Perfectionistic Cognitions as Antecedents of Work Engagement: Personal Resources, Personal Demands, or Both?

Whereas personal resources have been established as a counterpart to external job resources in the Job Demands-Resources Theory, personal demands as a counterpart to job demands have been rather neglected. In this study, we propose that multidimensional perfectionism-in the form of daily perfectionistic cognitions-is a relevant personal characteristic for predicting daily work engagement in addition to and in its interplay with daily time pressure as a common job demand. 157 employees participated in a daily diary study for 15 workdays. As hypothesized, multilevel regression analyses yielded a positive unique effect of perfectionistic strivings cognitions and a negative unique effect of perfectionistic concerns cognitions on daily work engagement. Furthermore, we found that both unique perfectionistic strivings cognitions and perfectionistic concerns cognitions moderated a quadratic relationship between daily time pressure and daily work engagement. Building on the Job Demands-Resources Theory, we propose that the dimension of perfectionistic strivings constitutes a personal resource and the dimension of perfectionistic concerns constitutes a personal demand in the prediction of work engagement.

Automated summary

This study found that perfectionism has both positive and negative effects on daily work engagement, and perfectionistic cognitions can moderate the relationship between time pressure and work engagement.