Exploring the consequences of mindfulness at work: the impact of mindful organizing on employee attitudes and behavior toward work and organization
ISSN: 0048-3486
Article publication date: 21 September 2022
Issue publication date: 9 November 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the social exchange theory, the authors extend the high-reliability literature by examining employees' subjective experience of working in contexts engaging in mindful organizing (MO). Ultimately, they ask the question about how MO affects employees' attitudes and behavior toward work and organization, such us organizational commitment (OC), motivation to work and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), in ordinary business settings. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors surveyed 307 employees from various industries, using paper-and-pencil questionnaires. A series of hierarchical regression analyses and structural equation modeling were performed to test our hypotheses.
Findings
The authors found that MO is positively related to employees' affective and normative commitment to an organization, and that affective commitment is positively related to motivation to work and OCB. The study also reveals that the affective commitment has a partially mediating role in the MO – motivation and MO – OCB relations. Although several researchers argue that the effectiveness of MO may be higher in an uncertain environment, the authors’ study indicates that the environment does not moderate the relationship between MO and OC.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to explore the effects of MO in a traditional (i.e. nonhigh reliability) business context. Furthermore, their findings prove that MO not only leads to higher reliability and greater safety, as previous studies show, but it also positively affects performance-related attitudes and behavior.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: This study was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (Grant No. 2018/31/N/HS4/03936 and 2017/27/B/HS4/02172).
Citation
Gajda, D. and Zbierowski, P. (2023), "Exploring the consequences of mindfulness at work: the impact of mindful organizing on employee attitudes and behavior toward work and organization", Personnel Review, Vol. 52 No. 9, pp. 2342-2362. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-05-2020-0385
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited