The relationship between job autonomy and well­being

: the roles of boundary control and personality

Abstract

Due to ever­changing technologies, today’s work design emphasizes the importance of having the freedom to choose where and when to perform work tasks. This freedom also puts the responsibility on the employee to manage the separation of their personal and professional lives.Therefore, it is important to give employees a high degree of autonomy so that they perceive a high degree of control over boundaries between work and personal life which in turn might contribute to their well­being. This thesis seeks to expand knowledge on the relationship between job autonomy and work engagement by proposing boundary control as a mediator. Furthermore, it sheds light on personality traits as potential moderators of this relationship.One study examined whether the relationship between job autonomy and work engagement is mediated by boundary control and moderated by the big five personality traits (N = 191). As expected, job autonomy predicted work engagement, and this relationship was mediated by perceived boundary control. This means that when people have more autonomy to schedule the tasks of their job, they feel more engaged at work because they have a greater ability to control the boundaries between their work and life spheres. Unfortunately, a moderation analysis could not be conducted since the instrument used for measuring the different traits had very low reliability.

Date of Award	3 May 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Tatiana Marques (Supervisor)