Some positivity per day can protect you a long way : A within-person field experiment to test an affect-resource model of employee effectiveness at work

Abstract

We expand research on the daily dynamics of employee effectiveness at work by integrating the core tenets of the Conservation of Resources Theory with the Broaden-and-Build Theory of positive emotions. Specifically, we argue that daily work-related self-control demands as a stressor deplete employees’ regulatory resources, which in turn impair work effectiveness because employees try to protect their remaining regulatory resources. Assuming that positive affect can replenish regulatory resources, we further propose that enhancing positive affect can alleviate employees from entering a resource preservation state on days with high self-control demands at work. We examined this integrated affect-resource model in a within-person field experiment over 12 workdays with 85 employees who received a daily text- or video-based positivity micro-intervention. Consistent with our predictions, the adverse effects of noon self-control demands on afternoon measures of employee effectiveness (work engagement, organizational citizenship behaviour, and creativity) via regulatory resource availability were attenuated on days when participants experienced positive affect, which was enhanced through the positivity micro-intervention. We discuss theoretical implications for the regulatory resource literature, methodological implications for the growing body of research on within-person field experiments in organizational research, and practical implications for introducing short interventions in daily working life.