Low Performance? From Languishing To Flow Experience:the Role Of Occupational Calling And Team Learning Goal Orientation

Languishing is a feeling of emptiness,stagnation,boredom.In the work context,languishing will not only disturb the concentration of employees,but also decrease the will of employees,weaken the internal drive of employees,and reduce the efficiency of employees.On the contrary,flow contains momentum,employees who experience workrelated flow will focus on and enjoy work,and involve in work-related activities spontaneously only for the nature of the work itself.Therefore,stimulating employees’ flow may be an effective method to overcome languishing and eliminate the negative effects of languishing.In order to solve the various negative effects caused by languishing,enterprise managers should actively guide employees to get into the state of flow,so as to get rid of languishing,enhance employees’ work efficiency,and then improve the work performance of employees.Work-related flow is an essential internal driving force for improving employees’ performance.In the meanwhile,individuals with a high degree of occupational calling tend to go to work only because the activity itself is interesting,attractive,and valuable,which means that occupational calling can be linked to work-related flow.So,in theory,work-related flow can mediate the relationship between occupational calling and work performance.It is in this context that this study introduces team learning goal orientation and team flow to build a complex model with moderated mediation and team flow’s crosslevel mediation,aiming to explore the mechanism of stimulating the positive relationship between flow and work performance based on the Self-Determination Theory.This study adopts empirical research method and conducted a questionnaire survey on 81 work teams and 505 employees from 33 companies through a combination of onsite questionnaire distribution and online questionnaire distribution.In the end,a total of390 valid questionnaires from 78 teams were collected.Structural equation modeling,correlation analysis,regression analysis,HLM analysis,bootstrap analysis,moderated mediation model analysis and other approaches are utilized to analysis the collected data.The data results showed that: employees’ occupational calling can positively predict their work-related flow,which in turn positively affects their work performance,so the employee’s work-related flow partly mediates the relationship between occupational calling and work performance;team learning goal orientation moderates the relationship between occupational calling and work-related flow and further regulates the mediating role of work-related flow between occupational calling and work performance,that is,when the team has a high level of learning goal orientation,occupational calling has a strong indirect effect on work performance through work-related flow;when the team’s learning goal orientation level is low,the indirect effect of occupational calling on work performance through work-related flow weakens.At the same time,team learning goal orientation can predict the employee’s work-related flow positively through team flow,and ultimately effectively improve employees’ work performance.That is,team learning goal orientation can positively and sequentially affect work performance through team flow and work-related flow.In conclusion,by constructing a model that includes moderating mediating effects,cross-level moderation,and cross-level mediating effects,this study reveals the internal mechanism that stimulates the positive relationship between work-related flow and work performance more deeply and comprehensively.In addition,this study indicates that to solve the problem of employees’ languishing in the work context,organizational managers should hire people whose values and personal meanings match those of the organization,because they are more likely to experience work-related flow experience.At the same time,managers can encourage team members to participate in action learning,and solve practical problems through mutual support among members,share knowledge and experience,so as to establish a strong learning goal orientation in a team.