A longitudinal analysis of the impact of employees’ self-sacrifice attitudes on their work engagement under collectivism values

This study examines the mediating role of the collectivism dimension of culture in the relationship between self-sacrifice attitudes and employees’ work engagement. Data were collected from 395 employees across eleven companies in the Toroslar district of Mersin, Türkiye, over three months at two time points. Regression analyses were conducted to determine the concurrent, lagged, and reversed effects between the research variables. The findings indicate that employees’ perception of collectivism significantly mediates the relationship between their willingness to make sacrifices and its impact on work engagement, both concurrently and in a lagged time. The study also found that employees’ work engagement at T1 later affects their self-sacrificial attitudes at T2. Furthermore, the findings showed that work engagement attitudes (T1) fostered their work engagement attitudes (T2) over time. Additionally, theoretical contributions, perspectives, and practical implications based on these findings were discussed.