ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1560010
When happiness strengthens engagement and performance: the role of happiness at work as a resource for experienced employees and newcomers
Provisionally accepted
- University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
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This research investigates the interactive effects of happiness at work and interest taking on work engagement and extra-productive behaviors across experienced employees and newcomers. Objective: The article investigates how happiness at work can serve as a key resource in enhancing work engagement and extra-productive behaviors such as adaptive performance and organizational citizenship behavior in newcomers and experienced employees. Furthermore, it clarifies the interactive effects of the personal resource interest-taking in enhancing the effectiveness of happiness at work, particularly by examining how interest-taking moderates the relationship between happiness at work and work engagement. Methods: We conducted two longitudinal studies among newcomers (N = 126) and experienced employees (N = 126) of various industries. For data analysis, we applied multilevel modeling to account for the nested structure of the data. We conducted 2-1-1 moderated mediation analyses to test indirect and conditional effects along the a-path of the proposed model. Results: Across both studies, our findings indicate indirect effects of happiness at work on extraproductive behavior via work engagement. Interest-taking strengthens the impact of happiness at work on work engagement for newcomers but not for experienced employees. These new insights into the relationship between happiness at work, work engagement, and extra-productive behavior can aid organizations in enhancing the performance and motivation of employees. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that happiness at work indirectly promotes organizational citizenship behavior and adaptive performance through increased work engagement for all employees, regardless of their tenure. The moderating role of interest-taking is especially relevant for newcomers, suggesting that organizations can boost positive outcomes by fostering happiness at work in early tenure.
Keywords: Happiness at work, work engagement, interest-taking, Adaptive performance, Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), Newcomers, experienced employees
Received: 13 Jan 2025; Accepted: 09 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fröhlich, Radaca and Diestel. 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) or licensor 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: Patrik Fröhlich, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
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.