The ebb and flow of Flow: A micro-level investigation of flow experiences as the mechanism underlying energy sustainability and employees' functioning
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Alshaikh, Isaac, The ebb and flow of Flow: A micro-level investigation of flow experiences as the mechanism underlying energy sustainability and employees' functioning, Trinity College Dublin.School of Business, 2023Download Item:
Abstract:
The present thesis focuses on identifying and examining the psychological mechanism underlying employees? energetic resources at work and while working from home, which has the potential to foster employees? energy sustainability at work leading to higher wellbeing and improved performance.
I integrated the Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989; Hobfoll et al., 2018) and flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1997; Csikszentmihalyi et al., 2014) to examine how employees can sustain their energy and functioning throughout a working day. I propose that daily flow experiences reflect a psychological mechanism that promotes employees? daily energy generation and subsequent work behaviours, such as task performance, interpersonal organisational citizenship behaviour, and creative process engagement. Additionally, I posit that the direction of resource investment for specific daily work behaviours is influenced by daily needs satisfaction, such that flow only promotes task performance, organisational citizenship behaviour, and creative process engagement on days with low competence, relatedness, and autonomy need satisfaction, respectively.
Furthermore, I expand on the work-home resources model (Ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012a) by identifying work-related flow as a psychological mechanism underlying the depletion process of resources. Furthermore, I further identified work-family integration as contextual demand that negatively impacts employees? energy and effectiveness. Moreover, I argue that positive affect, as a volatile and personal resource, acts as a contingency factor and is crucial in mitigating the resource depletion process triggered by work-family integration. Finally, I explore flow interruption and its implications on employees? energy and functioning. I propose that a negative affective reaction to interruption puts employees in a resource conservation mood leading to a decline in daily flow experiences, which hinders creative process engagement and drains energetic resources.
Overall, the presented three studies support our propositions. First, I identified flow as a psychological mechanism for employees' and teleworkers' gain and loss cycles. Second, I demonstrated that unmet needs could drive and direct employees? energy investment. Moreover, I identified affective resources (positive and negative affect) as volatile personal resources that help employees sustain their flow experiences at work or while working from home. Finally, I demonstrated that sustaining employees? energy is positively related to their effectiveness at work. The theoretical and practical implications of this work, as well as the limitations and future research recommendations, will be discussed.
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https://tcdlocalportal.tcd.ie/pls/EnterApex/f?p=800:71:0::::P71_USERNAME:ALSHAIKIDescription:
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Author: Alshaikh, Isaac
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Rivkin, WladislawPublisher:
Trinity College Dublin. School of Business. Discipline of Business & Administrative StudiesType of material:
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