the latent variables HPWS, well-being, reputation and financial performance, which represents how human resource management based on good practice in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) positively affects well-being by creating a good reputation and generating more business wealth. Our findings confirm the direct relationships proposed in the model, as well as the relevance of well-being and reputation as mediating variables.