The association of meaningfulness, wellbeing and engagement with absenteeism: a moderated mediation model

By Emma Soane, Amanda Shantz, Kerstin Alfes, C. Truss, Chris Rees, M. Gatenby. 2013

163 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We theorized that absence from work is a resource-based process that is related to perceived meaningfulness of work, well-being, and engagement. Broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) and engagement theory (Bakker, Schaufeli, Leiter, & Taris, 2008; Kahn, 1990) were used to develop a framework for explaining absence. Results of a study of 625 employees and human resource records of subsequent absenteeism data for a three-month period supported our hypotheses that meaningful work increases engagement with work, and that engagement is associated with low levels of absenteeism. Furthermore, data showed that engagement fully mediated the relationship between meaningfulness and absence, and that well-being strengthened the relationship between meaningfulness and engagement. The results have implications for understanding the role of individual-level resources in the workplace, and how meaningfulness, well-being, and engagement influence absence.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/470e69fa3af339e0cb788ee631c793df3033cca5

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In General Health Professions

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Citations in the corpus

Perceived organizational support, employee creativity and proactive personality: The mediating effect of meaning of work (2018, background): “Overall, meaning is significantly and positively related to engagement and material well-being (Soane et al., 2013).”
The potential role of mindsets in unleashing employee engagement (2015, unknown): “Engagement is also higherwhen employees have adequate restorative non-work recovery (i.e., rest; Sonnentag,Mojza, Demerouti, & Bakker, 2012) and meaningful work (Soane et al., 2013).”
The Buffering Effect of Perceived Organizational Support on the Relationship Between Work Engagement and Behavioral Outcomes (2016, background): “In addition, we controlled for well-being, a proxy for positive affect (Soane et al., 2013).”
How work engagement relates to performance and absenteeism: a meta-analysis (2021, background): “Accordingly, some (albeit few) studies reported negative correlations between work engagement and absenteeism (e.g., Schaufeli et al., 2009; Soane et al., 2013; Ten Brummelhuis et al., 2010).”
A Review of the Empirical Literature on Meaningful Work: Progress and Research Agenda (2018, methodology): “Meanwhile, investigating staff absence and employee engagement, Soane et al. (2013) similarly found high levels of meaningful work to be associated with low levels of absenteeism. However, Miller and Wheeler (1992) showed that while the association between meaningful work and turnover cognitions hel”