Inspired to perform: A multilevel investigation of antecedents and consequences of thriving at work

Abstract

Summary Emerging research evidence across multiple industries suggests that thriving at work is critically important for creating sustainable organizational performance. However, we possess little understanding of how factors across different organizational levels stimulate thriving at work. To address this gap, the current study proposes a multilevel model that simultaneously examines contextual and individual factors that facilitate thriving at work and how thriving relates to positive health and overall unit performance. Analysis of data collected from 275 employees, at multiple time periods, and their immediate supervisors, representing 94 work units, revealed that servant leadership and core self‐evaluations are 2 important contextual and individual factors that significantly relate to thriving at work. The results further indicated that thriving positively relates to positive health at the individual level, with this relationship partially mediated by affective commitment. Our results also showed that collective thriving at work positively relates to collective affective commitment, which in turn, positively relates to overall unit performance. Taken together, these findings suggest that work context and individual characteristics play significant roles in facilitating thriving at work and that thriving is an important means by which managers and their organizations can improve employees' positive health and unit performance.

What threatens retail employees' thriving at work under leader‐member exchange? The role of store spatial crowding and team negative affective tone

“…Thriving at work refers to a positive psychological state in which employees experience both a sense of learning (i.e., acquiring and applying new knowledge and skills) and vitality (i.e., having energy and zest) (Spreitzer, Sutcliffe, Dutton, Sonenshein, & Grant, , p. 538). Thriving employees benefit organizational effectiveness in terms of better well‐being and work performance, more citizenship behavior and innovation, and less absenteeism (Carmeli & Spreitzer, ; Porath, Spreitzer, Gibson, & Garnett, ; Wallace, Butts, Johnson, Stevens, & Smith, ; Walumbwa, Muchiri, Misati, Wu, & Meiliani, ).…”

Understanding Employee Innovative Behavior and Thriving at Work: A Chinese Perspective

“…However, the role of supervisors, social connectivity, and individual characteristics has been understudied in previous studies (Carmeli and Spreitzer 2009;Walumbwa et al 2018). Similarly, we know very little about the contextual factors of thriving at work and innovative behavior, and few studies examined the positive relation between the two variables (Carmeli and Spreitzer 2009;Jokisaari 2013;Kark and Carmeli 2009).…”

“…However, the extent to which thriving is enhanced through organizational support needs to be investigated. As a basic assumption, individuals utilize personal resources to grow and achieve the highest level of functioning, while they also depend on contextual resources to perform domain-related activities in innovative ways (Walumbwa et al 2018).…”

“…Considerable evidence suggests that it is crucial to identify the social conditions and organizational strategies that influence individual behaviors (Madrid et al 2014;Shanker et al 2017). Therefore, drawing on the study by Walumbwa et al (2018), we expected that organizational support for innovation would play a critical role between employees' experience of thriving at work and the display of innovative behavior. In addition, social relations are very important as an input of innovative ideas and in their implementation (Wang et al 2015).…”

“…In business today, organizations need to maintain a thriving workforce through different strategies in order to remain competitive and sustain their performance (Prem et al 2017;Walumbwa et al 2018). Thriving involves "a psychological state in which individuals experience both a sense of vitality and a sense of learning at work" (Spreitzer et al 2005) (p. 538).…”