Browsing by discipline "Työ- ja organisaatiopsykologia"

Aim Corporate volunteering and more generally Corporate social responsibility are associated in numerous ways with different aspects of work, such as better job satisfaction, pride, attitude and commitment to work. It is also known that job meaningfulness positively affects work performance and dedication to work, and job meaningfulness is associated positively with work engagement and negatively with burnout. So far corporate volunteering has been studied only using correlational study designs. This study examines how corporate volunteering affects work engagement, burnout, job satisfaction and job meaningfulness. In addition, the aim is to examine whether job meaningfulness moderates the association between work engagement and job satisfaction or burnout and job satisfaction. Method This study was conducted as a part of a research project called CoPassion, which studies widely topics related to compassion in the context of work life. The corporate volunteering project used in this study was part of a bigger project called 'Taloustaito-hanke' coordinated by Helsinki Deaconess Institute. In this project bank employees taught personal finance skills to youth who were at risk of becoming marginalized. The experimental group, which participated in the project, consisted of 61 out of 113 bank employees, and of those 61 employees 18 participated also in the second measurement. Changes in well-being at work were analyzed by comparing the results before and after participating in the volunteering project. With the whole sample, the moderation effect of job meaningfulness to job satisfaction was examined by formulating regression models separately for work engagement and burnout. The loss of answers in experimental group was analyzed with logistic regression. Results and conclusion Corporate volunteering was not associated with well-being at work, which is in contradiction with previous – though few – research findings. Job meaningfulness moderated in the association between burnout and job satisfaction: when meaningfulness was at high level, job satisfaction also stayed high level even in the presence of mild burnout. In contrast, when meaningfulness was lower, job satisfaction was significantly lower when burnout occurred. However, this kind of interaction was not found between work engagement and job satisfaction: meaningfulness did not strengthen the association between engagement and satisfaction. In conclusion, job meaningfulness can be an important component of well-being at work and act as a preventer of the negative impacts of burnout.