Longitudinal process of employee well‐being: Cross‐lagged relationships among domain satisfactions and subjective well‐being

Abstract

AbstractScholars have become increasingly interested in employees' well‐being. Despite studies on the relationships among well‐being constructs, research gaps still exist from the longitudinal and within‐person perspectives. Based on top‐down and bottom‐up theories of subjective well‐being and spillover theories, this study examines the longitudinal relationships of work satisfaction, nonwork satisfaction, and subjective well‐being. A random intercept cross‐lagged panel model was used with the data of four yearly waves collected from 8624 full‐time employees. The autoregressive and cross‐lagged coefficients were not stable but rather change across time. There were strong between‐person correlations between work satisfaction, nonwork satisfaction, and subjective well‐being. At the within‐person level, the paths from subjective well‐being to work satisfaction were not significant while the paths from subjective well‐being to nonwork satisfaction were significant over the years. The cross‐lagged effects from work satisfaction and nonwork satisfaction to subjective well‐being were not significant across the years. However, the cross‐lagged relationships between work satisfaction and nonwork satisfaction were significant. Theoretical implications, practical implications, and suggestions for future research were discussed.