Does the “happy‐productive worker” thesis apply to managers?

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to emanate from an enduring stream of research into individual performance and organisational productivity where happy employees are believed to perform better. Decades of research have been unable to establish a strong link between workplace happiness and performance. A variation on the enduring employee happiness‐productivity debate is evolving the “happy‐performing managers” proposition.Design/methodology/approachAn empirical investigation reports on the impact of two important aspects of job happiness – self‐rated affective wellbeing and intrinsic job satisfaction – on superiors' ratings of managers' contextual and task performance. An ancillary methodological objective of the study is to establish the structure of managers' performance.FindingsA partial model of managers' affective wellbeing, intrinsic job satisfaction and performance contributed an understanding to how specific indicators of affective wellbeing and intrinsic job satisfaction predict certain dimensions of managers' performance.Practical implicationsChanges in the workplace emphasises are needed to ensure managers can retain and improve their positive affective wellbeing by working smarter and faster, rather than harder and longer.Originality/valueA contribution of this paper is to provide qualified support for the “happy‐performing managers” proposition by linking the conceptual bases relating to managers' affective wellbeing, intrinsic job satisfaction and to their performance. These findings progress the debate as to how work might be structured to improve managers' affective wellbeing and consequently their performance. Perhaps, it is timely to consider moving away from the negative forms of psychology and affirm managers' future by embracing the “happy‐performing managers” proposition.