Abstract
Although the relationship between stressors and thriving at work has been established, the linkage between them is still in the early stages of theory development. This study proposed a two-path model, based on Lepine’s stressors-performance model, to analyze the effects of the stressors on the thriving at work. Two complementary mediating paths were proposed, i.e., affective strain (positive affect) and motivation (self-efficacy), which were explained using affective events theory and expectancy theory, respectively. Based on the empirical data from 233 employees, the results show that challenge stressors could enhance employees’ positive affect and self-efficacy, thus leading to thriving at work; on the contrary, hindrance stressors would result in negative influences. In addition, it is also found that the effect of affective path tend to be greater than that of motivation path, which could provide a practical guide for organizations to effectively apply stress management and to promote employees thriving at work.
Highlights
Thriving at work is a mental state in which individuals experience both vitality and learning (Spreitzer, 2005), and it is closely related to employees’ attitudes, behavior, and performance (Porath et al, 2012; Walumbwa et al, 2017; Kleine et al, 2019)
Based on the logic chain of affective events theory (AET), we focuses on the positive affective state generated by encountering stressors, because Fisher (2000) verified that work characteristics can well predict positive affective responses
The questionnaire consists of four subscales: challengehindrance stressor scale, self-efficacy scale, positive affect scale, and thriving at work scale
Summary
Thriving at work is a mental state in which individuals experience both vitality and learning (Spreitzer, 2005), and it is closely related to employees’ attitudes, behavior, and performance (Porath et al, 2012; Walumbwa et al, 2017; Kleine et al, 2019). Previous studies (Lepine et al, 2005; Rodell and Judge, 2009) have shown that motivation and affect are important mechanisms that link stressors and outcomes, such as work attitude Workplace stressors, both challenge and hindrance, regarded as affective events, may generate affective responses, such as attentiveness, anger and anxiety. Abid et al (2020) proposed that prosocial motivation is an important intermediary between managerial coaching and thriving All these works showed that there is not a simple direct relationship between stressors and thriving at work, but a complex mediating mechanism, and different types of stressors may have different effects on outcome variables (Podsakoff et al, 2007). The study reveals the “black-box” between stressors and thriving, which is conducive to fill the theoretical gap in this field and further promote the organizational practice of stress management and thriving at work
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