›› 2019, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (1): 171-182.

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How does Positive Experience of Yesterday Affect Work Engagement of Today?——A Study of Experience Sample and Daily Methods

Guo Zhongze1, Xie Baoguo2, Cheng Yanyuan3   

  1. 1. School of Economics and Management, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing 100192;
    2. School of Management, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070;
    3. School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872
  • Received:2016-11-02 Online:2019-01-28 Published:2019-01-22

Abstract:

This study is to investigate potential positive within-person relationships between positive emotions, optimism, and work engagement on a daily level. Experience sample methods and diary study are used in this study. The sample consists of 65 secondary school teachers from two middle schools. We got 65 questionnaires and 455 pieces of within-person data. Our multi-level analysis reaches the following conclusions:(1) at the level of within-person, positive emotions, optimism and work engagement do fluctuate on the daily basis; (2) positive emotions of a day has a significant positive lag effect on the work engagement of the next day; (3) positive emotions of a day has a significant positive effect on optimism of the same day; (4) optimism of the day has a significant positive lag effect on work engagement of the next day; (5) optimism of a day partially mediates the positive relationship between positive emotions of the same day and work engagement of the next day. Our findings contribute to the work engagement and Broaden-and-Build Theory literatures in three primary ways. And several limitations are pointed out in this study.

Key words: work engagement, short-term fluctuation, positive emotions, optimism, lag effects