Contagious Employee Wellbeing. Examining Organisational and Team Influences on Employee Wellbeing Through a Multilevel Lens
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2023
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Employee wellbeing is receiving increasing attention as organisations grapple with increasingly complex workplace issues, including employee mental health. Interest in employee wellbeing has further increased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as significant restrictions have impacted people’s mental health. To date, workplace wellbeing initiatives and interventions have primarily focussed on a single conception of wellbeing and stress. However, there is no research on the impact team’s emotional contagion on employee wellbeing. To explore the multiple dynamics that contribute to collective wellbeing, this thesis formulates hypotheses that draw from a combination of three theories: social exchange theory, conservation of resources theory, and emotional contagion theory. First, social exchange theory explains workplace behaviours. Emotional contagion theory identifies dynamics of the contagion effect of wellbeing between co-workers, while the conservation of resources theory assists in understanding how employees value organisational resources to reduce their levels of stress and support their wellbeing. By applying a pragmatic research philosophy under a multilevel statistical approach, this thesis looks at the cross-level moderating role of emotional contagion in the relationship between work stress and employee wellbeing. The impacts of the organisational resources of managerial priority and support are also explored through a chain mediation model. In this way, the thesis aims to build a more comprehensive model of employee wellbeing. Empirical testing utilises two-level, cross-sectional data drawn from 237 employees nested in 41 work teams from professional services across Australia. Although this thesis is relevant for multiple industries, the team dynamics of the professional services industry and its workers’ abilities to work from home during COVID-19 made it a fruitful area to study for this thesis. We identified evidence supporting the hypotheses of the study, including a significant cross-level moderation effect. Managerial support and work stress serve as mediators in the positive relationship between managerial priority and employee wellbeing at both levels of analysis. The significance of this research lies in its study of the contagion effect of wellbeing on other members of the work teams. This study highlights the importance of organisational resources along with the important role of co-workers in maintaining employee wellbeing. The main implication is that organisational interventions to improve the level of employee wellbeing benefit from factoring in team dynamics to mitigate stress levels.
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