The Happy-Productive Worker Model and Beyond: Patterns of Wellbeing and Performance at Work

José M. Peiró, Malgorzata W. Kozusznik, Isabel Rodríguez-Molina and Núria Tordera
Additional contact information
José M. Peiró: IDOCAL (Institut d’Investigació en Psicologia del RRHH, del Desenvolupament Organitzacional i de la Qualitat de Vida Laboral), Universitat de València & IVIE, Avda. Blasco Ibáñez 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Malgorzata W. Kozusznik: Research Group for Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology (WOPP), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Dekenstraat 2, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Isabel Rodríguez-Molina: IDOCAL (Institut d’Investigació en Psicologia del RRHH, del Desenvolupament Organitzacional i de la Qualitat de Vida Laboral), Universitat de València, Avda. Blasco Ibáñez 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Núria Tordera: IDOCAL (Institut d’Investigació en Psicologia del RRHH, del Desenvolupament Organitzacional i de la Qualitat de Vida Laboral), Universitat de València, Avda. Blasco Ibáñez 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: According to the happy-productive worker thesis (HPWT), “happy” workers perform better than “less happy” ones. This study aimed to explore the different patterns of relationships between performance and wellbeing, synergistic (i.e., unhappy-unproductive and happy-productive) and antagonistic (i.e., happy-unproductive and unhappy-productive), taking into account different operationalizations of wellbeing (i.e., hedonic vs. eudaimonic) and performance (i.e., self-rated vs. supervisors’ ratings). It also explored different demographic variables as antecedents of these patterns. We applied two-step cluster analysis to the data of 1647 employees. The results indicate four different patterns—happy-productive, unhappy-unproductive, happy-unproductive, and unhappy-productive—when performance is self-assessed, and three when it is assessed by supervisors. On average, over half of the respondents are unhappy-productive or happy-unproductive. We used multidimensional logistic regression to explain cluster membership based on demographic covariates. This study addresses the limitations of the HPWT by including both the hedonic and eudaimonic aspects of wellbeing and considering different dimensions and sources of evaluation. The “antagonistic” patterns identify employees with profiles not explicitly considered by the HPWT.

Keywords: occupational wellbeing; performance; happy-productive worker (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/479/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/3/479/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:3:p:479-:d:203898

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().