Date of Completion

12-28-2017

Embargo Period

6-26-2018

Keywords

job engagement, meaningfulness, availability, safety, positive affect

Major Advisor

Janet L. Barnes-Farrell

Associate Advisor

Dev K. Dalal

Associate Advisor

Peter D. Bachiochi

Field of Study

Psychology

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Open Access

Open Access

Abstract

According to Kahn’s theoretical model (1990), the following three psychological conditions - meaningfulness, safety, and availability - are the key proximal predictors of job engagement. The current study examined the effects of these three psychological conditions (meaningfulness, safety, and availability) on three aspects of job engagement (JE), using both cross-sectional and daily diary data to examine between-person and within-person relationships among these variables. Psychological conditions were also examined as mediators of relationships between organizational and personal factors and job engagement. Furthermore, positive affect (PA) was tested as a moderator of the relationships between distal predictors and the three psychological conditions. A sample of 430 full-time U.S. employees, recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, completed baseline surveys; 307 of them completed more than three daily surveys in the following week. Main effects of meaningfulness and availability on physical, cognitive, and emotional JE were significant and positive at both general- and day-level. Safety was only significantly and positively related to emotional JE at general- and day-level. The effects of the three psychological conditions were non-compensatory. Moreover, meaningfulness mediated the effects of skill variety, task significance, work-role fit, supervisor support, and coworker support on all three aspects of JE. Availability mediated the effects of FWC, self-efficacy, and autonomy on all three aspects of JE. PA was demonstrated to be positively associated with all three psychological conditions and JE, and it moderated the supervisor support-availability and coworker support-safety relationships, such that these positive relationships were stronger when PA was low.

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