Antecedent Factors of Employee Flourishing at Work: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond Leveraging Structural Equation Modeling in the Thai General Insurance Industry
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Abstract
Flourishing at work is the ability of employees to function optimally within organizational contexts. This study aimed to construct and validate a causal model of flourishing at work for general insurance company workers in Thailand. A multistage sampling technique, combining purposive and stratified random sampling, was employed to select 420 respondents. The proposed model had four antecedents: playful work design, grit, leisure satisfaction, and collective efficacy. Structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated a strong model fit (χ² = 76.20, df = 59, p = .065; χ²/df = 1.29; CFI = .99; RMSEA = .03), along with the strongest total path coefficient observed for collective efficacy (β = .68, p < .05), thereby confirming the hypothesized structural validity. The findings emphasized the importance of both social processes and personal dispositions to create workplace well-being. The results contributed theoretically by expanding flourishing frameworks beyond PERMA to include collective efficacy, a social-cognitive construct, and practically by suggesting that organizations can enhance team performance and employee well-being through interventions that build shared purpose and mutual trust. Given that playful work design remains underexplored in Asian work cultures, further studies should examine its cultural relevance and cross-sector applicability, particularly across public and private sectors. Additionally, future research should control for demographic variables such as gender, age, and job position to enhance generalizability. This study underscores the intersection of psychological and group-level variables as a driving force behind creating a flourishing workforce and offers a validated model applicable to organizational well-being strategies across similar professional settings.
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