Intraindividual models of employee well-being: What have we learned and where do we go from here?

• Published in: European journal of work and organizational psychology 2015-11, Vol.24 (6), p.827-838
• Main Authors: Ilies, Remus, Aw, Sherry S. Y., Pluut, Helen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Burnout; Employee involvement; Employee well-being; Intraindividual perspectives; Job satisfaction; Organization theory; Organizational learning; Studies; Work stress
• ISSN: 1359-432X; 1464-0643
• DOI: 10.1080/1359432X.2015.1071422

As societal concern shifts from financial survival towards quality of life issues, both in and outside of the workplace, scholarly interest in employee well-being too has risen greatly in recent years. This greater attention to the antecedents and outcomes of employee well-being, such as job satisfaction, work engagement, and job burnout amongst others, is reflected in the proliferation of theories, constructs, and studies seeking to describe and explain why employees flourish or become exhausted at work, and the effect of employee well-being on individual behaviours and the organization at large. In this article, we provide a selective review of the current state of research in employee well-being, as well as key theories that have been employed in its study, with the aim of providing a critical assessment of the current state of employee well-being research as well as suggest future directions for the field. In particular, we discuss how research adopting intraindividual perspectives in the study of employee well-being can not only add value to our understanding of well-being but also complement the findings from between-individual studies, and offer suggestions for the development of a comprehensive theoretical model that integrates the two perspectives.