Introduction

The contemporary worldwide business developments and intense competition have raised challenges for service sector organizations. These organizations can adjust to this evolving and competitive market climate by adopting new working approaches (Riaz et al., 2020) and creating a thriving workforce (Spreitzer et al., 2005). Thriving individuals are a source of competitive advantage for organization (Abid et al., 2018). Whereas, the direct influence of thriving on job satisfaction is still scarce in the literature (Jiang et al., 2020). Job satisfaction (the extent to which employees feel about their job) has received substantial attention of researchers as well as managers (Qasim et al., 2012). The empirical findings showed that job satisfaction exhibit different relations with organizational outcomes, such as performance (Miah, 2018; Rubel & Kee, 2014). It inspires employees to perform well, therefore organization can achieve exceptional success from satisfied employees (Judge et al., 2017) as compared to employees having lower job satisfaction (Ayuningtias et al., 2018). For that reason, it takes as a criterion variable in this study.

Furthermore, prior studies showed that relational characteristics (Abid et al., 2018; Kleine et al., 2019) prompt the employees thriving at work. In the current study, we focused on the relational characteristic (Perceived Organizational Support) in the transformation of the psychological state of employees. We have little known about the influence of POS on the emerging state of employee thriving in the Asian context. POS is described by Eisenberger et al., (1986) as the extent to which employees assumed that their employers values their work, and show concern about their well-being. Ayuningtias et al., (2019) illustrated that POS was related to employee job satisfaction. So, we expect that POS will be found to have a positive relationship to employee job satisfaction. Theoretically, we anticipate that the effects of POS on job satisfaction will be mediated through thriving at work. As a result of thriving at work, they show positive attitude such as job satisfaction.

Next, limited studies have examined employee personality traits (such as proactive personality) moderating influence on POS (Sears et al., 2016). We assume that the influence of POS on job satisfaction may vary as a function of individual differences relating to having a proactive personality. We draw the COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989) to support our model. This study contributes in three ways. First, we test the relationship between POS, thriving, and job satisfaction over two waves among 936 employees. We argue that a longer time frame is required in order to examine the exact effects. Second, we examine whether thriving explain how POS impacts job satisfaction. Finally, we investigate the conditional effect of proactivity of employees in relationship between POS and thriving at work.

Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

COR(Conservation of Resource Theory)

The fundamental precept of COR (conservation of resource) theory is that people try for obtaining, retaining, protecting, and fostering those resources that they value (Hobfoll, 2001). These resources embrace (i) personal resources that are confidence and self-esteem (ii) condition resources specifically status in the organization, (iii) object resources, that is material, (iv) energy resources are specifically money and time. These resources are valuable to employees because they inspire them to show positive behaviors (Hobfoll, 2001). COR also suggested that people create the surpluses of resources and try to lessen the net loss of resources to counteract the opportunity of upcoming misfortune. Besides employees have number of sources (material, social, and psychological) in the working enviornment that enables them to show positive outcomes (Hobfoll, 1989). Besides, COR theory has expanded, by introducing the concept of “resource caravan” to concern that resources are not subsisted individually however for both organizations and individuals travel in caravans or packs (Zafar et al., 2021; Hobfoll et al., 2018). Caravans of resources are created through the accretion of personal, material, and energy resources and generated many beneficial outcomes such as job satisfaction. This study proposes that resource caravanning is facilitated by the perception of organizational support to create learning and vitality (facet of thriving) resources. The combined resources, in turn (Asif et al., 2017; Zhai et al., 2017) contribute to greater job satisfaction.

Linking Perception of Organizational Support with Job Satisfaction and Thriving at Work

Job satisfaction is typified by Miah (2018) as a pleasurable emotional condition of individuals that ensuing from their job evaluation as achieving or encouraging the attainment of their job values while POS is described as the level to which people assumed that their well-being is essential (Eisenberger et al., 1986). This paper theorized that POS and employee job satisfaction would be positively linked. For example, studies (Miao, 2011; Miao & Kim, 2010; Ayuningtias et al., 2019; Qaiser et al., 2021; Günay, 2017) affirmed that POS is a strong contributor to job satisfaction. Employees will enhance their individuals’ personal resources (Hobfoll, 2001) with the perception of strong organizational support. So, our hypothetical statement is:

H1 There is positive association between job satisfaction and perceived organizational support

Whereas, thriving is a feeling of positive energy and aliveness is delineated as affective facet (vitality) of thriving while a sense of acquisition of skills and knowledge (Spreitzer et al., 2005) for the building of confidence and capability is described as the cognitive facet of thriving (learning) (Porath et al., 2012; Rafique et al., 2020). Thriving is described as individual difference characteristics in the socially embedded model that consisted of affective (learning) and cognitive (vitality) facets (Niessen et al., 2012). In this study, we propose that the perception of organizational support will be positively connected with thriving at work on the basis of previous studies (Abid et al., 2015; Kleine et al.,2019), in which they found that POS has an impact on thriving at work. So, based on the above discussion and drawing on COR theory, we rationalized that employees will experience the thriving at work when they have relational resources (relationship with the organization; POS) (Eisenberger et al., 1997). So, our hypothetical statement is:

H2 Perceived organizational support is positively related to thriving at work

Perception of Organizational Support, Thriving at Work and Job Satisfaction Link

Thriving offers a sense of personal and professional development and success in doing their work. We speculate that thriving will be positively linked with job satisfaction. This expectation has received strong support from the recent theoretical (Spreitzer & Porath, 2012) as well empirically studies (Jiang et al., 2020; Porath et al., 2012), in which they illustrated that thriving is a strong contributor to job satisfaction. So, based on the above discussion and COR theory, thriving employees create the surpluses of resources in the organizational setting, and finite amount of resources (material, social and psychological) enables them to show a positive attitude towards their job such as job satisfaction. Therefore, we propose

H3 Thriving at work is positively linked with job satisfaction.

We theorized that thriving at work foster by the POS will increase job satisfaction. Supportive organizations increase thriving at work, Miao (2011) explained that job satisfaction is the outcome of the individual’s overall sense of development at the workplace. The researcher argued that thriving employees can acquire more resources to achieve their objectives. They tend to have a positive attitude towards their work (Spreitzer & Porath, 2012) like satisfaction with the job. Based on the formerly explanation, we suppose that thriving at work mediates between POS and job satisfaction association. Hypothesis 2 states that POS and thriving at work is positively linked and hypothesis 3, i.e., thriving at work and employee's job satisfaction is positively linked. These hypotheses will jointly compose a model in which POS indirectly influences job satisfaction by incorporating thriving. We draw this argument based on COR, this theory stated that employees with plenty of resources show positive outcomes. So, we posit that employees generate a greater amount of cognitive and affective resources in the presence of POS that will empower them to show greater job satisfaction. Thus, we propose:

H4 Perceived organizational support indirectly influence job satisfaction through thriving at work

Conditional Effect of Proactive Personality

In line with COR theory, we anticipate the conditional effect of proactive personality in the POS and thriving links. A proactive personality is an individual’s characteristic that produces strong intrinsic motivation that can be defined as a tendency to take initiatives to accomplish desired objectives (Presbitero, 2015). They have the capability to manage the conflict at work and show higher job satisfaction at work (Kuo et al., 2019). Proactive personality employees seem to be more inclined to ask their colleagues and managers for help and support (Li et al., 2011), which would help improve their knowledge and skills. It is argued that thriving is less dependent on other influential factors when high proactive individuals stably reside in employees and develop their psychosocial resources, conversely, for low proactive individuals, thriving is difficult, as they may feel hesitant to participate enthusiastically in mounting job resources and in challenging situations (Jiang, 2017). Low proactive personality people have less chance of improving their resources compared with highly proactive workers (Bakker et al., 2012). Li, et al., (2010) in their study, showed that proactive individuals thrive less at work. With this content, it has been proposed that proactivity among individuals weakens the relationship between POS and thriving at work. Thus, we propose:

H5 Perception of organizational support and thriving association is moderated proactive personality; this association is stronger when proactive personality is lower than higher

In the assessment of Hypothesis 2 and Hypothesis 3, we propose that proactive personality weaken the indirect effects of POS on job satisfaction through the thriving at work as presented in Figure 1 (moderated mediation model). Employees with higher proactive personality, weaken the intervening role of thriving at work in POS and job satisfaction association. Hence, we hypothesize the moderated mediation hypothesis:

H6 Proactive personality moderates the mediated relationship between perception of organizational support and job satisfaction. This mediated relationship is strengthened with lower proactive personality than higher

Figure 1: Theoretical Model

Material and Methods

The time-lagged data with two-waves (one-month) was collected from white-collar employees (i.e., finance, human resource, marketing, and customer service department) both services and manufacturing organizations in Pakistan. It was to ensure there was no common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003), following Abid, et al., (2019) research design approach. Thus, the participants were requested to complete the questionnaire about, thriving at work, proactive personality and POS at Time 1. Whereas, participants were requested to complete the questionnaire for job satisfaction at Time 2. In the first wave, 1200 questionnaires were distributed among the employees, and 1186 received back. In the next wave, after one-month 1186 questionnaires were distributed, of which 936 were received, 14 questionnaires were incomplete and were discarded. The responses of time 1 and time 2 were matched against their initials or nickname. The total useable responses were 936. More than 69% of respondents were male (651) and singles (501, 53.5%) from the service sector employees (821, 87.7%). The average age of the participants were 29 years. The average qualification of participants were 15 years.

Measures

The study used a validated instrument in English language. Perceived organizational support was measured using a 8-items scale developed by Eisenberger, et al., (1997). A sample item is ‘‘My organization strongly considers my goals and values’’. Respondents were asked to share how they perceived organization valued their contribution. Thriving at work was assessed by 10 items (Porath et al., 2012). A sample item is ''I find myself learning often''. Respondents were requested to express their experience in term of active and learning in an organization. Both these scales were measured using five-point Likert scale varying from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree. Proactive personality was measured using a 5-items scale developed by Janssen et al. (2017). The sample item is ''wherever I have been, I have been a powerful force for constructive change''. Responses were anchored on six-point Likert scale varying from 1=Strongly disagree to 6=Strongly agree. The overall job satisfaction was measured by a single-item of Scarpello and Campbell (1983) was used to measure job satisfaction. Item “Do you mostly enjoy your work in this organization”was anchored on seven-point Likert scale that vary from (1)=not at all to ( 7 )=very much.

Results

Table 1 presents correlations among study variables. Results indicated that POS has a positive and significant relationship with job satisfaction (r=0.34, p<0.01) and thriving at work (r=0.40, p<0.0). Furthermore, thriving at work positively significantly related to job satisfaction (r=0.36, p<0.01). Proactive personality is positively and significantly related to job satisfaction (r=0.20, p<0.05).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

In table 2 confirmatory analysis showed that fit indices of our measurement model all of these values surpass the satisfactory limit of χ2/(df))<3, NFI>0.90, TLI>0.90 IFI>0.90, CFI>0.90, AGFI>0.80 and RMSEA<0.08, SRMR<0.05, (Hu & Bentler, 1999).

Model 1: POS and Proactive personality is combined into one factor

Model 2: Thriving at work and proactive personality combined into one factor

Model 3: perceived organizational support and thriving is combined into one factor

Model 4: All constructs are combined in one factor

“χ2 (chi-square); DF (degrees of freedom); TLI (Tucker-Lewis Index); IFI (Incremental Fit Index) CFI (Comparative Fit Index); AGFI (Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index); RMSEA (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation); NFI (Normed Fit Index); SRMR (Standardized Root Mean Square Residual)”.

Moderated-Mediation Analysis

To test moderated-mediation, Process model 7 (5000 bootstrapping with 95 percent CI) was used (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). To determine proactive personality interacts with POS to influence the thriving of employees, that in turn influence job satisfaction the results are presented in Table 3. The outcomes show that POS has positive and significant association with job satisfaction (β=0.46, p<0.01) and thriving at work (β=0.62, p<0.01). Results also show that thriving has positive and significant association with job satisfaction (β=1.15, p=< 0.01). The result of moderation highlights that interaction effect (β=-0.19) is significant, however negative. It demonstrated that as thriving at work increases, proactive personality decreases in the individuals.

Furthermore, the moderated mediation index shows that procative personality negatively moderate the indirect effect of POS on job satisfaction through thriving. As 95% CI estimate of this relationship did not include zero (effect=-0.12, LLCI=-0.18 to ULCI=-0.07). Furthermore, the positive effect of POS on job satisfaction by thriving at work enhances when employees have a lower proactive personality. These findings are in accordance with the theoretical framework of the study. The conditional indirect impact of POS on job satisfaction via thriving at was investigated at three different level of proactive personality also this effect was distinct theses level, i.e., one (3.80, SD lower the mean, β=0.26, 95 percent CI=0.18 to 0.35), (4.40 on average, β=0.19, 95 percent CI=0.13 to 0.25), and one (5.00 SD higher the mean β=0.11, 95% CI=0.07 to 0.17). Figure 2 and 3 shows the indirect effects of POS on job satisfaction via thriving at higher (11 SD) and lower (I1 SD) stages of proactive personality.

Figure 2: Moderated Mediation Model Estimates

Figure 3: Moderated-Mediation Graph

Discussion

The aim of the this research was to investigate the impact of POS on job satisfaction through the mediating effect of thriving at work and moderating role of proactive personality between perceived organizational support and thriving. The results have supported a positive relationship between perceived organizational support and job satisfaction. If employees perceive their organizations to support them in their success and failures, this increases their satisfaction with their job. Supportive management show an indication to the employees that their efforts and initiatives are being valued by the organization, this increases the likelihood of job satisfaction and thus makes perceived organizational support a strong predictor of job satisfaction (Miao, 2011). The results also support the mediating role of thriving between perceived organizational support and job satisfaction. If employees perceive their organization supports them, it boosts their energy level and enthusiasm at the workplace, which in turn makes them feel pleasant at work. Thriving has become a new hotspot in the field of organizational behavior. Theoretically, this study is empirical evidence of a socially embedded model. The results also established that the POS has higher psoitive impact on job satisfaction through thriving when employees have lower proactive personality. Embedded in COR theory, this study makes an important theoretical contribution by taking into account various mechanisms affecting job satisfaction. Perceived organizational support, thriving, and proactive personality are all focused on job satisfaction which makes our model parsimonious and novel.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

Theoretically, this study has provided empirical validation of the contextual factors such as perceived organizational support that enhances thriving at work by investigating the novel paths such as the impact of perceived organizational support on thriving and the impact of thriving on job satisfaction. Secondly, this study was conducted in a developing country beyond the western context. The practical implication of the study proposed that organizations need to make employees feel supportive and HR should develop policy that can facilitate and support employees in the hour of need. Furthermore, supportive working environment when combined with the proactive personality of employees, it would have a multiplier effect on thriving at the workplace at in turn on job satisfaction.

Limitations

Although this research has many strengths, an important limitation of this study is a reliance on a self-report measure which makes it susceptible to single-source bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Future research should thus focus on other archival sources of measuring job satisfaction. Secondly, the data was majorly collected from the service sector. Future research should be conducted in other sectors to increase the generalizability of the findings. Thirdly, this study is based on the individual level analysis. Future research should focus on the team level or multi-level analysis and give a broader horizon to this underlying mechanism.

Conclusion

The satisfied workforce is the goal of any organization. Although this construct has been studied by numerous researchers, yet its importance has not been undermined and there is a need to investigate it more and more in dynamic and changing work environments. This study advocates that if employees perceive that their organization supports them in success and failures; in risk and initiatives it would boost their energy to increase their learning and in turn would benefit the organization by increased satisfaction level of employees. In a nutshell, thriving is deep-rooted in social interactions, even if the employee has a less proactive personality the mediating effect of thriving will play its role in increasing the satisfaction level of employees.

Author Contributions

“Conceptualization, G.A., S.K. and N.S.E.; methodology, G.A, S.K, M.F.A, and N.S.E.; software, G.A, N.S.E.; validation, G.A.; formal analysis, G.A, N.S.E. A.A, T.H.B.; investigation, G.A, N.S.E, S.K, A.A, T.H.B, resources, G.A., data curation, G.A.; writing—original draft preparation, G.A, S.K, N.S.E, A.A, T.H.B, M.F.A; writing—review and editing, G.A, N.S.E. A.A, T.H.B.; visualization, G.A, S.K, N.S.E. A.A, T.H.B.; supervision, G.A.; project administration, G.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.”

Funding

“This research received no external funding”.

Institutional Review Board Statement

All procedures performed in study ensured that human participants’ involvement in the research was in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution and/or national research committee and with the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.”

Conflicts of Interest

Declare conflicts of interest or state “The authors declare no conflict of interest”.

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