Work meaningfulness and performance among healthcare professionals: The role of professional respect and participative management

Abstract

While the existing literature has accumulated much evidence for the impact of formal organizational interventions on employees’ experience of meaningfulness and outcomes, less is known about informal influences from coworkers. Drawing on self-determination theory, we propose a multilevel model that explains how professional respect by coworkers and unit participative management, individually and jointly, influence work meaningfulness, which in turn is associated with task performance and service quality. We tested our model using data from 217 nurse–general practitioner dyads from 27 primary healthcare units in Lithuania. The results showed that professional respect is positively related to work meaningfulness but unit participative management is not. Furthermore, work meaningfulness mediates the relationship between professional respect and performance outcomes. Finally, supporting a synergistic perspective, the impacts of professional respect on work meaningfulness and performance outcomes are stronger when unit participative management is high rather than low.