Sports lunch breaks, vigor, and creativity at work: a test of the work-home resources model

Abstract

ABSTRACT We use the Work-Home Resources (W-HR) model to investigate how daily positive experiences in the sports domain may spill over and enrich the work domain. We hypothesize that satisfaction with sports performance during the lunch break generates momentary vigor (i.e., cognitive liveliness and emotional energy) immediately after the lunch break and is indirectly related to creativity at work in the afternoon. Furthermore, we predict that positive work reflection during the sports activity strengthens the relation between satisfaction with sports performance and vigor when back at work. To test this positive spillover process, we collected diary data from 59 employees who engaged in sports activities during their lunch break. Data was collected at two time points per day for three days (total number of observations, n = 177). Multilevel analyses revealed partial support for our hypotheses. We found that satisfaction with sports performance was positively related to momentary cognitive liveliness and emotional energy, but only when employees reflected positively on their work during the sports lunch break. Further, cognitive liveliness was positively related to employees’ creativity. However, formal mediation analyses did not support the idea that cognitive liveliness and emotional energy mediate the link between satisfaction with sports performance and creativity. We discuss how these findings contribute to the W-HR literature by showing the potential of sports to improve employees’ feelings and functioning at work.