Effects of Achievement and Personal Recognition Events on State Work Engagement: A Dual-Path Model

To better understand the psychological effects of positive work events, we developed and examined an episodic process model that identifies motivational and affective mechanisms through which two types of frequent and salient positive work events (achievement events and personal recognition) lead to subsequent state work engagement and daily job satisfaction. We used 1293 sets of observations collected from 198 full time employees in Germany, which we analyzed with hierarchal linear modeling and bootstrapping analysis. Achievement events that occurred during a given work episode had a positive effect on state work engagement in the following work episode. This effect was mediated by activated positive affect, autonomy need satisfaction and competence need satisfaction. Personal recognition that occurred during a given work episode had a positive effect on state work engagement in the following work episode. This effect was mediated by activated positive affect, competence need satisfaction and relatedness need satisfaction. Moreover, we found both achievement and personal recognition events to have positive effects on daily job satisfaction through state work engagement. Collectively, these findings extend the affective events theory and open new windows into the study of positive work events.