L'apport de la santé psychologique à la performance de tâche et innovante : vérification de mécanismes cognitif, motivationnel et social au sein de divers contextes d'emploi
Researchers in organizational psychology have long had an interest in the happy and productive worker thesis, which posits that happier workers also demonstrate higher level of job performance (Taris & Schaufeli, 2015). Although many important contributions have been made over the years in this field of research, some questions deserve further investigation, which this thesis aims to address. Specifically, among the multitude of heterogeneous mediating mechanisms that have been theoretically postulated, not much have been put to empirical test, nor contrasted with one and another to clarify which intervening variables are really at play in the "happy-productive" relationship. Moreover, research is needed to verify if this relationship holds depending on different work characteristics. This thesis focuses on the construct of psychological health at work and seeks to understand its influence on performance. It proposes a model which includes postulated mediating and moderating mechanisms.   The first article aims at formulating a theoretical model of the influence of psychological health at work on task and innovative performance. Relying on conservation of resources (Hobfoll, 1989) and broaden-and-build (Fredrickson, 2001) theories, the model details the postulated cognitive, motivational and social mediating mechanisms as well as moderating mechanisms pertaining to knowledge, autonomy and social characteristics of the job.   The second article empirically tests the theoretical model with a sample of workers in different occupational groups. Results show that the psychological health-task performance relationship can be understood as a dynamic of broaden cognitive flexibility and higher achievement motivation. On the other hand, the relationship between psychological health and innovative performance can be understood as a dynamic of horizontal social investment with team members, captured as team-member quality exchanges (TMX). No moderating effects of work characteristics were supported.   As such, this thesis contributes to existing knowledge by operationalizing the resources investment principle within the psychological health-performance relationship and specifying how each resource contributes to certain types of performance. As no moderation effects were confirmed, the results also suggest that the mediating mechanisms identified preserve the same relevance under different work contexts related to knowledge, autonomy and social work characteristics. Limits of this thesis and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Performance Innovation LMX TMX Psychological health at work Cognitive flexibility Achievement motivation Work characteristics