This study explores relationships between spiritual resources, job resources, and work engagement among 496 Australian religious workers at three time points over a period of 18 months. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources theory and Job Demands‐Resources model, spiritual resources are conceptualized as a distinct category of personal resources significant for this occupational cohort. Results of structural equation modelling analysis did not support the hypothesis of reciprocal relationships between spiritual and job resources and work engagement. Instead, spiritual resources had a positive cross‐lagged effect on work engagement, and work engagement had a positive cross‐lagged effect on job resources. When the high stability of spiritual resources over time was accounted for, work engagement had a negative indirect effect on spiritual resources over time mediated by a negative effect of job resources on spiritual resources (suppression effect). Spiritual resources emerge as an important category of antecedent resources for work engagement among religious workers. However, it appears that motivated religious workers may prioritize energy investments into increasing job resources at the expense of maintaining and developing spiritual resources. Practically, this research provides evidence for the promotion of initiatives to foster spiritual resources that enhance resilience and well‐being among religious workers. Practitioner points Spiritual resources are an under‐researched category of personal resources that positively predict work engagement among religious workers. Religious organizations and individual religious workers need to invest energy in the ongoing development of spiritual resources to maintain motivation for this unique type of work. Managers need to be aware that a focus on enhancing job resources and work engagement can have deleterious effects on religious workers' spiritual resources and so threaten their ongoing work engagement.
The present study investigates the role of spiritual resources in the motivational and health impairment processes of the job demands-resources model. Spiritual resources are operationalized as a distinct category of personal resources. Results of item-level structural equation modeling on data from 835 Australian religious workers support the hypotheses that spiritual resources promote work engagement and lower exhaustion, which in turn fully mediate the influence of spiritual resources on reduced turnover intentions and emotional ill health. However, spiritual resources were not found to moderate the relationship between job demands and exhaustion. Cross-validation of the measurement model and structural relationships were assessed using a split-half technique. Limitations, future directions, and practical implications for improving the well-being of religious workers are discussed.
Work engagement is a positive affective–motivational state of fulfilment that predicts numerous positive occupational outcomes. Previous research has demonstrated that spiritual resources function as a category of personal resources that have unique antecedent effects on work engagement among clergy and other religious workers. However, an aggregate spiritual resources construct may mask interrelationships between spiritual resources and specific independent effects. This study tested a series of hypothesized interrelationships between the spiritual resources of attachment to God, calling, and religious coping styles, and work engagement among a population of Australian vocational religious workers. Results of item-level structural equation modeling using cross-sectional data (N = 309) demonstrate that attachment to God dimensions are related to both the presence of a calling and different styles of religious coping employed in the religious work context, but the influence of attachment to God on work engagement is fully mediated by its relationship to calling and collaborative religious coping. An independent data set using a split half technique (N = 308) confirmed these findings, which were also found to be robust when controlling for the effects of personality dimensions and common method bias. The study’s significance lies in disentangling specific relationships between the spiritual resources of a secure attachment to God, calling, and collaborative religious coping, and their distinct effects on the well-being of religious workers. Notably, attachment to God emerged as a key resource that appears to influence the development and management of both calling and types of religious coping, which were directly associated with work engagement.
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