research paper of employee satisfaction

Work engagement and employee satisfaction in the practice of sustainable human resource management – based on the study of Polish employees

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• Published: 28 March 2023
• Volume 19 , pages 1069–1100, ( 2023 )

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• Barbara Sypniewska   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8846-1183 1 ,
• Małgorzata Baran   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8081-9512 2 &
• Monika Kłos   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0663-0671 3  

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Sustainable human resource management (SHRM) views employees as a very important resource for the organisation, while paying close attention to their preferences, needs, and perspectives. The individual is an essential element of SHRM. The article focuses on analyzing selected SHRM issues related to the individual employee's level of job engagement and employee satisfaction. The main objective of our study was to identify individual-level correlations between factors affecting employee satisfaction, such as: workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, job engagement, and employee satisfaction. Based on the results of a systematic literature review, we posed the following research question: is there any relation between factors affecting employee satisfaction (employee workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, work engagement) and employee satisfaction in the SHRM context? To answer the research question, we have conducted a quantitative study on the sample of 1051 employees in companies in Poland and posed five hypotheses (H1-H5). The research findings illustrate that higher level of employee workplace well-being (H1), employee development, (H2), employee retention (H3) was related to higher level of employee engagement (H4), which in turn led to higher level of employee satisfaction. The results show the mediating role of employee engagement in the relationship between workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, and employee satisfaction (H5). The presented results contribute to the development of research on work engagement and job satisfaction in the practice of SHRM. By examining the impact of individual-level factors on job satisfaction, we explain which workplace factors should be addressed to increase an employee satisfaction and work engagement. The set of practical implications for managers implementing SHRM in the organization is discussed at the end of the paper.

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Introduction

Sustainable human resource management (SHRM) is of great importance for implementing sustainable development principles in an efficient and effective way. SHRM strategies lay the foundations to achieve it by raising employee awareness and forming desirable pro-social and environmental attitudes (Bombiak, 2020 ; Sharma et al., 2009 ).

The inclusion of the concept of sustainability in the management of organisations is a consequence of institutional pressures that have forced significant changes in this area as part of the drive for social acceptance (Lopez-Cabrales & Valle-Cabrera, 2020 , p.1; Meyer & Rowan, 1977 ).

The term sustainability has different meanings depending on the perspective from which it is examined. The Resource Based View (RBV) inscribes the term in the strategic analysis of business, in relation to competitiveness in economic terms, and from an ecological perspective, in the environmental impact of the activities of various institutions (Lopez-Cabrales & Valle-Cabrera, 2020 ). However, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) gives a definition of sustainability that refers to an organisation's activities and development in such a way that, while meeting the needs of the present, they do not endanger the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Lopez-Cabrales & Valle-Cabrera, 2020 , p.1; Ehnert, 2009 ; Barney, 1991 ).

From a strategic point of view, the human aspect is essential to build an effective and healthy organization (Siddiqui & Ijaz, 2022 ; Järlström et al., 2018 ; Cleveland & Cavanagh, 2015 ). Sustainable HRM views employees as a very important resource for the organisation, while paying close attention to their preferences, needs, and perspectives. SHRM activities are carried out with the aim of improving organisational performance by enabling the development of long-term relationships with employees. It follows that sustainable HRM demonstrates in companies a path of organisational development that is based on human development (Lestari et al., 2021 ; Indiparambil et al., 2019 , p. 67; Cleveland & Cavanagh, 2015 ;).

Companies that are committed to their employees receive their work engagement in return. Organisations where HRM takes care of employees and their health retain more engaged, satisfied, and productive employees, with good overall health and well-being (Siddiqui & Ijaz, 2022 ; Sheraz et al., 2021 ; Indiparambil et al., 2019 , p. 67;Cleveland & Cavanagh, 2015 ).

Many authors argue that HR sustainability requires a focus on positive human/social outcomes identified at the individual, organizational, and societal level (Browning & Delahaye, 2011 ; Donnelly & Proctor-Thomson, 2011 ; Ehnert, 2009 ; Wells, 2011 ). The sustainable HRM seeks to achieve positive human outcomes by implementing sustainable work systems. Thus, it facilitates employees’ work-life balance without compromising performance (Indiparambil, 2019 ; Järlström et al., 2018 ). The sustainable HRM organisational practice manifests itself in employee’s commitment, employee’s satisfaction, and engagement (Chen & Chen, 2022 ; Parakandi & Behery, 2015 ). It is emphasized that by attracting and retaining talent, developing employee skills, and maintaining a healthy and productive workforce, SHRM practices in an organisation also affect employee satisfaction (Macke & Genari, 2019 ; Ehnert, 2006 ).

The article focuses on analyzing selected SHRM issues related to the individual employee's level of job engagement and employee satisfaction.

The main objective of our study was to identify individual-level correlations between factors affecting employee satisfaction, such as workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, job engagement, and employee satisfaction.

The existing state of knowledge in the field of SHRM in the context of the individual employee, examined through a systematic literature review, has shown that there are current cognitive research gaps:

The organizational perspective dominates the research of SHRM, while a research gap has emerged in terms of research at the individual level in the literature.

The employee satisfaction in the context of SHRM has not been sufficiently studied in the literature.

Little research has been devoted to humanity in a sustainable work environment.

In particular, there is a lack of research focused on the relationship between employee workplace well-being, employee development and retention, and all those related to employee satisfaction and engagement in a sustainable work environment.

There is no such research (examining SHRM from the perspective of employees) conducted in Poland.

Based on the results of a systematic literature review, we posed the following research question: is there any relation between factors affecting employee satisfaction (employee workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, work engagement) and employee satisfaction in the SHRM context? To answer the research question, we have conducted a quantitative study on the sample of 1051 employees from companies in Poland. We formulated the following hypotheses:

H1: Employee workplace well-being positively correlates with employee satisfaction.

H2: Employee development positively correlates with employee satisfaction.

H3: Employee retention positively correlates with employee satisfaction.

H4: Employee engagement positively correlates with employee satisfaction.

H5: Employee engagement mediates the relationship between workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, and employee satisfaction.

The article presents the theoretical framework of the SHRM concept along with the research model (theoretical chapters). Section 3 is devoted to the methodological approach description. Section 4 contains the research sample characteristic, procedures for data analysis description, and study results presentation. The end of the paper is focused on conclusions with a discussion of the implications that follow from the results and paper limitations with directions of further scientific research.

The presented research results contribute to the development of research on work engagement and job satisfaction in the practice of SHRM. Firstly, by examining the impact of individual-level factors on job satisfaction, we explain how to motivate employees and which factors at work to focus on in order to increase employee satisfaction and work engagement.

Another of our contributions is a deeper understanding of the mediating role that employee engagement plays in job satisfaction. Our results showed that engagement and its dimensions mediate the relationship between individual factors (employee development well-being, retention, overall commitment) and job satisfaction.

Finally, our contribution is the set of practical implications for managers implementing SHRM in the organization, discussed at the end of the paper.

Theoretical framework

The very term sustainable HRM has been used for more than a decade. The literature is fragmented, diverse, and fraught with difficulties (Ehnert, 2009 ). No precise definition of the term exists and it has been used in a variety of ways. A number of notions have been used to link sustainability and HRM activities (Kramar, 2014 ). These include sustainable work systems (Abid et al., 2020 ; Docherty et al., 2002 ; Docherty et al.,; 2009 ), HR sustainability (Gollan, 2000 ; Wirtenberg et al., 2007 ), sustainable HR management (Kramar, 2014 ; Ehnert, 2011 , 2006 ), sustainable leadership (Avery, 2005 ; Avery & Bergsteiner, 2010 ;) and sustainable HRM (Mariappanadar, 2012 , 2003 ), HR aspects of sustainable organization (Dunphy et al., 2007 ), sustainable HRM policies (Mariappanadar, 2012 , 2003 ; Avery & Bergsteiner, 2010 ; Stanton et al., 2010 ; Ehnert, 2009 ; Dunphy et al., 2007 ; Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007 ; Teo & Rodwell, 2007 ), sustainable HRM practices (Jackson et al., 2011 ), sustainable work environment (Dunphy et al., 2007 ). Table 1 summarises the different contexts of the definition of sustainable HRM.

Linking sustainability and HRM is related to constantly increasing challenges inside and outside the organization. The challenges directly or indirectly affect the quality and the quantity of human resources. Sustainability is chosen for HRM due to its potential to overcome troubles and develop, to regenerate and preserve human resources in the organization.

In conjunction with economic performance, SHRM intervenes to address issues of engagement with environmental and social impacts. Strategic HRM emphasises the monitoring of human capital through accessible HR practices, taking the economic performance of employees as a basis. Sustainable HRM focuses on the development of an innovative workplace that provides a basis for internal and external social engagement and allows for greater environmental awareness and responsibility. These activities translate into promoting organisational success in a competitive environment. The development of new human resource management strategies and practices leads to economic, social, and environmental progress (Giang & Dung, 2022 ; Podgorodnichenko et al., 2020 ; Chamsa & García-Blandónb, 2019 , p. 111; Indiparambil et al., 2019 , p. 68)

Based on the literature review, we identified three approaches of sustainable HRM (Poon & Law, 2022 ; Chamsa & García-Blandónb, 2019 ; Indiparambil et al., 2019 , p. 69)

A responsibility-oriented approach, namely, the well-being of employees, communities,and work-life balance,

Corporate objectives oriented towards efficiency and innovation, namely,the link between economic performance and sustainability expressed through environmental changes, quality of services and products, technological progress,

Resource-oriented approach, namely, responsible consumption.

In turn, Järlström et al. ( 2018 ) identify four dimensions of sustainable HRM, that is, fairness and equity, transparent HR practices, profitability, and employee well-being. The dimension of employee well-being promotes caring for and supporting employees with due respect. This shows that employees are not just a resource to be used, but an asset to be developed. Employee well-being here means well-being, health, protecting work relationships with others, and work-life balance. Moreover, in the individual sphere of employees, HRM promotes practices that foster mental and physical health, giving importance to the well-being of employees (Indiparambil et al., 2019 , p. 68; Järlström et al., 2018 ). Sustainable HRM increases employee productivity while improving organisational capabilities by offering innovative HR practices. The individual employee is an essential element of SHRM, as it maximises the integration of employee goals with those of the organisation. An enterprise is considered sustainable when the legitimate needs of the enterprise, that is, productive employees, as well as employees, i.e., fair treatment, remuneration, mentoring (Indiparambil et al., 2019 , p. 68; Cleveland & Cavanagh, 2015 ;) are met.

The use of sustainable HRM practices becomes particularly important to ensure the proper development and well-being of employees. Moreover, many authors indicate a link between specific HRM practices, high levels of employee well-being, and employment (Jaskeviciute et al., 2021 ; Strenitzerová & Achimský, 2019 , p. 3; Cooper et al., 2019 ; Stankeviciute & Savaneviciene, 2018 , p. 8; Guest, 2017 ). In this aspect, the following groups of well-being-oriented practices become the most relevant, namely: training and development; mentoring, career support; creating challenging and autonomous work; providing information and receiving feedback; positive social and physical environment; employee voice; and organisational support (Cooper et al., 2019 ; Guest, 2017 ; Jaskeviciute et al., 2021 ;).

Sustainable HRM contributes to attracting and retaining human resource over time (Lopez-Cabrales & Valle-Cabrera, 2020 ; Ehnert, 2009 , p. 180). Employee development, remaining in a competitive work environment, increasing efficiency, and employee work well-being can only be ensured by meeting the needs of employees and providing them with sustainable working environment (Ali et al., 2021 ; Cantele & Zardini, 2018 ; Chatzopoulou et al., 2015 ; Ehnert, 2009 , 2014 ; Guerci et al., 2014 ; Lorincova et al., 2018 ; Mariappanadar, 2014 ; Monusova, 2008 ; Raziq & Maulabakhsh, 2015 ).

At the same time, employee satisfaction itself becomes one of the fundamental aspects of overall well-being and employee sustainable development. Human resources bring talent and expertise to an organization, and these are developed over the course of a career. In the long run, employee development and organisational contributions can translate into higher employee satisfaction and hence organisational commitment (Jaskeviciute et al., 2021 , p. 120; Abid et al., 2020 ; Davidescu et al., 2020 ; Cannas et al., 2019 ; Indiparambil et al., 2019 , p. 69;).

Job satisfaction is a complex and controversial construct, on which there is no single definition. Consensually, it is considered one of the most positive attitudes towards work itself. Currently, there is a predominance of a multidimensional approach that understands satisfaction as a tripartite psychological response composed of feelings, ideas, and intentions to act, by which people evaluate their work experiences in an emotional and/or cognitive way (Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012 ). Specialists agree on the positive impact and beneficial consequences of satisfaction in the workplace. (Böckerman & Ilmakunnas, 2012 ).

Job satisfaction is defined as a positive or pleasant emotional state resulting from job evaluation (Locke, 1976 ) and acquired experiences on the job (Makin et al., 2000 , pp. 82–83). It is an expression of emotional attitude towards the job and the tasks performed, and an emotional response to the job (Spector, 1985 ). It is also an emotional response to the performance of tasks and roles, and in crisis situations, employees with higher job satisfaction will have more strength and energy (Rhéaume, 2021 ; Bańka, 1996 , p.69;).

A review of the literature shows that job satisfaction is also related to engagement (Chordiya et al., 2017 ), intentions to remain in the company (Zhang et al., 2016 ), and trust in the supervisor (Gockel et al., 2013 ).

There are two main approaches to measuring job satisfaction: an overall measure of satisfaction and one that relates to specific aspects of satisfaction. The literature recommends measuring not only overall job satisfaction, but also how its individual components are experienced by employees and affect overall satisfaction. Such multidimensional measures contribute more to a better and deeper understanding of the issue and highlight the importance of job satisfaction especially in the context of sustainable HRM.

It is recognized that job satisfaction is the degree to which employees feel that their needs and expectations are being met. Satisfaction develops through cognitive and emotional responses.

The person-environment fit theory can be a useful framework for understanding why some practices of SHRM have the ability to generate employee satisfaction. This theory holds that the degree of fit between employee needs and organizational supplies impacts employees’ attitudes. Hence, it is likely that positive job satisfaction arises when the degree of perceived fit between the person and the work environment is high, while negative attitudes would develop when the person-environment adjustment is perceived to be low (Salanova et al., 2012 ).

Ensuring that these practices are implemented results in positive outcomes for the individual and the organisation. As part of the successful application of sustainable HRM practices, great importance is placed on aspects related to employee individual development and employee well-being. These strongly influence employee satisfaction and engagement (Zaugg et al., 2001 , p. 3; Cleveland & Cavanagh, 2015 ).

In this article, we focus on job satisfaction, as it is seen as particularly important for the sustainability of workplaces and entire organizations.

Research model

In order to build research conceptual model, we used a systematic literature review methodology (Czakon, 2011 ). According to the adopted methodology, we carried out the procedure in three stages. The first stage included: (a) definition of the database and the set of publications; (b) selection of publications; (c) elaboration of the final publication database; (d) bibliometric and content analysis of selected materials. Publications for analysis were collected from the EBSCO database. Scientific publications (articles, book chapters) that contained the phrases [sustainable* or sustainable HRM* humanity* job satisfaction* engagement*] were searched. Eligibility criteria were fixed so that studies published in peer-reviewed full-length articles, written in English, were selected for the review process. The search at this stage resulted in over 496 publications in total. In the second step, the we applied the following selection criteria: publications in the field of personnel management, HRM, job satisfaction. This allowed the number of publications to be narrowed down for in-depth substantive analysis, which was carried out in the third stage of the systematic literature review. An accumulated collection of 158 publications was used for this purpose.

The different approaches are not mutually exclusive. Despite their differences, they have one thing in common: understanding that sustainability refers to a long-term and sustainable outcome (Kramar, 2014 , p. 1076).

Based on the results of the literature review, we identified two levels of sustainable HRM contributions – organizational level and individual employee level. The summary is presented in the Table 2 .

The presented issues based on the systematic literature review, have become the basis for hypotheses The authors have focused on the individual employee level of analyses.

It should be noted that despite the extensive discussion in the literature on both the individual and organizational level of SHRM, the research is dominated by the organizational perspective. SHRM is a phenomenon dependent not only on internal organizational conditions, but also on certain characteristics of individual employees. The literature does not provide an answer to the question about the relationship between SHRM on the individual level in the context of employee satisfaction. Moreover, the literature does not explain why higher well-being at work, workforce training, or efforts to retain employees on the part of the company can lead to greater workforce satisfaction.

This results in the main research objective of the article, which is recognition of correlations between factors affecting employee satisfaction (employee workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, work engagement) and employee satisfaction, from the perspective of employee in the sustainable HRM context. Considering the results of systematic literature review, the research model was built to determine the relationships between identified variables (Fig.  1 ).

Source: own elaboration

Research model.

The existing state of knowledge in the field of SHRM in the individual employee context, examined through a systematic literature review has shown that there are current cognitive research gaps. For example, few studies have been devoted to humanity in a sustainable work environment. In particular, there is a lack of research focused on the relationship between employee workplace well-being, employee development and retention, and all these (relationships) related to the employee satisfaction and employee engagement in a sustainable work environment. Therefore, as far as the authors are concerned, there is no such research (from the perspective of employees) conducted in Poland.

The following research hypotheses were formulated:

H1: Employee workplace well-being (EWW) positively correlates with employee satisfaction.

H2: Employee development (ED) positively correlates with employee satisfaction.

H3: Employee retention (ER) positively correlates with employee satisfaction.

H4: Employee engagement (EG) positively correlates with employee satisfaction.

H5: Employee engagement (EG) mediates relationships between employee workplace well-being (EWW), employee development (ED), employee retention (ER) and employee satisfaction.

Based on a review of the well-being literature, Page and Vella-Brodrick ( 2009 ) have argued that employee well-being (EWB) should be measured in terms of social well-being (SWB), psychological well-being (PWB), and work-related affect, that is, workplace well-being (WWB). The last is related to work satisfaction and work-related affect. Employees reporting positive well-being tend to demonstrate higher job satisfaction and job performance as compared to those reporting low levels of well-being (Wright et al., 2007 ).

Raising perceptions of organizational support involves developing leaders and policies that convey consideration for employees' needs, well-being, challenges, and concerns (Eisenberger et al., 1997 ). Workplace well-being is a pleasant or positive emotional state resulting from job evaluation or work experiences (Locke, 1970 ). Bakker and Leiter ( 2010 ) argue that an employee's sense of well-being occurs when they find their job satisfying and when emotions such as joy and happiness prevail. This is supported by studies of the relationship between well-being and job satisfaction, which show that increased well-being accompanies higher job satisfaction (Browne, 2021 ; Machin-Rincon et al., 2020 ; Rhéaume, 2021 ; Wu et al., 2021 ).

A popular analysis of employee well-being includes a concept known as the Vitamin Model of Employee Well-Being by Warr ( 1994 ). The author singles out characteristics of work in the organizational environment that in varying degrees of intensity affect employee well-being (Warr & Clapperton, 2010 ). The model uses comparing work characteristics to vitamins in the human body, which depending on the intensity can positively or negatively affect it. In this case, there is a relationship between their intensity, and job satisfaction. This model focuses on the relationship between job characteristics and mental health of individuals. Employee satisfaction which comes through many ways and one of them is workplace well-being. Employee satisfaction appears in many ways, in various studies. One of them is well-being in the workplace (Siddiqui & Ijaz, 2022 ). Employees in companies implementing wellness programs reported higher work satisfaction rates than those in companies without wellness programs, thereby suggesting that these wellness programs may positively affect job satisfaction for employees (Pawar & Kunte, 2022 ).

Accordingly, we hypothesized that employee workplace well-being positively correlates with employee satisfaction (H1).

Employee-oriented HRM denote the organization’s investment in its human resources, especially in what concerns its growth and professional development.

In organizations characterized by employee centered HRM, given the importance of welfare and development (Clarke & Hill, 2012 ), it would be expected to find higher levels of job satisfaction among its members. Evidence (Hantula, 2015 ) indicates that the most satisfied employees are those who work in positions that offer them freedom, independence, and discretion to schedule work and decide on procedures; autonomy for decision making, as well as opportunities to apply and develop personal skills and competences.

Current changes in the workplace are causing some researchers to take a holistic view of HR culture in an organization to study its impact on employee job satisfaction, and have revealed that there is a correlation between career development and other variables, namely, employee motivation and job satisfaction (Akdere & Egan, 2020 ; Lestari et al., 2021 ; Sheraz et al., 2021 ).

The employees and the management work on the same page and achieve the desired goals. According to Järlström et al. ( 2018 ), sustainable HRM builds a positive path and valuable strategies to maintain progress and employee development. It means a company must be conscious regarding developing their entrepreneurial HR development-based policies and strategies within a workplace.

Development opportunities are a form of recognition for employees' work, which in turn translates into career advancement. Understanding the competencies that will be needed in the future contributes to the design of development plans. Future promotion, which is associated with higher pay, depends on the skills possessed, so allowing employees to develop them can increase employee satisfaction. Increased knowledge and skills can translate into increased satisfaction, due to the achievement of professional goals (satisfaction with one's career) and personal goals (feeling of professional success).

Based on a study conducted by Nguyen and Duong ( 2020 ), it shows that there was a strong positive relationship between training and development element on employee satisfaction.

Opportunity for personal growth is one important factor that has a significant impact on job satisfaction. With the passage of time in employment, if an employee does not have the opportunity for development, the level of satisfaction decreases and discouragement and passivity towards responsibilities increases.

Accordingly, we hypothesized that employee development positively correlates with employee satisfaction (H2).

An important way in which HRM practitioners can increase the satisfaction of employees is through the retention of employees, especially during times of economic challenge. Research demonstrates the powerful negative psychological effects of termination and unemployment on the unemployed (Paul & Moser, 2009 ), and the negative impact on work attitudes by so-called survivors (i.e., employees who remain after downsizing; Datta et al., 2010 ).

There are several motivational theories (Rousseau, 1989 ; Vroom, 1964 ; Adams, 1963 ) that suggest that organizational commitment to employees during difficult times should result in employee commitment to the organization when labor market conditions change in the employees' favor.

Today, in an economy of technological advances, organizations are constantly competing to retain their key employees and avoid high turnover rates by caring about employee satisfaction (Khan et al., 2021 ; Kim et al., 2020 ).

It is difficult for employees to be successful and productive at work if they are distracted and anxious about personal and financial problems (e.g., Bakker & Demerouti, 2007 ; Kahn, 1990 ). Thus, a critical advocacy role for HRM practitioners is to ensure that employees receive a livable pay, benefits, and a secure retirement, which ultimately contributes to their ability to develop and stay at work. These types of incentives are associated with higher employee organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Hulin & Hanisch, 1991 ), and can be powerful in the recruitment process, ensuring that firms are competitive in obtaining the best talent (Siddiqui & Ijaz, 2020 ; Chapman et al., 2005 ).

This leads us to our final hypothesis that employee retention positively correlates with employee satisfaction (H3).

An engaged workforce feels competent, finds meaning in work, and finds growth psychologically through work. Organizations benefit from striving to create an engaged workforce (Byrne et al., 2011 ). By creating opportunities, organizations foster engaged employees who are mentally and physically healthy (Attridge, 2009 ; Schaufeli et al., 2008 ).

Engaged employees tend to be more productive than disengaged employees, resulting in higher employee satisfaction (Harter et al., 2002 ). There is a positive impact of employee engagement to effect of job satisfaction and a current understanding of the dynamics between living wage, job satisfaction, and employee engagement (Hendriks et al., 2022 ; Maleka et al., 2021 ; Sahrish et al., 2021 ; Ngwenya & Pelser, 2020 ).

Organizational psychologists have long seen the potential for work to satisfy belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization needs (Alderfer, 1969 ; Maslow, 1943 ), as well as suggested designing jobs that offer the opportunity to use diverse skills and provide meaning and autonomy to employees (Hackman & Oldham, 1976 ; Herzberg et al., 1959 ). Designing jobs to be meaningful and developmental increases job satisfaction, which in turn has positive effects on organizational outcomes, such as increased productivity and decreased turnover (Champoux, 1991 ; Fried & Ferris, 1987 ). Accordingly, we hypothesized that e mployee engagement (EG) positively correlates with employee satisfaction (H4).

However, in light of the available evidence, it can be hypothesized that employee engagement will mediate the relationship between individual workplace factors (employee workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention) and employee satisfaction.

Although, there is strong empirical evidence of the mediation role played by engagement (Schaufeli & Taris, 2013 ), most research is cross-sectional in nature, and furthermore, the consequences of engagement have been less empirically studied (Halbesleben, 2010 ). Concerning the relationship between work engagement and job satisfaction, empirical research has found a moderate correlation among constructs (Zhang et al., 2022 ; Simbula & Guglielmi, 2013 ; Schaufeli et al., 2008 ).

Work engagement is the linking between the employees’ selves to their work roles where they express themselves as physical, cognitive, and emotional (Kahn, 1990 ). This psychological state (May et al., 2004 ) may be defined as a “positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli et al., 2002 , p. 74). Vigor represents high levels of energy, the willingness to put effort in the job, and to persist when confronted with difficulties; dedication means the senses of significance, pride, and enthusiasm; and absorption refers to being fully concentrated and focused on the job. Absorption refers to the feeling of full concentration and immersion in work, accompanied by the experience of unnatural lapse of time, difficulty in detaching from work (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004 ).

In essence, work engagement refers to a persistent and pervasive state that connotes involvement, commitment, enthusiasm, focused effort, and energy (Macey & Schneider, 2008 ; Schaufeli et al., 2002 ).

The literature highlights that organizations benefit from striving to create an engaged workforce (Byrne et al., 2011 ). By creating opportunities, organizations support engaged employees who are mentally and physically healthy (Attridge, 2009 ; Schaufeli & Salanova, 2007 ; Schaufeli et al., 2008 ). Engaged employees tend to perform better than unengaged employees, resulting in higher employee satisfaction (Harter et al., 2002 ). When workers perceive that their organization believes in engagement-oriented policies then it leads toward workplace well-being (Oliveira et al., 2020 ).

Given these relationships, in our analysis we want to give answers to the research hypothesis (H5): employee engagement (EG) mediates relationships between employee workplace well-being (EWW), employee development (ED), employee retention (ER), and employee satisfaction ().

Research has identified four reasons why engaged workers perform better than nonengaged workers and are more satisfied: (a) they often experience positive emotions such as joy, enthusiasm, and happiness; (b) they experience better health conditions; (c) they develop their own job and personal resources; and (d) their engagement is contagious to others (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008 ).

Methodology

A quantitative questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of 1051 people in 2019. The respondents were selected through non-random sampling. The criterion for selection of respondents was determined by the size of firms according to the criterion of number of employees (micro, small, medium, and large enterprises. As a criterion the authors adopted the structure of companies in the population of enterprises in Poland, that operate according to sustainable development policies (procedures). Employees of companies that took part in the study constitute a group of 1051 people.

Work engagement was measured accordingly with the theoretical concept of Schaufeli and Bakker ( 2003 ), who define work engagement as a positive, fulfilling feeling towards work, which relates to the state of mind comprised of three dimensions: the sense of vigour experienced by an employee, dedication to work, and absorption. The authors of the above concept define these dimensions as:

Vigour – experiencing a high level of energy and mental endurance at work, willingness to go the extra mile, resilience, especially in the face of adversities;

Dedication – working with enthusiasm, with the sense that one’s work is important, taking pride in being able to do one’s job, being enthusiastic, and welcoming challenges;

Absorption – the sense of full concentration on and involvement in work accompanied by experiencing unnatural passing of the time and with difficulty to stop working. Work Engagement was operationalized with the Polish version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) containing nine statements.

The dimensions of employee workplace well-being, employee development, and employee retention were examined using a proprietary questionnaire consisting of 26 questions. The selection of dimensions was based on the literature review related to sustainable HRM.

Job satisfaction was measured using the Job Satisfaction Scale (Zalewska, 2003 ), consisting of 5 statements regarding the evaluation of the work sphere. A 7-point scale was used in the questionnaire: 1-strongly disagree, 2-disagree, 3-totally disagree, 4-hard to say, 5-rather agree, 6-agree, 7-strongly agree. All statements are elements of one dimension and show high internal consistency in the heterogeneous sample and in individual occupational groups, which confirms that the scale is a reliable, valuable, and accurate tool for measuring overall job satisfaction.

A total of 1,051 people participated in the survey, of which 68.2% were female and 31.8% were male. Most respondents were aged 20–29 years (64.4%), those aged 30–39 years were 18.6%, and those aged 40–49 years were 14.5%. However, those over 50 years of age comprised 2.6% of the sample. Most (43.3%) of the respondents were employed in large enterprises (over 250 employees). Medium enterprises (50–249 employees) accounted for 21.2%, and small enterprises (10–49 employees) accounted for 22.3% of the respondents. The smallest group (12,7%) were respondents representing micro enterprises (up to 9 employees). Missing data represented 0.6%. Most of the respondents were from companies with Polish capital (68.3%), and the least from companies with mixed capital (15%). However, 16.1% of respondents were from foreign capital companies. Lack of data was 0.6%.

Research results

In the preliminary analysis descriptive statistics were calculated. The verification of hypotheses H1 to H4 was based on correlation analysis. Hypothesis H5 regarding mediation was verified with the use of mediation analysis based on macro–Hayes Process ( 2018 ).

The study decided to use correlation analysis to examine the linear relationship between the variables. The purpose of this analysis was to examine the strength of the relationship between the variables. As a result of this analysis, it can be determined whether a particular factor, a particular variable, has an impact on job satisfaction.

Another analysis was a mediation analysis based on the macro-Hayes process. Mediation analysis has been used for many years by researchers (Baron & Kenny, 1986 ; MacKinnon, 2008 ;).

The purpose of the analysis in our study was to test the mediating role of commitment with its dimensions (vigor, dedication, absorption) in the relationship between well-being, employee development, retention, and job satisfaction.

Table 3 presents descriptive statistics for analysed variables, namely, mean values, standard deviations, minimum and maximum values, measures of skewness and kurtosis, and Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients.

The values of skewness and kurtosis did not exceed the range from -1.0 to 1.0. Therefore, parametric statistical tests were used in the subsequent analysis.

Reliability α—Cronbach's is at a high level in all variables studied. For WWB it is 0.93, ED 0.80, ER 0.77, while the overall score for employee engagement is 0.91 and employee satisfaction 0.91.

Correlation analysis

Table 4 values of Pearson correlation coefficients between analysed variables.

Employee workplace well-being correlated positively with employee satisfaction, which supports hypothesis H1. Employee development correlated positively with employee satisfaction, which supports hypothesis H2. Employee retention correlated positively with employee satisfaction, which supports hypothesis H3.

Vigor, dedication, absorption, and total employee engagement also positively correlated with employee satisfaction, which supports hypothesis H4.

The results of the correlation analysis indicate that all the variables adopted in the study are significant and influence job satisfaction. Therefore, it can be concluded that employee well-being, employee development, retention and engagement determine in an employee satisfaction with the work he does for his organization. This result has practical implications for the organization, as will be discussed later.

Mediation analysis

Employee engagement and its components, vigor, dedication, and absorption, were analysed as mediators of the relationship between employee workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention and employee satisfaction. The analysis was performed with the use of Hayess Process macro ( 2018 ) and based on the model no. 4. Figure  2 depicts analysed relationships between analysed variables. Employee workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention and employee satisfaction were analysed in separate statistical models. Vigor, dedication, and absorption were analysed as three parallel mediators. Total employee engagement was analysed as a mediator in a separate statistical model.

Model of analysed relationships between analysed variables.

Table 5 presents results of mediation analysis. 95% confidence intervals were based on the bootstrap method with 1.000 consecutive drawings.

The acquired results support hypothesis H5. Depending on the explained variable analysed statistical models explained from 52 to 67% of employee satisfaction variance. Interpreting the results, we can consider that total employee engagement, vigor (Vi) and dedication (De) were statistically significant mediators between employee workplace well-being (WWB), employee development (ED), employee retention (ER), and employee satisfaction.

The results of the study show that the direct relationships between employee workplace well-being (WWB), employee development (ED), employee retention (ER) and employee satisfaction were also statistically significant. Interpreting the results, it can be concluded that total employee engagement, vigor, and dedication were partial mediators.

In contrast, there was no statistically significant mediation effect for absorption (Ab).

We referred to this result in the discussion section of the article, pointing out the dangerous phenomenon with which absorption is associated. The phenomenon concerns losing track of time, immersing oneself in work, and having issues with detaching from it.

In addition, the results showed that higher levels of employee well-being in the workplace (WWB), employee development (ED), employee retention (ER) was related to higher level of vigor, higher level of dedication and higher total level of employee engagement, which in turn led to higher level of employee satisfaction.

The results of the mediation analysis indicate the mediating role of vigor and dedication increasing job satisfaction considering the relationship of well-being, employee development, retention with job satisfaction.

Discussion and conclusion

It is shown that the sustainable HRM is a developmental approach for employees. Within sustainable HRM practice employees are not just resources but assets. Sustainable HRM ensures leveraging capabilities of employees guaranteeing the sustenance of this ‘human capital’ as a source of competitive advantage. Sustainable HRM considers employees' satisfaction, engagement, and well-being. It finally endorses that ultimately successful individuals become the foundation stones for effective and successful organizations (Indiparambil, 2019 ; Parakandi & Behery, 2015 ).

The main objective of our study was to identify individual-level correlations between factors affecting employee satisfaction, such as workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, job engagement and employee satisfaction. As the literature review shows, this goal is extremely legitimate because of the practical implications for both organizations, employees, and science.

Overall, our results indicate that workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, and employee engagement positively correlate with employee satisfaction. In addition, the results show the mediating role of employee engagement in the relationship between workplace well-being, employee development, employee retention, and employee satisfaction. This means that the higher the level of these variables, the higher the level of commitment and this in turn leads to higher levels of satisfaction.

We studied engagement based on 3 dimensions: vigor, dedication, absorption. As the results show, the absorption dimension has no effect on the level of job satisfaction. This means that what is important is the level of energy put into the work, mental stamina, readiness to make an effort, doing the work with enthusiasm, pride, a sense of its importance, willingness to accept challenges. All this, while avoiding excessive work, inability to stop working, and losing track of time. In our opinion, a high level of absorption can often lead to workaholism, which can act adversely to the well-being of employees.

In our theoretical framework, we argued that job satisfaction is a complex theoretical construct that, when studied empirically, takes into account many different factors that influence it. Thus, it is up to researchers to determine which factors are empirically studied. Our review of the literature indicated that there are studies that have considered factors in terms of organization, interpersonal relationships, activities, and tasks, and working conditions (Sypniewska, 2014 ; Sarmiento et al., 2004 , 134–143;; Zalewska, 2001 ). These factors relate simultaneously to the organizational and individual levels.

We considered it necessary to delineate factors in our study by considering the individual level due to the employee's perspective in the context of sustainable HRM. A condition that is theoretically important and recommended in the literature, according to us, has been fulfilled, which means, according to many authors, that the level of satisfaction increases or decreases depending on the individual respondents' evaluation of the variables studied (Meneghel et al., 2016 ; Nemani & Diala, 2011 ).

Given the above, our findings show confirmation of the hypotheses posed prior to the study, which relate to factors such as workplace well-being, employee development, retention, and engagement.

Analyzing the first hypothesis, concerning the correlation of well-being and satisfaction, it turned out that the two variables correlate positively with each other (this confirms the posited H1).

This means that people who experience well-being in the workplace simultaneously experience job satisfaction. Considering the theoretical framework, we see that some researchers of job satisfaction describe it as a motivational factor related to engagement and as a measure of the quality of human capital management and a determinant of the quality of relational capital (Chrupała-Pniak, 2012 ; Juchnowicz, 2014 ). In contrast, psychologists drawing from cognitive and humanistic psychology treat job satisfaction by referring to the concept of quality of life and human well-being in organizations, where it is an end in itself, rather than as a tool for increasing efficiency (Czerw, 2016 ; Łaguna, 2012 ; Dobrowolska, 2010 ; Ratajczak, 2007 ; Bańka, 2002 ).

What then is well-being? "The well-being of an individual is related to the fact of employment, in which there is hope, optimism, peace" (Dobrowolska, 2010 ). In our view, an organization can influence the overall and partial level of job satisfaction by contributing to the overall well-being of employees in the workplace and to overall job satisfaction by creating appropriate working conditions for employees, including attention to the atmosphere at work. Thus, it can also be considered that an employee's sense of well-being occurs when they find their job satisfying and when emotions such as joy and happiness dominate.

Our results also show that employee development positively correlates with job satisfaction (H2), which is theoretically and practically justified. We recognize that every employee strives for his own professional development. It matters to him not so much to do a job in a particular organization, but let this development be an added value for him in the future. Given the current technological changes and high competition, the demand for employee training is growing. So effective employee development initiatives offer benefits not only to employees, but also to organizations.

The incurred contribution to employee development by the organization pays off in the near term through increased employee productivity, engagement, and openness to new ideas. As previously mentioned for employees, development improves their chances in the competitive labor market, especially during times of economic recession, for example (Millman & Latham, 2001 ). It should also be noted that some employees seek self-improvement within the profession. Successful, relevant, and effective training experiences can also serve as an indication that an organization is willing to invest in human capital and notices and meets the development needs of its employees. Such feelings can increase attachment to the organization, which in turn can translate into job satisfaction and enjoyment of being in that organization.

Our findings also show a positive correlation regarding employee retention with job satisfaction (H3). As mentioned earlier, satisfaction is a combination of what an employee feels (emotions) and what they think about various aspects of the job (cognition) (Rich et al., 2010 ; Organ & Near, 1985 ; Locke, 1969 ). It includes values, willingness to put effort into work, commitment, and a strong desire to stay with the organization (Schultz & Schultz, 2002 ). It is important for a company to promote values in common with those of its employees, this affects positive brand perception and effective work. Activities aimed at identifying employees with the company's values, as well as ways of managing and/or motivating them, influence positive perceptions of the organization and significantly affect job satisfaction. All this influences the desire to stay with the organization or leave it. So, when the right conditions are met, an employee does not look for another job, another organization. He feels fulfilled in the one where he works and does not decide to leave it, which of course is of great value to the organization even due to the huge costs associated with the search for new employees.

Our next findings concerned the correlation of engagement with employee satisfaction. It turned out that this hypothesis (H4) was positively verified. Undoubtedly, when employees' expectations and needs are met, they are more engaged in their tasks. This fulfillment of expectations and needs by the organization in turn translates into their satisfaction not only with their jobs, but also with being in an organization that cares about them (Qing et al., 2020 ). For many years, organizational psychologists have recognized the potential of work to meet the needs of belonging, esteem, and self-actualization (Alderfer, 1969 ; Maslow, 1943 ), as well as to design workplaces that provide opportunities to use a variety of skills and provide employees with meaning and autonomy (Hackman & Oldham, 1976 ; Herzberg et al., 1959 ).

In our study, we demonstrated the mediating role of engagement in the relationship between employee well-being in the workplace, employee development, employee retention and employee satisfaction (H5). Thus, our study demonstrated engagement at work as a mediator. The relationship showed statistical significance for all these factors with the engagement dimension: vigor and dedication, but no significance with the absorption dimension. This means that in people who show an experience of high levels of energy and mental toughness at work, a willingness to put effort into work, and are resilient and resilient in the face of adversity, the sense of job satisfaction is enhanced. Such enhancement is also found in people who perform work with enthusiasm, experience a sense of meaning and importance, feel pride in their work, and view work as a challenge and inspiration.

The lack of statistical significance for the absorption dimension does not necessarily mean that people do their work without being immersed in it and forgetting about the passage of time or the difficulty in detaching from it. In fact, research shows that people who score low on the absorption dimension do not have difficulty detaching themselves from it and forgetting everything going on around them, including time (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003 ). As noted earlier, a state of excessive concentration on work, excessive losing oneself in work while feeling the passage of time unnaturally and finding it difficult to detach oneself from work can lead to workaholism, which in turn affects the well-being of the employee. There must be moderation in everything, and it is the role of the organization to create such working conditions and delegate such tasks that the employee does not work beyond his or her strength and does not lose himself or herself in work while feeling immense time pressure. Positive emotions, well-being, a sense of self-efficacy, energy translate into factors that make up the sense of job satisfaction internally, individually, but it does not have to be characterized by difficulties in dedicating oneself to work or even in interrupting a task, as in the case of workaholism.

As highlighted earlier, the perception of job satisfaction is a subjective feeling. What is important, however, is that this subjectivity of perceived satisfaction makes it impossible to design measures aimed at increasing job satisfaction that are the same for all employees, measures aimed at increasing positive feelings (Fiech & Mudyń, 2011 ). Being happy and fulfilled at work is a function of the multiplicity of work experiences in an organization. (Crede et al., 2007 ).

Our literature review showed that when employees have meaningful and meaningful work, they tend to be more enthusiastic about developing pro-sustainability activities and practices (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009 ); however, when they perceive that such practices do not align with the organization's values, their willingness to experience engagement at work decreases (Colvin & Boswell, 2007 ; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004 ;), and their performance becomes lower than it potentially could be (Bakker et al., 2004 ).

Practical, organizational, and scientific implications

In addition to our contribution to the mainstream of research on job engagement and job satisfaction in the practice of SHRM, we enrich the literature on human capital by studying the impact of factors at the individual level on job satisfaction. In a similar way, we contribute to the perspective of managing people in an organization, explaining how to motivate employees, what factors at work to pay attention to in order to increase their satisfaction and engagement which translates into the success of the organization itself. Of course, it is clear that the factors we study are not the only factors. Therefore, we point out that it is important to expand the research to include still other factors of importance for greater satisfaction and engagement. While the literature to date has pointed to other factors, our study was by design to take a sustainability approach.

Another of our contributions is a deeper understanding of the mediating role that employee engagement, including its dimensions, plays on job satisfaction. Our results showed that engagement and its dimensions mediate the relationship between individual factors (employee development well-being, retention, overall engagement) and job satisfaction. Another of our contributions is the measurement of empirical relationships between the factors studied and job satisfaction. The size of our research sample may indicate some generalization (but not generalization) of our results at the individual level with boundary conditions defined by multilevel interactions taking into account other factors.

Our analysis is particularly valuable to decision-makers because it can inform them about the conditions to be created for employees and how to motivate them from a sustainability perspective. The implications for decision-makers also translate into implications for the organization itself. Organizations should strive to apply/implement SHRM practices. Organizations should focus on individual SHRM levels that translate into employee job satisfaction as an indicator of success in creating workplaces that foster well-being, employee well-being, employee retention, engagement, and productivity. If work is unsatisfactory, employees may feel tension, refrain from contributing more, or quit. Therefore, periodic job satisfaction surveys are extremely important to help identify negative and positive feelings.

It is worth noting the findings of other researchers on job satisfaction, in which satisfaction was a motivating factor in entrepreneurial activities (Blaese et al., 2021 ). Other studies have highlighted the role of conflict in perceived job satisfaction, which is related to employees' feelings of well-being (Schoss et al., 2022 ).

Another implication for practice from the presented study is the creation of SHRM policies for employee development, as this is one of the factors that has a significant impact on job satisfaction and engagement. Successful employee development initiatives benefit not only employees, but also the organization. It is therefore important to include training programs that, among other things, promote employee self-actualization and team building, a work atmosphere that promotes employee well-being.

Intuitive methods to motivate employees to work more efficiently used by decision-makers seem to be insufficient. Therefore, our study can make an important contribution to expanding knowledge about ways to increase job satisfaction and engagement. The organization's policies in terms of ways to motivate employees translate into the employees themselves, especially their willingness to stay or leave the organization. An employee who feels that the organization cares about the development of employees, their mental state and perceived emotions, their well-being is less likely to decide to leave. After all, as mentioned earlier, high employee turnover is associated with huge recruitment costs. It is not just financial costs, but also the cost of recruiter time or the cost of adapting a new employee.

Limitations and direction for future research

The studied sample, although quite numerous, cannot be considered representative of the general population of Polish employees. Therefore, the generalizability of the findings obtained is not without questions. It should be noted that the questionnaire was not oriented towards employees of organizations which report to have sustainability strategies.

A potential limitation is related to our measure of WWB, ED, ER. Although the current research provides evidence that these factors are related to job satisfaction, additional research is needed to further examine the form and function of these factors. Future studies could use objective measures to evaluate those factors.

Among the limitations, it should be noted that, since all the variables were measured in the same questionnaire, the results could have been affected by biases due to the variance of the common method. With a view to overcoming this problem (Podsakoff et al., 2012 ), future research should/could include other sources of exploration, such as supervisors’ opinions, as well as systematic observations.

The authors are aware that the article does not exhaust the research problem research problem and is only an impulse for further research on the complex issue of SHR practices and their relationship to engagement and satisfaction in the workplace. There are few humanity direction studies in SRHM, also this is a gap that needs to be filled in the future.

It would also be useful to examine the impact of various sustainable HRM practices to see which ones have the greatest impact on work engagement.

Future research may also consider other individual and individual-level factors that could potentially moderate this relationship between human resources and engagement, such as leader-team member relationship, collectivism/individualism orientation, organization support, and employee type.

The present study could be capitalized for the inauguration of new lines of research in the area. The suggestions, without being exhaustive, are oriented to the following disseminate and foster SHRM practices that are positively associated with job satisfaction.

Looking ahead, an interesting research direction would be to conduct a longitudinal study analyzing the relationships studied in different phases of the organization's life cycle. In our opinion, it could contribute to defining the currently studied variables (factors) in retrospect, whether they are still important to employees or have lost their importance.

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Sypniewska, B., Baran, M. & Kłos, M. Work engagement and employee satisfaction in the practice of sustainable human resource management – based on the study of Polish employees. Int Entrep Manag J 19 , 1069–1100 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-023-00834-9

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-023-00834-9

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job involvement: the mediating role of job involvement.

• Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia

We conducted an empirical study aimed at identifying and quantifying the relationship between work characteristics, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational policies and procedures in the transition economy of Serbia, South Eastern Europe. The study, which included 566 persons, employed by 8 companies, revealed that existing models of work motivation need to be adapted to fit the empirical data, resulting in a revised research model elaborated in the paper. In the proposed model, job involvement partially mediates the effect of job satisfaction on organizational commitment. Job satisfaction in Serbia is affected by work characteristics but, contrary to many studies conducted in developed economies, organizational policies and procedures do not seem significantly affect employee satisfaction.

1. Introduction

In the current climate of turbulent changes, companies have begun to realize that the employees represent their most valuable asset ( Glen, 2006 ; Govaerts et al., 2011 ; Fulmer and Ployhart, 2014 ; Vomberg et al., 2015 ; Millar et al., 2017 ). Satisfied and motivated employees are imperative for contemporary business and a key factor that separates successful companies from the alternative. When considering job satisfaction and work motivation in general, of particular interest are the distinctive traits of these concepts in transition economies.

Serbia is a country that finds itself at the center of the South East region of Europe (SEE), which is still in the state of transition. Here transition refers to the generally accepted concept, which implies economic and political changes introduced by former socialist countries in Europe and beyond (e.g., China) after the years of economic stagnation and recession in the 1980's, in the attempt to move their economy from centralized to market-oriented principles ( Ratkovic-Njegovan and Grubic-Nesic, 2015 ). Serbia exemplifies many of the problems faced by the SEE region as a whole, but also faces a number of problems uniquely related to the legacy of its past. Due to international economic sanctions, the country was isolated for most of the 1990s, and NATO air strikes, related to the Kosovo conflict and carried out in 1999, caused significant damage to the industry and economy. Transitioning to democracy in October 2000, Serbia embarked on a period of economic recovery, helped by the introduction of long overdue reforms, major inflows of foreign investment and substantial assistance from international funding institutions and others in the international community. However, the growth model on which Serbia and other SEE countries relied between 2001 and 2008, being based mainly on rapid capital inflows, a credit-fueled domestic demand boom and high current account deficit (above 20% of GDP in 2008), was not accompanied by the necessary progress in structural and institutional reforms to make this model sustainable ( Uvalic, 2013 ). The central issue of the transition process in Serbia and other such countries is privatization of public enterprises, which in Serbia ran slowly and with a number of interruptions, failures and restarts ( Radun et al., 2015 ). The process led the Serbian industry into a state of industrial collapse, i.e., deindustrialization. Today there are less than 400,000 employees working in the industry in Serbia and the overall unemployment rate exceeds 26% ( Milisavljevic et al., 2013 ). The average growth of Serbia's GDP in the last 5 years was very low, at 0.6% per year, but has reached 2.7% in 2016 ( GDP, 2017 ). The structure of the GDP by sector in 2015 was: services 60.5%, industry 31.4%, and agriculture 8.2% ( Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 2017 ).

Taking into account the specific adversities faced by businesses in Serbia, we formulated two main research questions as a starting point for the analysis of the problem of work motivation in Serbia:

1. To what extent are the previously developed models of work motivation (such as the model of Locke and Latham, 2004 ) applicable to the transition economy and business practices in Serbia?

2. What is the nature of the relationships between different segments of work motivation (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job involvement and work characteristics)?

The Hawthorn experiment, conducted in early 1930s ( Mayo, 1933 ), spurred the interest of organizational behavior researchers into the problem of work motivation. Although Hawthorn focused mainly on the problems of increasing the productivity and the effects of supervision, incentives and the changing work conditions, his study had significant repercussions on the research of work motivation. All modern theories of work motivation stem from his study.

Building on his work, Maslow (1943) published his Hierarchy of Needs theory, which remains to this day the most cited and well known of all work motivation theories according to Denhardt et al. (2012) . Maslow's theory is a content-based theory , belonging to a group of approaches which also includes the ERG Theory by Alderfer (1969) , the Achievement Motivation Theory, Motivation-Hygiene Theory and the Role Motivation Theory.

These theories focus on attempting to uncover what the needs and motives that cause people to act in a certain way, within the organization, are. They do not concern themselves with the process humans use to fulfill their needs, but attempt to identify variables which influence this fulfillment. Thus, these theories are often referred to as individual theories , as they ignore the organizational aspects of work motivation, such as job characteristics or working environment, but concentrate on the individual and the influence of an individual's needs on work motivation.

The approach is contrasted by the process theories of work motivation, which take the view that the concept of needs is not enough to explain the studied phenomenon and include expectations, values, perception, as important aspects needed to explain why people behave in certain ways and why they are willing to invest effort to achieve their goals. The process theories include: Theory of Work and Motivation ( Vroom, 1964 ), Goal Setting Theory ( Locke, 1968 ), Equity Theory ( Adams, 1963 ), as well as the The Porter-Lawler Model ( Porter and Lawler, 1968 ).

Each of these theories has its limitations and, while they do not contradict each other, they focus on different aspects of the motivation process. This is the reason why lately they have been several attempts to create an integrated theory of work motivation, which would encompass all the relevant elements of different basic theories and explain most processes taking place within the domain of work motivation, the process of motivation, as well as employee expectations ( Donovan, 2001 ; Mitchell and Daniels, 2002 ; Locke and Latham, 2004 ). One of the most influential integrated theories is the theory proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) , which represents the basis for the study presented in this paper.

The model of Locke and Latham is show in Figure 1 . As the figure shows, it includes individual needs, values and motive, as well as personality. Incorporating the theory of expectations, the goal-setting theory and the social-cognitive theory, it focuses on goal setting, goals themselves and self-efficiency. Performance, by way of achievements and rewards, affects job satisfaction. The model defines relations between different constructs and, in particular, that job satisfaction is affected by the job characteristics and organizational policy and procedures and that it, in turn, affects organizational commitment and job involvement. Locke and Latham suggested that the theory they proposed needs more stringent empirical validation. In the study presented here, we take a closer look at the part of their theory which addresses the relationship between job satisfaction, involvement and organizational commitment. The results of the empirical study conducted in industrial systems suggest that this part of the model needs to be improved to reflect the mediating role of job involvement in the process through which job satisfaction influences organizational commitment.

Figure 1 . Diagram of the Latham and Locke model. The frame on the right indicates the part of the model the current study focuses on.

Job satisfaction is one of the most researched phenomena in the domain of human resource management and organizational behavior. It is commonly defined as a “pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of oneś job or job experiences” ( Schneider and Snyder, 1975 ; Locke, 1976 ). Job satisfaction is a key element of work motivation, which is a fundamental determinant of one's behavior in an organization.

Organizational commitment, on the other hand, represents the degree to which the employees identify with the organization in which they work, how engaged they are in the organization and whether they are ready leave it ( Greenberg and Baron, 2008 ). Several studies have demonstrated that there is a strong connection between organizational commitment, job satisfaction and fluctuation ( Porter et al., 1974 ), as well as that people who are more committed to an organization are less likely to leave their job. Organizational commitment can be thought of as an extension of job satisfaction, as it deals with the positive attitude that an employee has, not toward her own job, but toward the organization. The emotions, however, are much stronger in the case of organizational commitment and it is characterized by the attachment of the employee to the organization and readiness to make sacrifices for the organization.

The link between job satisfaction and organizational commitment has been researched relatively frequently ( Mathieu and Zajac, 1990 ; Martin and Bennett, 1996 ; Meyer et al., 2002 ; Falkenburg and Schyns, 2007 ; Moynihan and Pandey, 2007 ; Morrow, 2011 ). The research consensus is that the link exists, but there is controversy about the direction of the relationship. Some research supports the hypothesis that job satisfaction predicts organizational commitment ( Stevens et al., 1978 ; Angle and Perry, 1983 ; Williams and Hazer, 1986 ; Tsai and Huang, 2008 ; Yang and Chang, 2008 ; Yücel, 2012 ; Valaei et al., 2016 ), as is the case in the study presented in this paper. Other studies suggest that the organizational commitment is an antecedent to job satisfaction ( Price and Mueller, 1981 ; Bateman and Strasser, 1984 ; Curry et al., 1986 ; Vandenberg and Lance, 1992 ).

In our study, job involvement represents a type of attitude toward work and is usually defined as the degree to which one identifies psychologically with one's work, i.e., how much importance one places on their work. A distinction should be made between work involvement and job involvement. Work involvement is conditioned by the process of early socialization and relates to the values one has wrt. work and its benefits, while job involvement relates to the current job and is conditioned with the one's current employment situation and to what extent it meets one's needs ( Brown, 1996 ).

2.1. Research Method

Based on the relevant literature, the results of recent studies and the model proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) , we designed a conceptual model shown in Figure 2 . The model was then used to formulate the following hypotheses:

H0 - Work motivation factors, such as organizational commitment, job involvement, job satisfaction and work characteristics, represent interlinked significant indicators of work motivation in the organizations examined.

H1 - Work characteristics will have a positive relationship with job satisfaction.

H2 - Organizational policies and procedures will have a positive relationship with job satisfaction.

H3 - Job satisfaction will have a positive relationship with job involvement.

H4 - Job satisfaction will have a positive relationship with organizational commitment.

H5 - Job involvement will have a mediating role between job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Figure 2 . The research model.

2.2. Participants

For the purpose of this study, 125 organizations from the Serbian Chamber of Commerce database ( www.stat.gov.rs ) were randomly selected to take part in this study. Each organization was contacted and an invitation letter was sent. Eight companies expressed a desire to take part and provided contact details for 700 of their employees. The questionnaire distribution process was conducted according to Dillman's approach ( Dillman, 2011 ). Thus, the initial questionnaire dissemination process was followed by a series of follow-up email reminders, if required. After a 2-month period, out of 625 received, 566 responses were valid. Therefore, the study included 566 persons, 235 males (42%) and 331 women (58%) employed by 8 companies located in Serbia, Eastern Europe.

The sample encompassed staff from both public (53%) and private (47%) companies in manufacturing (31%) and service (69%) industries. The companies were of varied size and had between 150 and 6,500 employees, 3 of them (37.5%) medium-sized (<250 employees) and 5 (62.5%) large enterprises.

For the sake of representativeness, the sample consisted of respondents across different categories of: age, years of work service and education. The age of the individuals was between 20 and 62 years of age and we divided them into 5 categories as shown in Table 1 . The table provides the number of persons per category and the relative size of the category wrt. to the whole sample. In the same table, a similar breakdown is shown in terms of years a person spent with the company, their education and the type of the position they occupy within the company (managerial or not).

Table 1 . Data sample characteristics.

2.3. Ethics Statement

The study was carried out in accordance with the Law on Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Serbia and the Codex of Professional Ethics of the University of Novi Sad. The relevant ethics committee is the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Technical Sciences of the University of Novi Sad.

All participants took part voluntarily and were free to fill in the questionnaire or not.

The questionnaire included a cover sheet explaining the aim of the research, ways in which the data will be used and the anonymous nature of the survey.

2.4. Measures

This study is based on a self reported questionnaire as a research instrument.

The questionnaire was developed in line with previous empirical findings, theoretical foundations and relevant literature recommendations ( Brayfield and Rothe, 1951 ; Weiss et al., 1967 ; Mowday et al., 1979 ; Kanungo, 1982 ; Fields, 2002 ). We then conducted a face validity check. Based on the results, some minor corrections were made, in accordance with the recommendations provided by university professors. After that, the pilot test was conducted with 2 companies. Managers from each of these companies were asked to assess the questionnaire. Generally, there were not any major complaints. Most of the questions were meaningful, clearly written and understandable. The final research instrument contained 86 items. For acquiring respondents' subjective estimates, a five-point Likert scale was used.

The questionnaire took about 30 min to fill in. It consisted of: 10 general demographic questions, 20 questions from the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), 15 questions from the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ), 10 questions from the Job Involvement Questionnaire (JIQ), 18 questions of the Brayfield-Rothe Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS), 6 questions of the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) and 7 additional original questions related to the rules and procedures within the organization.

The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), 20 items short form ( Weiss et al., 1967 ), was used to gather data about job satisfaction of participants. The MSQ – short version items, are rated on 5-points Likert scale (1 very dissatisfied with this aspect of my job, and 5 – very satisfied with this aspect of my job) with two subscales measuring intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction.

Organizational commitment was measured using The Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). It is a 15-item scale developed by Mowday, Steers and Porter ( Mowday et al., 1979 ) and uses a 5-point Likert type response format, with 3 factors that can describe this commitment: willingness to exert effort, desire to maintain membership in the organization, and acceptance of organizational values.

The most commonly used measure of job involvement has been the Job Involvement Questionnaire (JIQ, Kanungo, 1982 ), 10-items scale designed to assess how participants feel toward their present job. The response scale on a 5-point scale varied between “strongly disagree/not applicable to me” to “strongly agree/fully applicable”.

The Brayfield and Rothe's 18-item Job Satisfaction Index (JSI, Brayfield and Rothe, 1951 ) was used to measure overall job satisfaction, operationalized on five-point Likert scale.

Psychometric analysis conducted showed that all the questionnaires were adequately reliable (Cronbach alpha > 0.7). The suitability of the data for factor analysis has been confirmed using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Test (see Table 2 ).

Table 2 . Basic psychometric characteristics of the instruments.

For further analysis we used summary scores for the different scales. Job satisfaction was represented with the overall score of MSQ, as the data analysis revealed a strong connection between the extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. The overall score on the OCQ was used as a measure of organizational commitment, while the score on JDS was used to reflect job characteristics. The JSS and JIQ scales have been modified, by eliminating a few questions, in order to improve reliability and suitability for factor analysis.

Statistical analysis was carried out using the SPSS software. The SPSS Amos structural equation modeling software was used to create the Structural Equation Models (SEMs).

The data was first checked for outliers using box-plot analysis. The only outliers identified were related to the years of employment, but these seem to be consistent to what is expected in practice in Serbia, so no observations needed to be removed from the dataset.

3.1. Exploratory Factor Analysis

Although research dimensions were empirically validated and confirmed in several prior studies, to the best of our knowledge, the empirical confirmation of the research instrument (i.e., questionnaire) and its constituents in the case of Serbia and South-Eastern Europe is quite scarce. Furthermore, the conditions in which previous studies were conducted could vary between research populations. Also, such differences could affect the structure of the research concepts. Thus, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted in order to empirically validate the structure of research dimensions and to test the research instrument, within the context of the research population of South-Eastern Europe and Serbia.

Using the maximum likelihood method we identified four factors, which account for 67% of the variance present in the data. The scree plot of the results of the analysis is shown in Figure 3 . As the figure shows, we retained the factors above the inflection point.

Figure 3 . Scree plot of the EFA results.

The communalities for the variables loading into the factors are shown in Table 3 and the questions corresponding to our variables are listed in Table 4 . Initial communalities are estimates of the proportion of variance in each variable accounted for by all components (factors) identified, while the extraction communalities refer to the part of the variance explained by the four factors extracted. The model explains more of the variance then the initial factors, for all but the last variable.

Table 3 . Communalities.

Table 4 . Questions that build our constructs.

More detailed results of the EFA for the four factors, are shown in Table 5 . The unique loadings of specific items measured with the different questions in the questionnaire on the factors identified are shown in the pattern matrix (Table 6 ). As the table shows, each factor is loaded into by items that were designed to measure a specific construct and there are no cross-loadings. The first factor corresponds to job characteristics, second to job satisfaction, third to job involvement and the final to organizational commitment. The correlation between the factors is relatively low and shown in Table 7 .

Table 5 . Total variance explained by the dominant factors.

Table 6 . Pattern matrix for the factors identified.

Table 7 . Factor correlation matrix.

3.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis

In the next part of our analysis we used Structural Equation Modeling to validate and improve a part of the model proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) that focuses on work characteristics, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job involvement.

Although the EFA suggest the existence of four, not five, dominant factors in the model, diverging from the model proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) , in our initial experiments we used their original model, shown in Figure 4A , taking into account also organizational policies and procedures.

Figure 4 . The evolution of our model (the path coefficients are standardized): (A) the initial model based on Locke and Latham (2004) , (B) no partial mediation, and (C) partial mediation introduced.

In this (default) model, the only independent variable are the job characteristics. The standardized regression coefficients shown in Figure 4A (we show standardized coefficients throughout Figure 4 ) indicate that the relationship between the satisfaction and organizational commitment seems to be stronger (standard coefficient value of 0.54) than the one between satisfaction and involvement (standard coefficient value of 0.37). The effect of job characteristics and policies and procedures on the employee satisfaction seems to be balanced (standard coefficient values of 0.31 and 0.30, respectively).

The default model does not fit our data well. The Comparative Fit Index (CFI) for this model is 0.759, the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) is 0.598, while the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) is 0.192.

A more detailed analysis of the model revealed that it could indeed (as the EFA suggests) be improved by eliminating the organizational policies and procedures variable, as it has a high residual covariance with job involvement (−3.071) and organizational commitment (−4.934).

We therefore propose to eliminate the “Organizational policies and procedures” variable from the model. Dropping the variable resulted in an improved model shown in Figure 4B . The improved model fits the data better, but the fit is still not good ( RMSEA = 0.125, CFI = 0.915 and TLI = 0.830).

We then hypothesized that job involvement influences organizational commitment, yielding the final model tested in this study (Figure 4C ). This model turned out to be the one that fits our data very well ( RMSEA = 0.000, CFI = 1 and TLI = 1.015).

4. Mediation Analysis

In the final part of the study we conducted the mediation analysis, to understand the relationship between job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment. We used bootstrapping, based on 5000 samples and the confidence interval of 95%.

We started with a model that contains just one relation between satisfaction and commitment (Figure 5A ), then tested for full mediation (Figure 5B ) and finally partial mediation as indicated in out proposed model (Figure 5C ). The unstandardized, direct effect regression weights and the p -values obtained in these experiments are shown in Table 8 . As the p -values show, all the connections in our three models are significant and that they remain so throughout the evolution of the model. Therefore, job involvement mediates the influence of satisfaction on organizational commitment, but this is a partial mediation and a major part of the effect of satisfaction on the organizational commitment is achieved directly.

Figure 5 . Mediation analysis models. (A) , Model 1; (B) , Model 2; (C) , Model 3.

Table 8 . Mediation analysis regression weights.

5. Discussion

We conducted an empirical study aimed at exploring the relationship between employee satisfaction, job involvement, organizational commitment, work characteristics and organizational policies and procedures.

Based on the relevant scientific literature, recent studies in the area and the integrative model of work motivation of Locke and Latham (2004) , we have formulated an initial conceptual model for our research and hypothesized the connections between the relevant variables. The initial model has been improved iteratively, with the goal of increasing its fit to the empirical data collected in the study.

Starting from the model proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) we determined that their model does not fit our experimental data well and that we observe a connection between job involvement that is not present in their model. In addition, our data does not support the hypothesis that organizational procedures and policies affect employee satisfaction in the organizations considered. As a result we propose a 4 factor model shown in Figure 4C for the relationship between the concepts of work characteristics, employee satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment.

We analyzed the results of the study based on 1 general and 5 specific hypotheses. The research confirms that there is a link between work characteristics and job satisfaction (H1), but that it is weak, suggesting that a dominant effect of the material factors of motivation exists.

We have also determined that there is a connection between the rules and procedures variable (H2) and the rest of the variables, indicating that it should be considered in future studies, but that the constructs need to be operationalized better.

The third specific hypothesis (H3) that job satisfaction has a positive relationship with job involvement has been confirmed and we have observed that extrinsic work motivation has a stronger effect than intrinsic, which can be explained by low wages and insufficient funds for everyday life. Other research has confirmed this link ( Govender and Parumasur, 2010 ) and showed that most of the employee motivation dimensions have significant links with the dimensions of job involvement (9 out of 10 pairs).

The fourth specific hypothesis (H4 - Job satisfaction will have a positive relationship with organizational commitment) has also been confirmed and we can conclude that a positive relationship exists, which is in line with recent research in this area. The subscale focused on identification with the organization is strongly connected with both intrinsic and extrinsic factors of job satisfaction, but this cannot be said for the subscale focused on organizational attachment. Our research supports the existence of a weak connection between job satisfaction and organizational attachment, both when intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction is considered as a motivator. A study of work motivation and organizational commitment conducted in Bulgaria (Serbia's neighbor) showed that extrinsic factors are key sources of organizational commitment ( Roe et al., 2000 ), as well as that job involvement and the chances for the fulfillment o higher-order needs pay a very important part in the motivation of the employees.

One of the reasons for such a result can be the economic situation in Serbia, which has a severely detrimental effect on work motivation. The transition and economic crisis is accompanied by the shrinking purchasing power of the population, higher unemployment rates and a rising disparity in the salary levels, all of which causes the adjustment of the behavior of the employees to these conditions. Under the economic conditions that exist in Serbia it is to be expected that the individuals will put more value on the salary and advancement prospects than on the opportunities for growth and development, which do not present a direct financial benefit.

The research did not reveal any differences with respect to the sex of the participants, regardless of the variable considered. Other research has not reached a consensus on the matter, as a part of the studies suggests that there are differences in job involvement between men and women ( Lodahl and Kejnar, 1965 ; Hall and Mansfield, 1975 ; Rabinowitz and Hall, 1977 ; Saal, 1978 ).

Regarding the ownership of the organizations examined, the research revealed statistically significant differences between the employees working in public and private companies, i.e., that the participants working in the private sector scores significantly higher on every variable except work characteristics, meaning that they are more committed to work, more involved and more satisfied.

In addition, we have determined that there are statistically significant differences when it comes to the position of the employees in the organization's hierarchy, i.e., whether they occupy a managerial or a non-managerial position. The study shows that managers have higher scores for organizational attachment, organizational commitment, intrinsic motivators, extrinsic motivators, job satisfaction and job involvement. We can, therefore, conclude that the managers are more satisfied with their work in general and that they are more committed to the organization than other employees. This can be explained by the fact that, due to the nature of the work they do, they are able to make decisions, they have a more varied job and have better material and non-material rewards. A more detailed analysis of the commitment of the managers, focused on identifying if we are dealing with normative, continuous or affective commitment would provide more insight into the structure and nature of the relationship between the organization and the individual.

Considering the type of the company (manufacturing or service) our study showed that the participants working in manufacturing companies are the ones who identify more with the company, are more committed to the company, more satisfied with their work and more involved.

Our study also identified a significant difference with respect to the vocation of the participants, showing that those with training in humanistic sciences awarded most positive scores to the characteristics of their work, while the opposite was true for those of technical vocations.

The part of our analysis focused on the age of the participants revealed that there is a statistically significant connection between the age and job satisfaction, where the older the employee, the less satisfied he/she is with their job and cares less about the characteristics of work. A reason for such a result could again be found in the economic situation of Serbia and the high unemployment rate (over 20%), causing the younger people to be satisfied with the simple fact that they managed to get a job, rather than being satisfied with the job itself. Another reason could be the difference in the perception of desires and possibilities that exists between the younger and older employees.

The years with the company are negatively linked with employee satisfaction, as well as job characteristics, which is in line with the effect discussed in the previous paragraph, as those with more time spent in the company are less satisfied with their job and care less about the characteristics of their work.

Considering the level of education of the participants, our study showed that the more educated the employees are, the less involved they are in their work and that they seem to care more about the characteristics of their work.

Our research showed that links exist between all the variables studied and that the weakest of these links is between work characteristics and other constructs. Of those, the weakest link in turn is the link between the work characteristics and the subscale of organizational commitment related to the identification with the organization. Thus, we can conclude that work characteristics do not exhibit a significant influence on whether and to what extent the employee will identify with the organization in which he/she works, i.e., whether he/she will be committed to the organization.

A moderate to strong connection exists between organizational commitment and job satisfaction, which is in line with the results of numerous previous studies ( Currivan, 1999 ; Meyer et al., 2002 ; Malhotra and Mukherjee, 2004 ; Saari and Judge, 2004 ; Chen, 2007 ; Falkenburg and Schyns, 2007 ; Moynihan and Pandey, 2007 ; Getahun et al., 2008 ; Colakoglu et al., 2010 ; Yücel, 2012 ; Fu and Deshpande, 2014 ).

Our study confirms the existence of a strong connection between job satisfaction and job involvement ( Moynihan and Pandey, 2007 ; Wegge et al., 2007 ; Griffin et al., 2010 ; Raymond and Mjoli, 2013 ; Zopiatis et al., 2014 ). Many studies have been carried out in an attempt to examine and define the relationship between job involvement and organizational commitment. Our results are in line with previous studies, which diverge only on the strength of the connection, ranging from moderate to strong ( Blau and Boal, 1989 ; Brewer and Lok, 1995 ; Sjöberg and Sverke, 2000 ; Brooks and Swailes, 2002 ; Toga, 2011 ). Our study provides more evidence for the existence of such a relationship, which is moderately strong. Such a relationship does not exist in the integrative model of Locke and Latham (2004) , which served as a starting point for this study.

In addition, we have determined that job involvement has a mediating role between job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Job involvement mediates the influence of satisfaction on organizational commitment, but this is a partial mediation and a major part of the effect of satisfaction on the organizational commitment is achieved directly.

The construct related to organizational policies and procedures seems not to have significant bearing on employee satisfaction, based on the data collected. Two plausible explanations exist for this. The first is the fact that this was the only construct in our study for which a suitable standard questionnaire could not be found, so one had to be constructed specifically, meaning that the construct should be operationalized better in future studies and that this represents the limitation of our study. The other is the fact that in Serbia, as in most transition economies, the lack of suitable institutional and legislative framework at the national level is often accompanied with lax, not clearly defined and even less adhered-to business policies and procedures. In such a state of affairs, the employees seldom have a relatively clear idea of what the policies and procedures of their organization are and are unable to evaluate them with respect to those of other organizations, making this construct very hard to measure. At the same time it can be argued that, in such a situation, the policies and procedures are not perceived by the employees as a significant factor of their organizational behavior and indeed do not affect their work motivation. Whatever the reason, the relationship of policies and procedures to the other variables of work motivation within the transition economies merits further investigation.

Author Contributions

JĆ and SM designed the study. JĆ collected the data and conducted the bulk of the research. MD and DĆ conducted the statistical analysis and modeling. All authors took part in the manuscript writing, led by JĆ and DĆ.

The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2012-2016/ under REA grant agreement n° 295220.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: work, job, satisfaction, involvement, employee, commitment, organizational, behavior

Citation: Ćulibrk J, Delić M, Mitrović S and Ćulibrk D (2018) Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Job Involvement: The Mediating Role of Job Involvement. Front. Psychol . 9:132. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00132

Received: 07 November 2017; Accepted: 29 January 2018; Published: 16 February 2018.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2018 Ćulibrk, Delić, Mitrović and Ćulibrk. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Milan Delić, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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JOB SATISFACTION AND EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE: A THEORETICAL REVIEW OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO VARIABLES

In today's increasing competitive environment, organizations recognize the internal human element as a fundamental source of improvement. On one hand, managers are concentrating on employees' wellbeing, wants, needs, personal goals and desires, to understand the job satisfaction. And on the other hand, managers take organizational decisions based on the employees' performance. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors influencing job satisfaction and the determinants of employee performance, and accordingly reviewing the relationship between them. This study is an interpretivist research that focuses on exploring the influence of job satisfaction on employee performance and vice, the influence of employee performance on job satisfaction. The study also examines the nature of the relationship between these two variables. The study reveals the dual direction of the relationship that composes a cycle cause and effect relationship, so satisfaction leads to performance and performance leads to satisfaction through number of mediating factors. Successful organizations are those who apply periodic satisfaction and performance measurement tests to track the level of these important variables and set the corrective actions.

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Correlation between Employee Performance, Well-Being, Job Satisfaction, and Life Satisfaction in Sedentary Jobs in Slovenian Enterprises

Zinka kosec.

1 Faculty of Sport, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Stella Sekulic

2 Dental Division, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

3 National Institute for Public Health, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Susan Wilson-Gahan

4 Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts, University of Southern Queensland, Springfield Central 4300, Australia

Katja Rostohar

Matej tusak, associated data.

The data reported in this study are available on request from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The data are not publicly available due to its proprietary nature.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between employees’ work performance and their well-being, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction in sedentary jobs in Slovenian enterprises using a mixed-methods research design. The quantitative component of the research included the responses to four selected questionnaires of 120 employees in 22 identified enterprises (out of 81), with more than 20 employees, having more than 85 percent sedentary jobs. Each of four questionnaires was chosen to cover one area of enquiry under the research foci of work performance, job satisfaction, life satisfaction and well-being. The statistical program STATA was used for data analyses. The analysis shows statistically significant positive correlations between employee performance and job satisfaction (r = 0.35), employee performance and life satisfaction (r = 0.28), life satisfaction and well-being (r = 0.33), and job satisfaction and well-being, whereas the correlation between well-being and work performance did not prove to be statistically significant. The qualitative component of the mixed-methods research design included systematic observation combined with one-to-one discussions. The results indicated that job satisfaction and life satisfaction are more significant in determining work performance in sedentary jobs than employee well-being and that being unwell is still considered a sign of weakness; therefore, employees who are unwell do not want to expose themselves and refuse to cooperate in activities and studies about well-being. Further research examining the impact on work performance of organizational climate measurements in sedentary jobs is recommended.

1. Introduction

A person’s patterns of thinking and feelings are affected by internal and external environments in their life, including their profession and work conditions as some of the most important factors [ 1 ], which in turn have a negative impact on their lifestyle and work performance. Employers should be aware of the many factors that influence work environment, job and life satisfaction, well-being, and mental health, especially in sedentary jobs, since sedentary behavior has become a significant health issue in a post-industrialized world [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] and part of the dissatisfying lifestyle of many employees. Workplace environments are target settings for introducing processes of intervention to reduce sedentary behavior [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Different approaches designed to implement employees’ greater range of motion and standing during work hours have come to the fore [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. Standing desks or desks that can accommodate standing or sitting have been introduced into work environments. Many companies provide different programs and equipment for their employees, active breaks during work hours, and policies about taking a break from the screen [ 3 ], which is especially recommended for older employees [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. There is a lot of evidence that sedentary behavior influences the quality of life [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ] and productivity [ 11 ]. Several studies have found that prolonged sitting time leads to cognitive impairment [ 10 ], mobility limitation [ 8 ], increased risk of mortality [ 12 ], and reduced quality of life in general [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ].

Many companies have been trying to gain a sustainable competitive advantage by improving the effectiveness of work engagement interventions [ 13 ]. Work engagement, i.e., work performance, refers to a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption [ 14 ]. Work performance is defined as the total expected value to the organization of discrete behavioral episodes that an individual carries out over a standard period [ 15 ].

Organizations that focus on their employees’ welfare believe that employees’ attitudes and behaviors play a key role in improving the performance of an organization [ 13 , 16 ]. The organizational climate reflects employees’ perceptions of the policies, practices, and procedures that are expected, supported, and rewarded through the human resources department of the organization [ 17 ]. The organizational climate is a meaningful component with significant implications in human resource management and organizational behavior [ 16 ]. A complete reference guide, interventions, and policies to enhance employees’ well-being exist [ 17 , 18 ]. Environmentally sound behavior can be recognized through employees’ well-being and satisfaction, which are fundamental to employees’ quality work performance within organizations, particularly for employees in sedentary jobs, who often perform cognitive tasks that need a clear mind [ 19 , 20 , 21 ]. The effectiveness of physical activity interventions in improving well-being across office-based workplace settings [ 22 ], the association of sedentary behavior with metabolic syndrome [ 23 ], as well as the relation between financial incentives, motivation, and performance [ 24 ], are issues that fueled a great deal of research in the fields of management, occupational health, work and organizational psychology [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ].

Although there is no consensus about a single definition of well-being, there is a general agreement that well-being includes the presence of positive emotions and moods (e.g., contentment), the absence of negative emotions (e.g., depression and anxiety), satisfaction with life, fulfillment, and positive functioning [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. Well-being has been defined as the combination of feeling good and functioning well; the experience of positive emotions such as happiness and contentment as well as the development of one’s potential, having some control over one’s life, having a sense of purpose, and experiencing positive relationships [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. Researchers from several areas have examined diverse aspects of well-being [ 17 ], i.e., physical, economic, social, emotional, and psychological well-being, development and activity, life satisfaction, domain-specific satisfaction, engaging activities, and work [ 17 , 18 ].

Empirical studies report strong correlations between social contact as well as health and subjective well-being [ 19 ]. Research on employees’ well-being operating in organizations was only developed a few decades ago. The examination of the relationship between employees’ well-being and the cardiovascular system, for example, revealed that physical and psychological well-being should be understood as a source of effectiveness [ 12 , 19 ]. In the past two decades, considerable development in the economics of subjective well-being is reflected in the great number of research studies published reporting the quality of life and its determinants [ 14 , 15 , 18 , 21 , 22 , 24 ].

Subjective well-being is a concept generally operationalized as multifaceted in nature, with both affective and cognitive components [ 17 , 18 , 25 ].

Among the constituent components of subjective well-being, life satisfaction was identified as a distinct construct representing a cognitive and global evaluation of the quality of one’s life as a whole [ 17 ]. Although life satisfaction is correlated with affective components of subjective well-being, it forms a separate factor from the other types of well-being [ 18 , 25 ]. Comprehensive assessment of subjective well-being requires separate measures of both life satisfaction and affective components of subjective well-being [ 21 ].

Life satisfaction is a cognitive evaluation of the overall quality of one’s life [ 21 ] and is one of the many overlapping facets of subjective well-being [ 25 ]. Life satisfaction is related to self-perception [ 26 ] and is a significant predictor of employees’ productivity in sedentary jobs [ 11 ], specifically in older adults [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ].

Various studies [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ] analyzed factors associated with life satisfaction and well-being and investigated what makes people happy [ 31 ]. The effect of age and body composition of office employees was examined [ 32 ], as well as stress and resilience potential [ 33 ] in different professions [ 34 ]. In such studies, the authors mentioned methodological limitations relevant to measurement scales [ 35 ], empirical models’ validations [ 36 ], statistical power analyses in behavioral science [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ], and other principles and applications of qualitative research [ 41 ].

Life satisfaction judgments are mostly based on a person’s subjective criteria rather than necessarily reflecting outward conditions [ 25 , 26 , 29 ]. However, the assessment of life satisfaction can be only marginally influenced by mood and context since life satisfaction is a temporally stable construct [ 26 ]. Life satisfaction evaluations are broadly associated with other stable traits. The empirical relationships are consistent with the theory regarding core self-evaluations, which suggests that dispositions are important explanatory variables for predicting various forms of subjective well-being [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 22 , 27 , 28 ].

Job satisfaction is the result of a person’s attitude towards work and the factors associated with their work and life in general [ 15 , 16 , 21 , 22 ] and is closely related to work performance [ 15 , 16 , 21 , 22 , 31 ]. Several studies found a positive correlation between job satisfaction, the organizational climate [ 16 ], and overall performance [ 21 , 22 ].

Many authors mentioned other methodological dilemmas, i.e., different measurement scales [ 35 ] and empirical validations [ 36 , 40 ], i.e., also the calculation of posterior distributions by data augmentation [ 41 ], and different variations of satisfaction surveys [ 42 ]. Unfortunately, many studies on workplace characteristics, well-being, and life and job satisfaction rely primarily on cross-sectional self-reported surveys [ 8 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 43 ], making it difficult to disentangle the relationship between constructs. It has been a trend lately to develop work environment by various systematic approaches, e.g., the Human Resources Index [HRI] measurement [ 43 ]. In addition, motivation, and more specifically intrinsic motivation, was an important determinant of psychological well-being, gaining greater influence among male participants who had a higher level of physical activity, highlighting the need to increase one’s intrinsic motivation [ 44 ]. There are also always questions connected to lifestyle, in modern society especially related to eating habits [ 45 ]. The dynamic, adaptable complex approaches are especially important in recent years in response to COVID-19, connected with changes in general lifestyle, physical activity patterns, and sedentary behavior and associations with mental health [ 44 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 ], especially in computer workers, as one of the most typical sedentary works. In recent years, authors have suggested different models for the balance between work and life for subjective well-being, e.g., the moderated mediation model [ 50 ], or they have written about exploring the nature and antecedents of employee energetic well-being at work and job performance [ 51 ]. A special case is also well-being at work after a return to work [ 52 ]. This was considered as not under the special focus of our research; however, it was recognized as part of the organizational culture in the enterprises.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between employees’ work performance and their well-being, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction in sedentary jobs in Slovenian enterprises with more than 80% sedentary workplaces, using a mixed-methods research design. This is the first time that research has been conducted into the correlation between employee performance, well-being, job satisfaction and life satisfaction in Slovenian enterprises, making the research a unique contribution to the field. The main gaps, which are supplemented by our studies, encourage similar further studies in sedentary jobs in Slovenia with the final goal to improve not only work performance but also the organizational culture in enterprises with sedentary jobs in Slovenia.

2. Materials and Methods

Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied. All authors collaborated to design the procedure, while the first author carried out data collection. The possibility of a face-to-face or telephone conversation to explain further details of this study was offered to all participants and eleven of them used the opportunity to be provided with further information, while the remaining participants provided their consent to participate without asking for further explanation.

The methodological tool of this study was questionnaires, which have been used and proven in similar studies [ 15 , 25 , 36 , 38 , 42 ]. In addition, selected human resource management (HRM) professionals reviewed the questions to test the acceptance and feasibility of the questionnaire for our sample. To pilot test the questionnaire prior to the beginning of the trial, HRM professionals were approached that had been identified as being willing to volunteer to use the questionnaire. The data sets were analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics and analysis of reliability (STATA).

2.1. Quantitative Methodology

The first part consisted of a set of broad, self-report, psychometrically valid questionnaires conducted by the first author in the 22 organizations that have mostly (more than 90%) sedentary workplaces in Slovenia. A short explanation of the basic terminology used was added as an introduction to the questionnaires relating to work performance, well-being, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction.

2.2. Study Participants and Data Collection

The research team initially sent invitations with an explanation of the purpose of this study to the 81 identified enterprises, spending more than 85% of working time in sedentary positions. After detailed explanations, 22 of the invitees agreed to cooperate. Permissions and guidelines for the testing protocols and the design of this study, as well as any additional information required, were established through several face-to-face meetings and telephone conversations with executive managements and HRM specialists of the selected enterprises participating. In the pre-phase, the participant–employees were also offered the possibility of a face-to-face or telephone conversation about any details or additional information they required about this study. Eleven employees asked for additional information. Data collection was carried out from September 2018 to April 2019, with one day spent in each enterprise. Completion of all measurements for this study took approximately two hours per participant, between 9:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. To ensure standardized conditions, data collection took place in a designated meeting room which was intimate while also being large enough for completing all required measurements. Employees were from different levels of the organizational hierarchies and were categorized according to their role, gender, age, and education level ( Table 1 ). Each employee was required to work an eight-hour day, starting between 6:00 A.M. and 9:00 A.M. and finishing between 2:00 P.M. and 5:00 P.M. ( Table 1 ).

General characterization of the participants.

Note: N (number of participants); SD (standard deviation). Body mass index classification: underweight <18.4; normal weight 18.5–24.9; overweight 25.0–29.9; obesity ≥30.0.

2.3. Procedure

All authors collaborated to develop the design of the procedure, while data collection was carried out by the first author.

Study participants were informed in advance of the purpose of this study, guaranteed anonymity and that the data analysis would be based on the responses of all organizations as a whole and not at the individual company level.

In the first phase of the procedure, conversations with employees who wanted further explanation were carried out. The questions referred to the aims of this study, the topics, the hypothesis, if any, as well as the conducted research and their results. The remaining participants provided consent to cooperate without asking for further explanation. After a positive response from all the participants, the testing procedure was carried out in the participants’ workplace. A short explanation of basic terminology used was also added as an introduction to the questionnaire.

The aim of this study was to collect information about four components of work: (i) employee performance; (ii) well-being; (iii) job satisfaction; and (iv) life satisfaction. The first part consisted of a set of broad, self-report, psychometrically valid questionnaires. The adapted self-assessment questionnaires were validated and translated into Slovenian.

The following self-reported questionnaires were used; one for each of the four components of work being researched. That is, employee performance, well-being, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction.

• Employee performance: The Employee Performance Questionnaire (EPQ) [ 38 ] (Capital Associated Industries, Inc. (Raleigh, NC, USA), 2011) is a valid [ 36 ] measure that assesses individuals on different parameters related to a wide range of working skills (e.g., working at full potential, quality of work, consistency of work, communication, independence, taking initiative, teamwork, productivity, creativity, honesty, integrity, relationships with colleagues, relationships with customers, technical knowledge, reliability, accuracy, and presence). It consists of 23 items with one reverse question and five response options: One participant indicated that the suggested questions did not apply to them, while five participants indicated aptitude. The EPQ is characterized by a total score with a possible range of scores from 23 to 115.
• Well-being: The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) [ 42 ] is a consistent, reliable self-report questionnaire designed for use in a variety of settings and cultures in general population samples. There are several versions of the GHQ [ 42 ]. In this study, we used the GHQ-12 due to the simplicity of application in practice and research. The selected version consists of 12 items that examine the mental health of individuals by rating a specific symptom experience or current behavior on a 4-point scale (less than usual, no more than usual, rather more than usual, or much more than usual). It is characterized by a total score of 12–36.
• Job satisfaction: The Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (JSQ) [ 42 ] is a psychometrically valid self-report questionnaire that measures an individual’s job satisfaction [ 42 ]. It consists of 13 questions and five response options, with 1 indicating strong disagreement and 5 indicating strong agreement with the suggested statements. It is characterized by a total score in the range of 13–65.
• Life satisfaction: The Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (LSQ) [ 15 , 25 ] is a brief psychometrically based 5-item instrument designed to measure global cognitive assessments of life satisfaction. It consists of five items and seven response options, from 1 indicating strong disagreement to 7 indicating strong agreement. The LSQ has excellent psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and test–retest reliability. It is characterized by a total score in the range of 7–35.

The data collected from the questionnaires were accompanied by systematic observation, which was introduced as an objective, well-ordered method for close examination of the selected aspects of this study. Systematic observation involved questions about the participants’ opinions on concrete activities to promote health and well-being in the organizations, on life and job satisfaction in sedentary jobs, and on why some employees decided to cooperate and some not. Systematic observation and a number of in-person, one-to-one discussions were undertaken in the same session of the preparation phase, especially with people who supported the authors in organizing data collection in the company (mostly HR specialists or directors), and later with the respondents while conducting the survey.

The Ethical Committee at the Faculty of Sports, the University of Ljubljana (No. 5) approved this study in March 2018.

2.4. Data Analyses

The statistical software STATA (Stata Statistical Software: Release 14.2, rev.19; 2016, StataCorp LP, College Station, TX, USA) was used to analyze sample data.

Using descriptive methods, the sample was analyzed by taking measurements of the frequency and percentages of responses to all questions. The statistical analysis was blinded to the researchers and conducted independently. Descriptive statistics, such as proportions for categorical variables and mean values and standard deviations for numeric variables, were used to summarize respondents’ characteristics.

Two-Sample Assuming Equal Variances ( p = 0.05) was used to calculate the differences between groups according to:

• Age (range 19–35; age range 36–70),
• Gender (man/woman),
• BMI (normal weight = 18.5–24.9; pre-obesity = 25.0–29.9), and
• Education level (high school degree = 2; college and university degree = 3).

Respondents’ self-report EPQ, GHQ, JSQ, and LSQ scores were summarized with an average score for each question (for each individual). The correlation between the results of the self-assessed variables from the questionnaires (the EPQ, the GHQ, the JSQ and the LSQ) was applied, where the magnitude of correlation coefficients was explained according to Hemphill [ 39 ]. The effect size was considered as low when the value ranged from 0.1 to 0.3, moderate when it ranged from 0.3 to 0.5, and large when it ranged from 0.5 to 1.0 [ 41 ]. Multiple regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between one dependent variable calculation (the EPQ, which consisted of 23 variables), and three independent variables (the GHQ consisting of 12 items, the JSQ of 13, and the LSQ of five items). R-squared (R 2 ) was used to measure a proportion of explained variance represents the fit of the data to the model. The effect size was considered low when R 2 was <0.3, no effect or very weak when R 2 was 0.3, medium when R 2 was 0.5, and large when R 2 was 0.7 [ 41 ].

Adjusted R-squared measures were used to test the fit of the model.

2.5. Qualitative Methods

The qualitative research methodology was mostly followed according to Evans et al. [ 41 ].

Question-focused analysis was used as a starting point when organizing the raw data, and the responses that had similar themes and that represented the same points were grouped together. All the information was transcribed verbatim and read through several times by the authors. The first-named author then conducted a thematic analysis according to Braun and Clark and Evans et al. [ 41 ], whereby initial comments, codes and memos were categorized systematically into broader themes and concise phases as evident in Table 2 . The six phases identified were (i) becoming familiar with the data, (ii) generating initial codes, (iii) identifying potential themes, (iv) reviewing themes, (v) defining and naming the themes and (vi) producing the report.

Estimated correlation matrix and the significance of self-report instruments.

Note: * Significance p < 0.05.

The qualitative method involved information about specification of the exact actions, attributes, and other variables that were systematically written in the preparation phase and after each data collection, through administration of questionnaires in all organizations. With this observation, the authors aimed to explore how decisions were made and provided the researchers with detailed insight. The data analysis followed the principles of qualitative methodologies [ 41 ].

The main questions in the one-to-one discussion were:

• What is the reason that you agree to participate in actives connected with work performance, job satisfaction and life satisfaction measurements (also in this study)?
• What is your opinion about the significance of job satisfaction, life satisfaction and well-being measurements for work performance?
• What is your opinion about employees’ willingness/unwillingness to participate in actives connected with work performance and your opinion about the general organizational climate in the enterprises?
• Should companies in Slovenia invest more in employees’ work performance (in their well-being, job, and life satisfaction)? If yes/no, what are your reasons?

3.1. Demographic Data of the Participants

A convenience sample of 120 employees from 22 organizations—65 of whom were female, with an age range from 25 to 69 years, and 55 of whom were male, with and age range from 22 to 70—participated in this study. The main criterion was having a sedentary job. Employees were of different levels of the organizational hierarchies: operational workers (57%), management (9.8%), division management (9.1%), directors and owners (3.3%), and sole traders (14.0%). The study participants were also categorized according to their education level ( Table 1 ).

A total of 120 respondents from 22 organizations completed the EPQ, the GHQ, the JSQ, and the LSQ ( Table 1 ).

The mean age of the participants (SD) was 35.1 (±12.9) years and more than half of them were female (53.3%). The mean height and weight of the participants were 1.7 m and 74.3 kg, respectively, which was considered ‘normal weight’ when assessing the body mass index (BMI) of the participants according to the World Health Organization BMI classification [ 45 ].

Among the organizations, 39.3% of all employees worked in a small organization with the working group of less than 10 employees, which is the highest proportion in the sample; 20.5% worked in a group of 11–50 employees; 28.7% in a group of 51–250 employees; only 11.5% of all employees worked in a group with more than 250 employees.

The majority of study participants (41.0%) had a secondary school diploma or bachelor’s degree prior to the Bologna Process, while 38.5% had completed secondary schooling and 16.4% a master’s or specialization or Ph.D.

EPQ: The EPQ was measured on a on a scale of 1–5. Employees assessed their own work performance as high; the mean score of the EPQ reached 4.2 (SD = 0.04), which is a high score. Accordingly, the differences between the respondents were minor. The lowest value was 3.1, and approximately 80% of the estimates were higher than 4.0.

GHQ: The mean value of the GHQ on a scale of 0–3 was 1.38 (SD = 0.04). The scores were almost symmetrically distributed. The differences between respondents were typical of normal distribution.

JSQ: The JSQ was measured on a scale of 1–5. The mean value of the JSQ was 3.84 (SD = 0.06). Similarly to the EPQ, the JSQ scores showed progress in a positive direction and little difference between respondents. The lowest score was 0.17, while the highest score was 2.75.

LSQ: The LSQ scores were measured on a scale of 1–7, where the mean value was 4.86 (SD = 0.11). The differences between respondents were significant. The lowest mean value was 1.67, and the highest was 7.0. Nearly ten percent (9.8%) of the respondents reported dissatisfaction with work, with a mean value of <3. More than 80% of respondents reported their satisfaction with work, with a score of four or more.

3.2. Employee Work Performance and the Selected Variables (Well-Being, Job and Life Satisfaction)

The correlations between the Employee Performance Questionnaire (EPQ) and the selected factors from the GHQ (well-being), by the JSQ (job satisfaction) and by the LSQ (life satisfaction) were measured with correlation and regression analysis.

The analyses of the results showed statistically significant positive correlations between estimates of the EPQ and the JSQ (r = 0.36) and between estimates of employee performance and life satisfaction (r = 0.29). Cohen’s effect size was medium, showing no correlation between employee performance and general health (r = −0.08), possibly a negative correlation between the two measures although not statistically significant ( p = 0.33) ( Table 3 ).

Regression analysis between one dependent (EPQ) and three independent variables results (GHQ, JSQ, and LSQ).

Note: Coeff. (coefficient); t (t-statistic); N (number of participants). The standardized coefficient estimates the mean change in the dependent variable for a 1 standard deviation (SD) increase in the independent variable.

Multiple linear regression was calculated to predict work performance based on the GHQ, JSQ and LSQ results. A significant regression equation was identified, F (3, 116) = 7.70, p = 0.0001, with an R 2 of 0.166.

Participants’ EPQ result was equal to 3.109 ± 0.066; GHQ 3.109 ± 0.181; JSQ 3.109 ± 0.076; LSQ (with GHQ, JSQ, and LSQ scores measured as means).

Both the JSQ ( p = 0.001) and LSQ results (0.021) significantly affected the EPQ values, while the GHQ results (0.444) did not. A graphical representation of the correlation from the regression model is shown in detail in Figure 1 .

Scatter plots of the EPQ associated with the GHQ, JSQ, and satisfaction with life scale (SWLS = LSQ) means in the regression model. Coeff. (coefficient), SE (standard error), and t (t-statistic).

3.3. Qualitative Method Results

Thematic analysis was used as a starting point after organizing the raw data, and the responses that had similar themes and that represented the same points were grouped together.

More than expected results and themes were found for the final report from thematic analysis:

Systematic observation

• Employees who explain their overall status as ‘healthy and wealthy’ and themselves as ‘a productive employee’ are ready to cooperate in research.
• Employees who are not in good health try to hide their condition and are not ready to speak about it in a company setting.
• Employees who are not in good health feel vulnerable and deny all sorts of activities in the enterprises.
• In the testing process, the study participants insisted that the data only be analyzed as part of the whole sample and not on an individual basis or within one company.
• Employees who were not ready to cooperate are also not ready to take part in other healthy lifestyle activities being organized in the frame of company.
• Employees who are not ready to take part in this research also in general refuse nearly all ‘well-being and social lifestyle’ activities in the enterprise and in their leisure time.

One-to-one discussions:

• The respondents (employees in the enterprises who were ready to take part in this research) reported that employees from all companies in general are divided into two groups concerning work performance topics—those willing to participate and those who would absolutely not. They were always on the opposite ends of the spectrum, which could mean that cohesion in not high and that the organizational climate is not optimal.
• Employees who were ready to participate reported their opinion that they represented the better part of employees in the organizations, that they always cooperate, that they are more motivated for better work performance and that they are more productive. They call themselves cooperative employees.
• The cooperative employees reported that there are some employees in the enterprises who are not cooperative, because they try to hide their level of well-being, their health and lifestyle status.
• According to management representatives, employees who are not in good health feel vulnerable and refuse to participate in all sorts of activities organized in their company.
• Respondents reported that employees who were not ready to take part in this research (called ‘those others’) also in general refuse to participate in nearly all well–being and social activities in their company and in their leisure time.
• Respondents reported that “those others” are not motivated and are not concerned with creating a good organizational climate.
• Although anonymity in the testing process was provided to all, the participants reported concerns and doubts, insisting that the data should only be analyzed as part of the whole sample and not on an individual basis or within one company.

Thematic analysis (coding and iterative comparison) gave some interesting conclusions ( Table 4 ).

Results of systematic observations and one-to-one dissuasions.

4. Discussion

The labor market is constantly changing, and sedentary work behavior is nowadays, due to technological advancement and new lifestyles, becoming even more pervasive worldwide. One of the questions is how the new conditions influence work performance, responsibilities, and ability to do the job well. This motivated our research on sedentary jobs for the first time in Slovenia together with well-being and other characteristics. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between work performance and different factors (well-being, job, and life satisfaction) in sedentary jobs. The results show statistically significant correlations between work performance and two measured factors—job satisfaction and life satisfaction. On the other hand, the correlation between well-being and work performance surprisingly did not prove to be statistically significant. Nevertheless, our results showed that well-being is significantly correlated with job and life satisfaction, which are correlated with work performance. On that basis, it can be concluded that there is some indirect relationship between work performance and well-being, which was also established in some earlier studies [ 19 , 23 , 26 ].

The correlations between job satisfaction [ 14 , 15 ], life satisfaction [ 5 , 6 ], and work performance have already been proven in many countries. It has also been found that sedentary behavior negatively correlates with an active lifestyle [ 4 , 6 ] and with less effective work performance [ 14 , 35 ], which also supports our conclusions. Furthermore, our systematic observation findings indicate specific problems in the organizational climate among employees and point to a significant division between the groups and consequential low team cohesiveness, which is essential for team or group effectiveness and work performance [ 50 ]. In our study, the group of employees who were willing to participate called themselves ‘cooperative employees’, whereas employees who were not ready to take part in this study were referred to as ‘those others’, those who never cooperate and always complain. We regret that we were not able to conduct one-to-one discussions with the ‘those others’ group and determine the reasons for their refusal to participate. Many respondents reported their opinion that those who refused to participate in this study in general create a negative working atmosphere in the studied companies. Such opinions were also confirmed by the opinion of management representatives. This calls for new approaches for improving the general organizational climate in Slovenian enterprises, as a base for other necessary improvements. Our findings could, therefore, also serve as an incentive to develop new practical interventions and approaches to improving the organizational climate, as the main goal is to improve work performance and thus all factors that might affect it.

Job satisfaction can be improved in practice by encouraging employees and making them encourage other employees [ 14 , 15 , 20 , 21 , 30 ], which also improves team cohesion [ 37 ], by giving them access to information and all necessary resources to perform their job efficiently, giving them real-time feedback on their job performance [ 43 ] and by providing them with opportunities to explore and show their skills and talents. Furthers studies are needed to confirm whether the employer’s trust and faith in their employees are crucial, a subject studied by others [ 21 , 30 , 44 , 46 , 47 , 48 ]. The participants, however, believe that the biggest hindrance to achieving such improvement are employees who are not ready to cooperate.

The findings from this study also led to the conclusion that sedentary jobs in the studied companies require complex human resource management. Therefore, more complex studies are needed in this field, with special monitoring and maybe even with human resource index (HRI) measurements, e.g., [ 43 ], which is the current trend in economics, as well as the new reality in economics [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ] and in society.

5. Conclusions

As in most of Europe, Slovenia is also facing the challenge of sedentary behavior as part of modern work conditions. This is the first time that Slovenian enterprises were researched in terms of sedentary work conditions, concerning job satisfaction, life satisfaction and well-being on work performance, which is the main novelty of the work and presents the possibility of comparing findings with other studies [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ], such as the effect of COVID-19 [ 5 , 47 ], remote job options and cross-country differences [ 53 ] or socio-economics status in the relationship between leadership and well-being [ 54 ]. The main gaps, which are supplemented by our studies, are, in addition to finding the correlations between some factors and work performance in sedentary jobs, encouraging similar further studies with the final goal of determine the factors that correlate most with job performance in sedentary work conditions. The aim was to highlight that the study found many employees do not cooperate. In general, our study confirms that for employees in sedentary jobs in Slovenia, work performance is correlated with life and job satisfaction. Nevertheless, it is not directly correlated with well-being as this may have been predicted based on the findings of previously published studies. This can be explained by the small sample size and data collection limitations due to distrusting the research, discomfort, or poor well-being in the work environment. This may suggest that the enterprises involved in our study are confident about their organizational climate. Our practical recommendation is to expand the focus from work performance to improving cohesion and the organizational climate in enterprises in order to create the optimal work environment in sedentary workplaces in Slovenia. The results indicate important conclusion as well as making clear the significant need for further research on the impact of well-being on employees’ productivity in sedentary jobs, in order to face the new reality requiring the need to organize sedentary jobs in different forms, e.g., providing remote job options which might be critical economically in this new decade.

Funding Statement

The research was partly conducted as part of the research program, Bio-psycho-social context of kinesiology, code P5-0142, funded by the Slovenian Research Agency.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.T., M.B. and Z.K.; methodology, S.S. and K.R.; software, S.S.; validation, M.T. and S.S.; formal analysis, Z.K. and S.W.-G.; investigation, Z.K. and S.S.; resources, Z.K. and M.B.; data curation, Z.K.; writing—original draft preparation, Z.K., M.B. and S.W.-G.; writing—review and editing, S.S. and S.W.-G.; visualization; supervision, M.T.; project administration, M.T. and M.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The Ethical Committee at the Faculty of Sports, the University of Ljubljana (No. 5) approved this study in March 2018.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in this study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• Open access
• Published: 21 May 2024

The bright side of sports: a systematic review on well-being, positive emotions and performance

• David Peris-Delcampo 1 ,
• Antonio Núñez 2 ,
• Paula Ortiz-Marholz 3 ,
• Aurelio Olmedilla 4 ,
• Enrique Cantón 1 ,
• Javier Ponseti 2 &
• Alejandro Garcia-Mas 2  

BMC Psychology volume  12 , Article number:  284 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

The objective of this study is to conduct a systematic review regarding the relationship between positive psychological factors, such as psychological well-being and pleasant emotions, and sports performance.

This study, carried out through a systematic review using PRISMA guidelines considering the Web of Science, PsycINFO, PubMed and SPORT Discus databases, seeks to highlight the relationship between other more ‘positive’ factors, such as well-being, positive emotions and sports performance.

The keywords will be decided by a Delphi Method in two rounds with sport psychology experts.

Participants

There are no participants in the present research.

The main exclusion criteria were: Non-sport thema, sample younger or older than 20–65 years old, qualitative or other methodology studies, COVID-related, journals not exclusively about Psychology.

Main outcomes measures

We obtained a first sample of 238 papers, and finally, this sample was reduced to the final sample of 11 papers.

The results obtained are intended to be a representation of the ‘bright side’ of sports practice, and as a complement or mediator of the negative variables that have an impact on athletes’ and coaches’ performance.

Conclusions

Clear recognition that acting on intrinsic motivation continues to be the best and most effective way to motivate oneself to obtain the highest levels of performance, a good perception of competence and a source of personal satisfaction.

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Introduction

In recent decades, research in the psychology of sport and physical exercise has focused on the analysis of psychological variables that could have a disturbing, unfavourable or detrimental role, including emotions that are considered ‘negative’, such as anxiety/stress, sadness or anger, concentrating on their unfavourable relationship with sports performance [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ], sports injuries [ 5 , 6 , 7 ] or, more generally, damage to the athlete’s health [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. The study of ‘positive’ emotions such as happiness or, more broadly, psychological well-being, has been postponed at this time, although in recent years this has seen an increase that reveals a field of study of great interest to researchers and professionals [ 11 , 12 , 13 ] including physiological, psychological, moral and social beneficial effects of the physical activity in comic book heroes such as Tintin, a team leader, which can serve as a model for promoting healthy lifestyles, or seeking ‘eternal youth’ [ 14 ].

Emotions in relation to their effects on sports practice and performance rarely go in one direction, being either negative or positive—generally positive and negative emotions do not act alone [ 15 ]. Athletes experience different emotions simultaneously, even if they are in opposition and especially if they are of mild or moderate intensity [ 16 ]. The athlete can feel satisfied and happy and at the same time perceive a high level of stress or anxiety before a specific test or competition. Some studies [ 17 ] have shown how sports participation and the perceived value of elite sports positively affect the subjective well-being of the athlete. This also seems to be the case in non-elite sports practice. The review by Mansfield et al. [ 18 ] showed that the published literature suggests that practising sports and dance, in a group or supported by peers, can improve the subjective well-being of the participants, and also identifies negative feelings towards competence and ability, although the quantity and quality of the evidence published is low, requiring better designed studies. All these investigations are also supported by the development of the concept of eudaimonic well-being [ 19 ], which is linked to the development of intrinsic motivation, not only in its aspect of enjoyment but also in its relationship with the perception of competition and overcoming and achieving goals, even if this is accompanied by other unpleasant hedonic emotions or even physical discomfort. Shortly after a person has practised sports, he will remember those feelings of exhaustion and possibly stiffness, linked to feelings of satisfaction and even enjoyment.

Furthermore, the mediating role of parents, coaches and other psychosocial agents can be significant. In this sense, Lemelin et al. [ 20 ], with the aim of investigating the role of autonomy support from parents and coaches in the prediction of well-being and performance of athletes, found that autonomy support from parents and coaches has positive relationships with the well-being of the athlete, but that only coach autonomy support is associated with sports performance. This research suggests that parents and coaches play important but distinct roles in athlete well-being and that coach autonomy support could help athletes achieve high levels of performance.

On the other hand, an analysis of emotions in the sociocultural environment in which they arise and gain meaning is always interesting, both from an individual perspective and from a sports team perspective. Adler et al. [ 21 ] in a study with military teams showed that teams with a strong emotional culture of optimism were better positioned to recover from poor performance, suggesting that organisations that promote an optimistic culture develop more resilient teams. Pekrun et al. [ 22 ] observed with mathematics students that individual success boosts emotional well-being, while placing people in high-performance groups can undermine it, which is of great interest in investigating the effectiveness and adjustment of the individual in sports teams.

There is still little scientific literature in the field of positive emotions and their relationship with sports practice and athlete performance, although their approach has long had its clear supporters [ 23 , 24 ]. It is comforting to observe the significant increase in studies in this field, since some authors (e.g [ 25 , 26 ]). . , point out the need to overcome certain methodological and conceptual problems, paying special attention to the development of specific instruments for the evaluation of well-being in the sports field and evaluation methodologies.

As McCarthy [ 15 ] indicates, positive emotions (hedonically pleasant) can be the catalysts for excellence in sport and deserve a space in our research and in professional intervention to raise the level of athletes’ performance. From a holistic perspective, positive emotions are permanently linked to psychological well-being and research in this field is necessary: firstly because of the leading role they play in human behaviour, cognition and affection, and secondly, because after a few years of international uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic and wars, it seems ‘healthy and intelligent’ to encourage positive emotions for our athletes. An additional reason is that they are known to improve motivational processes, reducing abandonment and negative emotional costs [ 11 ]. In this vein, concepts such as emotional intelligence make sense and can help to identify and properly manage emotions in the sports field and determine their relationship with performance [ 27 ] that facilitates the inclusion of emotional training programmes based on the ‘bright side’ of sports practice [ 28 ].

Based on all of the above, one might wonder how these positive emotions are related to a given event and what role each one of them plays in the athlete’s performance. Do they directly affect performance, or do they affect other psychological variables such as concentration, motivation and self-efficacy? Do they favour the availability and competent performance of the athlete in a competition? How can they be regulated, controlled for their own benefit? How can other psychosocial agents, such as parents or coaches, help to increase the well-being of their athletes?

This work aims to enhance the leading role, not the secondary, of the ‘good and pleasant side’ of sports practice, either with its own entity, or as a complement or mediator of the negative variables that have an impact on the performance of athletes and coaches. Therefore, the objective of this study is to conduct a systematic review regarding the relationship between positive psychological factors, such as psychological well-being and pleasant emotions, and sports performance. For this, the methodological criteria that constitute the systematic review procedure will be followed.

Materials and methods

This study was carried out through a systematic review using PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews) guidelines considering the Web of Science (WoS) and Psycinfo databases. These two databases were selected using the Delphi method [ 29 ]. It does not include a meta-analysis because there is great data dispersion due to the different methodologies used [ 30 ].

The keywords will be decided by the Delphi Method in two rounds with sport psychology experts. The results obtained are intended to be a representation of the ‘bright side’ of sports practice, and as a complement or mediator of the negative variables that have an impact on athletes’ and coaches’ performance.

It was determined that the main construct was to be psychological well-being, and that it was to be paired with optimism, healthy practice, realisation, positive mood, and performance and sport. The search period was limited to papers published between 2000 and 2023, and the final list of papers was obtained on February 13 , 2023. This research was conducted in two languages—English and Spanish—and was limited to psychological journals and specifically those articles where the sample was formed by athletes.

Each word was searched for in each database, followed by searches involving combinations of the same in pairs and then in trios. In relation to the results obtained, it was decided that the best approach was to group the words connected to positive psychology on the one hand, and on the other, those related to self-realisation/performance/health. In this way, it used parentheses to group words (psychological well-being; or optimism; or positive mood) with the Boolean ‘or’ between them (all three refer to positive psychology); and on the other hand, it grouped those related to performance/health/realisation (realisation; or healthy practice or performance), separating both sets of parentheses by the Boolean ‘and’’. To further filter the search, a keyword included in the title and in the inclusion criteria was added, which was ‘sport’ with the Boolean ‘and’’. In this way, the search achieved results that combined at least one of the three positive psychology terms and one of the other three.

Results (first phase)

The mentioned keywords were cross-matched, obtaining the combination with a sufficient number of papers. From the first research phase, the total number of papers obtained was 238. Then screening was carried out by 4 well-differentiated phases that are summarised in Fig.  1 . These phases helped to reduce the original sample to a more accurate one.

Phases of the selection process for the final sample. Four phases were carried out to select the final sample of articles. The first phase allowed the elimination of duplicates. In the second stage, those that, by title or abstract, did not fit the objectives of the article were eliminated. Previously selected exclusion criteria were applied to the remaining sample. Thus, in phase 4, the final sample of 11 selected articles was obtained

Results (second phase)

The first screening examined the title, and the abstract if needed, excluding the papers that were duplicated, contained errors or someone with formal problems, low N or case studies. This screening allowed the initial sample to be reduced to a more accurate one with 109 papers selected.

Results (third phase)

This was followed by the second screening to examine the abstract and full texts, excluding if necessary papers related to non-sports themes, samples that were too old or too young for our interests, papers using qualitative methodologies, articles related to the COVID period, or others published in non-psychological journals. Furthermore, papers related to ‘negative psychological variables’’ were also excluded.

Results (fourth phase)

At the end of this second screening the remaining number of papers was 11. In this final phase we tried to organise the main characteristics and their main conclusions/results in a comprehensible list (Table  1 ). Moreover, in order to enrich our sample of papers, we decided to include some articles from other sources, mainly those presented in the introduction to sustain the conceptual framework of the concept ‘bright side’ of sports.

The usual position of the researcher of psychological variables that affect sports performance is to look for relationships between ‘negative’ variables, first in the form of basic psychological processes, or distorting cognitive behavioural, unpleasant or evaluable as deficiencies or problems, in a psychology for the ‘risk’ society, which emphasises the rehabilitation that stems from overcoming personal and social pathologies [ 31 ], and, lately, regarding the affectation of the athlete’s mental health [ 32 ]. This fact seems to be true in many cases and situations and to openly contradict the proclaimed psychological benefits of practising sports (among others: Cantón [ 33 ], ; Froment and González [ 34 ]; Jürgens [ 35 ]).

However, it is possible to adopt another approach focused on the ‘positive’ variables, also in relation to the athlete’s performance. This has been the main objective of this systematic review of the existing literature and far from being a novel approach, although a minority one, it fits perfectly with the definition of our area of knowledge in the broad field of health, as has been pointed out for some time [ 36 , 37 ].

After carrying out the aforementioned systematic review, a relatively low number of articles were identified by experts that met the established conditions—according to the PRISMA method [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]—regarding databases, keywords, and exclusion and inclusion criteria. These precautions were taken to obtain the most accurate results possible, and thus guarantee the quality of the conclusions.

The first clear result that stands out is the great difficulty in finding articles in which sports ‘performance’ is treated as a well-defined study variable adapted to the situation and the athletes studied. In fact, among the results (11 papers), only 3 associate one or several positive psychological variables with performance (which is evaluated in very different ways, combining objective measures with other subjective ones). This result is not surprising, since in several previous studies (e.g. Nuñez et al. [ 41 ]) using a systematic review, this relationship is found to be very weak and nuanced by the role of different mediating factors, such as previous sports experience or the competitive level (e.g. Rascado, et al. [ 42 ]; Reche, Cepero & Rojas [ 43 ]), despite the belief—even among professional and academic circles—that there is a strong relationship between negative variables and poor performance, and vice versa, with respect to the positive variables.

Regarding what has been evidenced in relation to the latter, even with these restrictions in the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the filters applied to the first findings, a true ‘galaxy’ of variables is obtained, which also belong to different categories and levels of psychological complexity.

A preliminary consideration regarding the current paradigm of sport psychology: although it is true that some recent works have already announced the swing of the pendulum on the objects of study of PD, by returning to the study of traits and dispositions, and even to the personality of athletes [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ], our results fully corroborate this trend. Faced with five variables present in the studies selected at the end of the systematic review, a total of three traits/dispositions were found, which were also the most repeated—optimism being present in four articles, mental toughness present in three, and finally, perfectionism—as the representative concepts of this field of psychology, which lately, as has already been indicated, is significantly represented in the field of research in this area [ 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 ]. In short, the psychological variables that finally appear in the selected articles are: psychological well-being (PWB) [ 53 ]; self-compassion, which has recently been gaining much relevance with respect to the positive attributional resolution of personal behaviours [ 54 ], satisfaction with life (balance between sports practice, its results, and life and personal fulfilment [ 55 ], the existence of approach-achievement goals [ 56 ], and perceived social support [ 57 ]). This last concept is maintained transversally in several theoretical frameworks, such as Sports Commitment [ 58 ].

The most relevant concept, both quantitatively and qualitatively, supported by the fact that it is found in combination with different variables and situations, is not a basic psychological process, but a high-level cognitive construct: psychological well-being, in its eudaimonic aspect, first defined in the general population by Carol Ryff [ 59 , 60 ] and introduced at the beginning of this century in sport (e.g., Romero, Brustad & García-Mas [ 13 ], ; Romero, García-Mas & Brustad [ 61 ]). It is important to note that this concept understands psychological well-being as multifactorial, including autonomy, control of the environment in which the activity takes place, social relationships, etc.), meaning personal fulfilment through a determined activity and the achievement or progress towards goals and one’s own objectives, without having any direct relationship with simpler concepts, such as vitality or fun. In the selected studies, PWB appears in five of them, and is related to several of the other variables/traits.

The most relevant result regarding this variable is its link with motivational aspects, as a central axis that relates to different concepts, hence its connection to sports performance, as a goal of constant improvement that requires resistance, perseverance, management of errors and great confidence in the possibility that achievements can be attained, that is, associated with ideas of optimism, which is reflected in expectations of effectiveness.

If we detail the relationships more specifically, we can first review this relationship with the ‘way of being’, understood as personality traits or behavioural tendencies, depending on whether more or less emphasis is placed on their possibilities for change and learning. In these cases, well-being derives from satisfaction with progress towards the desired goal, for which resistance (mental toughness) and confidence (optimism) are needed. When, in addition, the search for improvement is constant and aiming for excellence, its relationship with perfectionism is clear, although it is a factor that should be explored further due to its potential negative effect, at least in the long term.

The relationship between well-being and satisfaction with life is almost tautological, in the precise sense that what produces well-being is the perception of a relationship or positive balance between effort (or the perception of control, if we use stricter terminology) and the results thereof (or the effectiveness of such control). This direct link is especially important when assessing achievement in personally relevant activities, which, in the case of the subjects evaluated in the papers, specifically concern athletes of a certain level of performance, which makes it a more valuable objective than would surely be found in the general population. And precisely because of this effect of the value of performance for athletes of a certain level, it also allows us to understand how well-being is linked to self-compassion, since as a psychological concept it is very close to that of self-esteem, but with a lower ‘demand’ or a greater ‘generosity’, when we encounter failures, mistakes or even defeats along the way, which offers us greater protection from the risk of abandonment and therefore reinforces persistence, a key element for any successful sports career [ 62 ].

It also has a very direct relationship with approach-achievement goals, since precisely one of the central aspects characterising this eudaimonic well-being and differentiating it from hedonic well-being is specifically its relationship with self-determined and persistent progress towards goals or achievements with incentive value for the person, as is sports performance evidently [ 63 ].

Finally, it is interesting to see how we can also find a facet or link relating to the aspects that are more closely-related to the need for human affiliation, with feeling part of a group or human collective, where we can recognise others and recognise ourselves in the achievements obtained and the social reinforcement of those themselves, as indicated by their relationship with perceived social support. This construct is very labile, in fact it is common to find results in which the pressure of social support is hardly differentiated, for example, from the parents of athletes and/or their coaches [ 64 ]. However, its relevance within this set of psychological variables and traits is proof of its possible conceptual validity.

Analysing the results obtained, the first conclusion is that in no case is an integrated model based solely on ‘positive’ variables or traits obtained, since some ‘negative’ ones appear (anxiety, stress, irrational thoughts), affecting the former.

The second conclusion is that among the positive elements the variable coping strategies (their use, or the perception of their effectiveness) and the traits of optimism, perfectionism and self-compassion prevail, since mental strength or psychological well-being (which also appear as important, but with a more complex nature) are seen to be participated in by the aforementioned traits.

Finally, it must be taken into account that the generation of positive elements, such as resilience, or the learning of coping strategies, are directly affected by the educational style received, or by the culture in which the athlete is immersed. Thus, the applied potential of these findings is great, but it must be calibrated according to the educational and/or cultural features of the specific setting.

Limitations

The limitations of this study are those evident and common in SR methodology using the PRISMA system, since the selection of keywords (and their logical connections used in the search), the databases, and the inclusion/exclusion criteria bias the work in its entirety and, therefore, constrain the generalisation of the results obtained.

Likewise, the conclusions must—based on the above and the results obtained—be made with the greatest concreteness and simplicity possible. Although we have tried to reduce these limitations as much as possible through the use of experts in the first steps of the method, they remain and must be considered in terms of the use of the results.

Future developments

Undoubtedly, progress is needed in research to more precisely elucidate the role of well-being, as it has been proposed here, from a bidirectional perspective: as a motivational element to push towards improvement and the achievement of goals, and as a product or effect of the self-determined and competent behaviour of the person, in relation to different factors, such as that indicated here of ‘perfectionism’ or the potential interference of material and social rewards, which are linked to sports performance—in our case—and that could act as a risk factor so that our achievements, far from being a source of well-being and satisfaction, become an insatiable demand in the search to obtain more and more frequent rewards.

From a practical point of view, an empirical investigation should be conducted to see if these relationships hold from a statistical point of view, either in the classical (correlational) or in the probabilistic (Bayesian Networks) plane.

The results obtained in this study, exclusively researched from the desk, force the authors to develop subsequent empirical and/or experimental studies in two senses: (1) what interrelationships exist between the so called ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ psychological variables and traits in sport, and in what sense are each of them produced; and, (2) from a global, motivational point of view, can currently accepted theoretical frameworks, such as SDT, easily accommodate this duality, which is becoming increasingly evident in applied work?

Finally, these studies should lead to proposals applied to the two fields that have appeared to be relevant: educational and cultural.

Application/transfer of results

A clear application of these results is aimed at guiding the training of sports and physical exercise practitioners, directing it towards strategies for assessing achievements, improvements and failure management, which keep them in line with well-being enhancement, eudaimonic, intrinsic and self-determined, which enhances the quality of their learning and their results and also favours personal health and social relationships.

Data availability

There are no further external data.

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General Psychology Department, Valencia University, Valencia, 46010, Spain

David Peris-Delcampo & Enrique Cantón

Basic Psychology and Pedagogy Departments, Balearic Islands University, Palma de Mallorca, 07122, Spain

Antonio Núñez, Javier Ponseti & Alejandro Garcia-Mas

Education and Social Sciences Faculty, Andres Bello University, Santiago, 7550000, Chile

Paula Ortiz-Marholz

Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment Deparment, Murcia University, Campus MareNostrum, Murcia, 30100, Spain

Aurelio Olmedilla

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Conceptualization, AGM, EC and ANP.; planification, AO; methodology, ANP, AGM and PO.; software, ANP, DP and PO.; validation, ANP and PO.; formal analysis, DP, PO and ANP; investigation, DP, PO and ANP.; resources, DVP and JP; data curation, AO and DP.; writing—original draft preparation, ANP, DP and AGM; writing—review and editing, EC and JP.; visualization, ANP and PO.; supervision, AGM.; project administration, DP.; funding acquisition, DP and JP. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Antonio Núñez .

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Peris-Delcampo, D., Núñez, A., Ortiz-Marholz, P. et al. The bright side of sports: a systematic review on well-being, positive emotions and performance. BMC Psychol 12 , 284 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-01769-8

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Received : 04 October 2023

Accepted : 07 May 2024

Published : 21 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-01769-8

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