How work passion and job tenure mitigate the effect of perceived organizational support on organizational identification of flight attendants during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Grounded in Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory, this research examines whether the characteristics of flight attendants in terms of work passion and job tenure moderate the effect of perceived organizational support on organizational identification. Data was collected from 307 flight attendants among the five domestic airlines based in Thailand during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study used the partial least squares structural modeling to analyze the data. The results confirmed the positive association between perceived organizational support on organizational identification. However, the results from the moderating effect analysis indicate that perceived organizational support tends to have a weaker positive effect on organizational identification for the flight attendants who demonstrate high work passion and for the flight attendants with long tenure. As a theoretical contribution, the study extends the knowledge from prior research by proposing the boundary conditions in terms of individual characteristics to explain why different groups of employees may not be motivated by organizational support to the same degree.