Thriving at work: A meta‐analysis

• Author: Cort W. Rudolph,Anne‐Kathrin Kleine,Hannes Zacher
• Date: 01 December 2019
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2375

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Thriving at work: A meta‐analysis

Anne‐Kathrin Kleine

1,2

|Cort W. Rudolph

3

|Hannes Zacher

1

1

Institute of Psychology, Leipzig University,

Leipzig, Germany

2

Department of Psychology, University of

Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

3

Department of Psychology, Saint Louis

University, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.

Correspondence

Anne‐Kathrin Kleine, Department of

Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote

Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS Groningen, The

Netherlands.

Email: a.k.kleine@rug.nl

Hannes Zacher, Institute of Psychology,

Leipzig University, Neumarkt 9‐19, 04109

Leipzig, Germany.

Email: hannes.zacher@uni‐leipzig.de

Summary

Thriving at work refers to a positive psychological state characterized by a joint sense

of vitality and learning. On the basis of Spreitzer and colleagues' model, we present a

comprehensive meta‐analysis of antecedents and outcomes of thriving at work

(K= 73 independent samples, N= 21,739 employees). Results showed that thriving

at work is associated with individual characteristics, such as psychological capital

(r

c

= .47), proactive personality (r

c

= .58), positive affect (r

c

= .52), and work engage-

ment (r

c

= .64). Positive associations were also found between thriving at work and

relational characteristics, including supportive coworker behavior (r

c

= .42), support-

ive leadership behavior (r

c

= .44), and perceived organizational support (r

c

= .63).

Moreover, thriving at work is related to important employee outcomes, including

health‐related outcomes such as burnout (r

c

=−.53), attitudinal outcomes such as

commitment (r

c

= .65), and performance‐related outcomes such as task performance

(r

c

= .35). The results of relative weights analyses suggest that thriving exhibits small,

albeit incremental predictive validity above and beyond positive affect and work

engagement, for task performance, job satisfaction, subjective health, and burnout.

Overall, the findings of this meta‐analysis support Spreitzer and colleagues' model

and underscore the importance of thriving in the work context.

KEYWORDS

learning, meta‐analysis, review, thriving, vitality

1|INTRODUCTION

Human thriving has attracted the interest of social and behavioral

scientists for several decades (see D. J. Brown, Arnold, Fletcher, &

Standage, 2017, for a review). In the broader psychological literature,

thriving is typically conceptualized as a dynamic process of adaptation

to physical, psychological, or social adversity, leading to positive out-

comes such as personal growth and enhanced functioning (e.g.,

Bugental, 2004; Jackson, Firtko, & Edenborough, 2007; O'Leary &

Ickovics, 1995). Organizational behavior and management researchers

focus on a somewhat different meaning of thriving. Specifically,

Spreitzer, Sutcliffe, Dutton, Sonenshein, and Grant (2005) defined

thriving at work as a positive psychological state characterized by a

joint sense of vitality and learning. More specifically, these researchers

suggest that employees who are thriving experience personal growth

by feeling energized and alive (i.e., vitality) and by having a sense of

continually acquiring and applying knowledge (i.e., learning).

Spreitzeret al. (2005) alsodeveloped a theoreticalmodel of thrivingat

work, which explains how certain individual characteristics (e.g., knowl-

edge and positive affect), interpersonal/relational characteristics (e.g.,

support and trust), contextual features (e.g., job autonomy and climate

of trust),and agentic workbehaviors (e.g., taskfocus and exploration)lead

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided

the original work is properly cited.

© 2019 The Authors Journal of Organizational Behavior Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Received: 15 November 2018 Revised: 17 April 2019 Accepted: 22 April 2019

DOI: 10.1002/job.2375

J Organ Behav. 2019;40:973–999. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 973

to thriving at work. Thriving, in turn, results in positive employee out-

comes, including health and development. Within their framework, the

researchers assume that thrivingat work is not automatically cultivated

by simplyremoving or decreasingthe influence ofstressors. Instead,they

suggest that thriving at work requires increases in favorable individual

and relational characteristics and contextual features. Thus, in contrast

to traditional conceptualizations in the broader psychological literature

that emphasize preceding hardship, Spreitzer et al. (2005) argue that

“thrivingcan occur with or without adversity”(p.538).

Since Spreitzer et al. (2005) published their model, research on thriv-

ing at work has rapidly grown. For instance, empirical studies have

shown that thriving is positively related to individual characteristics

(e.g., psychological capital; Paterson, Luthans, & Jeung, 2014), relational

characteristics (e.g., positive relationships among coworkers; Frazier &

Tupper, 2016), and important employee outcomes, such as job perfor-

mance (Gerbasi, Porath, Parker, Spreitzer, & Cross, 2015), job satisfac-

tion (Marchiondo, Cortina, & Kabat‐Farr, 2018), and subjective health

(e.g., Walumbwa, Muchiri, Misati, Wu, & Meiliani, 2018). This increase

in research has been spurred by the development of a two‐dimensional

measurement instrument to assess thriving at work based on Spreitzer

et al.'s (2005) conceptualization (Porath, Spreitzer, Gibson, & Garnett,

2012). Porath et al. (2012) showed that thriving, as measured by their

scales, can be distinguished from related constructs such as affect, goal

orientation, proactivity, and core self‐evaluations. Moreover, they

showed that thriving at work predicts important employee outcomes,

such as favorable job attitudes, performance, and health.

Althoughresearch on thrivingat work has accumulated overthe past

decade, thisliterature remains scatteredand in great need of systematic

and theory‐based synthesis. We currently lack comprehensive knowl-

edge on the nomological network ofthriving at work, including itsmost

important antecedents and consequences, preventing specific and reli-

able recommendations for future research and organizational practice.

The overarching goal of this article, therefore, is to present and discuss

the theoreticalbackground, methods,and results of a meta‐analysis that

quantitatively integrates existing empirical–quantitative studies on

thriving at work.Specifically, we aim to make three significant contribu-

tions to organizational behaviorresearch and practice. First, wecontrib-

ute to a better understanding of the nomological networkof thriving at

work by synthesizing evidence across studies to identify associations

betweenthriving and both relevantand commonly investigatedanteced-

ent and outcomevariables guided by Spreitzer et al.'s(2005) model (see

Figure 1). Meta‐analytic techniques allow us to better estimatethe true

magnitude of theserelationships, as well as—incase of significant varia-

tion—to analyze moderating influences (Schmidt & Hunter, 2015). Sec-

ond, we focus on thethriving construct itself and examine how its two

underlyingdimensions(i.e., vitality andlearning) are relatedto each other,

as well as how certain antecedents and consequences are differentially

associated with overall thriving at work and its two dimensions. Third

and finally, we contribute to future research and organizationalpractice

by reporting results of meta‐analytic regression models regarding the

incrementalvalidityof thriving at workfor predicting importantwork out-

comes (i.e., task performance, job satisfaction, subjective health, and

burnout), above and beyond two conceptually related constructs (i.e.,

positiveaffect and work engagement).

2|THRIVING AT WORK

2.1 |Theoretical background

Spreitzer et al. (2005) define thriving at work as a desirable and posi-

tive psychological state in which employees experience both a sense

of vitality and learning. Employees who are thriving feel that their cur-

rent experiences and behaviors at work are intrinsically motivatingand

supportive of self‐development and personal growth. With reference

to prior research on affective experiences (Nix, Ryan, Manly, & Deci,

1999), Spreitzer et al. (2005) define the first dimension of thriving,

vitality, as the positive feeling of having energy available and feeling

“alive.”The second dimension, learning, entails employees' feeling that

they are acquiring, and are able to apply, valuable knowledge and skills

FIGURE 1 Conceptual model and nomological network of assumed antecedents and outcomes of thriving at work

KLEINE ET AL.

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