ABSTRACT
Purpose: Researchers have a wide-ranging consensus on the negative side of presenteeism that leads to productivity loss; however, little is known about its flipside that has undertaken motivational factors as potential antecedents. This implicit gap is addressed by exploring a new perspective of presenteeism and proposing employees' calling as its precursor with the help of self-determination theory (SDT). The mediating mechanism is explicated with job crafting by considering it a sensemaking strategy that offers a plausible explanation of the positive association between an employee's calling and presenteeism. This research is an attempt to explore the positive side of presenteeism and generalize the presenteeism findings in another sector apart from the medical field, as this phenomenon is gaining widespread acceptance in HR literature. Methods: The data were collected from 274 employees from the textile sector, and the hypotheses were tested using SmartPLS software. We collected time-lagged data from the textile sector employees of Pakistan. The individual-level data have been collected to test the relationship between calling, job crafting, and presenteeism. Results: The results indicate the positive association between calling and presenteeism through direct and indirect paths. However, the mediating mechanism through two dimensions of job crafting, crafting challenging job demands and crafting social job resources, was not supported. Conclusion: Drawing on SDT, we contribute to the literature by identifying calling as an antecedent of presenteeism. We propose and test the direct and indirect relationships between calling, job crafting, and presenteeism. Future researchers might attempt to test this model in different sectors like multinational companies, educational institutions, healthcare, retail, etc. The proposed relationships also lend themselves to be explicated with other mediators.
ABSTRACT
The present study explores the influence of challenge stressors on identity orientation directly and via thriving at work and employee investment. Drawing on the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, this study proposes challenge stressors as a critical predictor of identity orientation. The purpose of this article is to explore if a particular identity is salient in different contextual factors, and this study suggests that challenge stressors stimulate personal, relational, and collective identities to respond to a situation. The relationships hypothesized in this study were tested using a sample of 225 employees from the banking sector of Pakistan. A time-lagged research design consisting of two waves of data collection was employed. A structural equation modeling technique was used to test the hypotheses regarding the relationship between challenge stressors and identity orientation, including the role of thriving at work and employee investment as intervening mechanisms of this relationship. Results showed that challenge stressors had a significant positive relationship with identity orientation. The results also confirmed the sequential mediation of thriving at work and employee investment in the relationship between challenge stressors and identity orientation. The findings suggest that the positive side of stress as a strength motivates employees for continued self-development. Importantly, challenge stressors enhance employees' ability to thrive at work and, in turn, they invest in the work more and identify themselves strongly with their organization and work.
