Do Grit and Person–Environment Fit Influence Work Alienation? A Moderated–Mediated Model

The complex nature of the healthcare work environment, resource strains, and cultural diversity threaten human sustainability and exacerbate healthcare workers’ psychological disconnection from work. From the perspective of sustainable HRM and organizational sustainability, and in response to calls raised by the United Nations 2030 Agenda, our study examines how institutions can support human sustainability and healthy performance through sustainable HRM practices. Therefore, building upon the conservation of resources theory and person–environment fit theory, our study investigates the impact of grit and person–environment fit on work alienation, examining the mediating role of thriving at work, postulating that cultural intelligence moderates the effect of grit and person–environment fit on thriving at work. Data were collected from 335 healthcare workers working in private hospitals in Lebanon and analyzed via structural equation modeling with bootstrapping. The results indicated that grit, person–environment fit, and thriving at work have a significant negative effect on work alienation; meanwhile, grit and person–environment fit have a significant positive effect on thriving at work. Moreover, the results highlighted the mediating role of thriving at work between grit, person–environment fit, and work alienation. Additionally, the findings revealed that cultural intelligence moderates the effect of grit on thriving. However, the interaction between person–environment fit and cultural intelligence was significant in the opposite direction to the hypothesized effect. Theoretically, our research is one of the pioneering studies showing that thriving at work functions as a resource-gain mechanism linking personal resources, such as grit, and contextual resources, such as person–environment fit, to lower alienation. Practically, the findings suggest that management should strengthen person–environment fit, promote thriving, and develop cultural intelligence to enhance healthy performance and human-centered organizational sustainability.