Abstract
Although the concept of flow at work is increasingly receiving scholarly attention, knowledge about the interaction between challenge and hindrance stress demands in the context of flow is still lacking. Moreover, little is known about the stress-relieving capacity of coping mechanisms in connection to work-related flow. The aim of our study is to investigate whether and how challenge stress demands are related to work-related flow, and whether this relationship is moderated by a three-way interaction between challenge stress demands × hindrance stress demands × use of humor/cynicism. For this study we use survey data from 265 employees of a financial service organization in the Netherlands. Results clearly indicate a positive linear association between challenge demands and work-related flow and a negative association between hindrance demands and flow. Support is found for an interaction effect between challenge and hindrance stress demands, showing that hindrance demands weaken the positive association between challenge demands and work-related flow. Finally, cynicism is found to alter this relationship between work stress demands and work-related flow, increasing the negative effect of hindrance demands and confirming the expected three-way interaction. Results from this study have implications for the theory on work-related flow and advance the challenge-hindrance stressors framework. Insights from this study suggest that managers who wish to foster work-related flow should be alert to the use of cynicism among employees and address organizational issues that cultivate the negative attitude underlying this.
Highlights
Organizations benefit from employees who experience flow at work
Note that we find support for the two-way interaction effect between challenge and hindrance demands when humor is included into the model, indicating the robustness of this relationship
We investigated the associations of challenge and hindrance demands with work-related flow, and the potential effects of the use of humor and cynicism as stress-coping mechanisms
Summary
Organizations benefit from employees who experience flow at work. Workers are challenged to use their full potential and they find great pleasure in the activity. Employees finding flow at work are happier, are more motivated and perform better Since the introduction of the concept of flow by Csikszentmihalyi (1975, 1990) in the 1970s, countless scholars have studied flow dynamics in a wide variety of contexts. These include leisure, education, elite sports, music, gaming and more (for an overview see Engeser and Schiepe-Tiska 2012). Themes discussed and studied in relation to work-related flow are among others: job characteristics (Demerouti 2006), leadership (Lovelace et al 2007; Sosik et al 1999; Zubair and Kamal 2015), job resources (Fagerlind et al 2013; Mäkikangas et al 2010; Salanova et al 2006), energy and daily recovery (Demerouti et al 2012)
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