Effects of social impact and task variety on innovative work behavior: the mediating role of work meaningfulness

Purpose Based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we investigate antecedents and consequences of work meaningfulness. Design/methodology/approach We used survey data from employees in various South Korean organizations and applied Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and a bootstrapping procedure to test our proposed model. Findings We found that employees’ perceptions of their jobs’ social impact and task variety are positively related to work meaningfulness, which leads to higher levels of innovative behavior. We found that work meaningfulness mediates the effects of employees’ perceived social impact and task variety on their innovative behaviors. Originality/value Our study contributes to the positive psychology literature by identifying work meaningfulness as a critical underlying mechanism in explaining the relationship between task variety, perceived social impact, and innovative behavior.