Work meaningfulness disclosure and persistent behavior: Level of action identification as a moderator

Previous studies have consistently confirmed the positive relationship between work meaningfulness and one's persistent behavior in the workplace. However, most existing studies have focused on examining the direct effect of work meaningfulness, paid less attention to the condition under which it works well. In this study, we adopted a 2 (work meaningfulness: disclosure vs. non-disclosure) × 2 (level of action identification: high vs. low) between-subject experimental design and investigated the moderating role of action identification level in the relationship between work meaningfulness disclosure and one's persistent behavior. The result indicated that both work characteristics (i.e., work meaningfulness) and personal factors influence work behaviors, since participants who identified their work behaviors at a lower/concrete level benefited more from work meaningfulness disclosure. Given that personal factors have long been neglected in previous work meaningfulness literature, our findings could help advance existing research on work meaningfulness.