The relationship between meaning at work, job alienation and proactive behaviour: The intermediatory effect of thriving at workplace

Proactive behaviour refers to employees' self-initiated behaviours and achievements towards their own goals that benefit the organisation. The scope of this study includes an analysis of the relationship between employees' attitudes for their work both positive (meaning at work) and negative (work alienation) and proactive behaviour as well as the intermediary role of thriving at work. Through Affective Events Theory and Attitude-Behaviour Approach, this study sought to answer the research questions "What are the negative and positive factors in determining proactive behaviour premises?" and "what type of relationship do positive-negative factors and proactive behaviour have?" when the employees have both positive and negative attitudes. This study consists of three stages. The first stage was carried out on 922 health professionals using snowball sampling. Consequently, meaning at work and proactive behaviour had a significantly positive relationship through thriving at work (learning and vitality) whereas work alienation had affected this system negatively. As the first stage of the research had cross-sectional data collection gathered from one source, there was need for further research. The second stage involved 408 employees from furniture stores elected through convenience sampling. Data were collected from two sources; the employees and the managers. Meaning and thriving at work (learning and vitality) had a significantly positive effect on proactive behaviour. 209 academics attended the third stage. Data was collected to determine causal relationships at two different times longitudinally. Conclusively, the thriving at work variable (vitality) had an intermediary role within the effects of meaning at work on proactive behaviour. Keywords: Affective events theory, Work alienation, Meaning at work, Thriving at workplace, Proactive behaviour.