Daily shifts in regulatory focus: The influence of work events and implications for employee well‐being

Abstract

Summary Although theory suggests that regulatory focus fluctuates within person and such fluctuations impact employee well‐being, there is little empirical investigation of such propositions. These are important research questions to address because work events may elicit within‐person fluctuations in regulatory focus, which can then affect well‐being. The primary purpose of this study is to examine specific predictors of daily regulatory focus at work and the foci's impact on employee well‐being at work and home as indicated by mood and psychosomatic complaints, respectively. We present and test an overarching theoretical framework that integrates conservation of resources theory, the cognitive‐affective processing system framework, and regulatory focus theory to delineate why and when work events affect regulatory focus and how the foci affect well‐being. Consistent with our expectations, we found that positive work events positively predicted daily promotion focus, but this effect was weaker when employees had high‐quality relationships with leaders. Furthermore, daily regulatory focus was associated with employee well‐being (mood and psychosomatic complaints) such that (i) promotion focus improved well‐being; (ii) prevention focus reduced well‐being; and (iii) the effects of promotion focus on well‐being were strongest when prevention focus was low. We discuss theoretical and practical implications and offer directions for future research. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Building personal resources through interventions: An integrative review

“…But the opposite may also be true: Interventions intended to build resources might be most helpful for employees with poor‐quality LMX relationships because their supervisory relationship provides fewer naturally occurring resource‐building interactions. This prediction is consistent with a recent study that found stronger effects of positive events for employees with low‐quality LMX relationships than for those with high‐quality LMX (Koopmann, Lanaj, Bono, & Campana, ).…”

“…Feicht et al In addition to the effects that might arise from the organizational context itself, unique group dynamics and existing work relationships might also shape the results of interventions in complex ways. For example, given evidence that partner reactions are critical for the effectiveness of social sharing (e.g., Gable et al, 2004) is extreme pressure to perform and little concern for worker well- recent study that found stronger effects of positive events for employees with low-quality LMX relationships than for those with high-quality LMX (Koopmann, Lanaj, Bono, & Campana, 2016).…”

Calling and Emotional Well-being: Mediation by Promotion Focus and Job Crafting

“…In the second part of the path, a promotion focus also had a positive effect on emotional well-being. This result is consistent with the results of previous research that a promotion focus led to emotional well-being (Brunstein et al, 1998;Koopmann et al, 2016;Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019). Taken together, this finding implies that a promotion focus resulting from a calling toward teaching causes emotional well-being.…”

“…Consistent with the above perspective, some evidence demonstrated that a promotion focus relates to higher emotional well-being than prevention focus (Koopmann, Lanaj, Bono, & Campana, 2016;Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019). For example, Koopmann et al (2016) showed that promotion focus was linked to higher emotional well-being, whereas prevention focus was linked to lower emotional well-being. In the research, especially, it is worth noting that emotional well-being was the highest when the promotion focus was high while the prevention focus was low.…”

“…As a rule, situational and motivational conditions are integral to craft a job (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Out of two conditions (Koopmann et al, 2016;Case, Bae, & Maner, 2018), the situational condition is beyond teachers' capacity. Accordingly, a motivational condition needs to be met for teachers to craft a job.…”