서번트 리더십이 번영감에 미치는 영향: 직무자율성의 매개효과와 대인관계의 조절효과

Thriving at work, defined as a positive psychological state marked by a combined sense of vitality and learning, has garnered increasing attention over the past decade and is believed to positively impact employees’ attitudes and performance in the workplace. Our study aims to explore the antecedents that can promote employees’ thriving at work from the aspects of relational resources (i.e., servant leadership) and contextual features (i.e., job autonomy). In addition, we explore the moderating effect of interpersonal fit of co-workers and the moderated mediating for the link of servant leadership, job autonomy, and thriving at work. The data collected from 341 employees in the IT industry in Korea provided empirical evidence for our hypotheses. The results indicated that servant leadership was positively associated with both employees’ perceived job autonomy and thriving at work. As we hypothesized, job autonomy mediated the relationship between servant leadership and thriving at work. Moreover, the results also showed that the link between job autonomy and thriving at work was moderated by interpersonal fit and that the mediated relationship between servant leadership and thriving at work varies depending on the extent of interpersonal fit. These findings suggest that leadership, employees’ perceptions of contextual features, and their relationship with co-workers are all important in promoting employees’ thriving at work. In particular, servant leadership not only directly increases thriving at work as a relational resource, but also promotes thriving at work by increasing employees’ perceptions of job autonomy, suggesting the significance of leadership as an antecedent for thriving at work. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of these findings were discussed, along with the study’s limitations and directions for future research.