Resilience, meaningfulness, and presenteeism: a resource-based perspective on attendance decisions and performance

Purpose Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory and Miraglia and Johns’ (2016) dual-path model of presenteeism, this study examines how employee resilience, as a personal resource, and job meaningfulness, as a motivational job resource, are associated with self-reported presenteeism and perceived task performance and explores whether presenteeism represents a potential explanatory pathway linking these resources with performance. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a survey of 384 private sector employees in Malaysia. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling was employed to test the hypothesised relationships. Findings The findings reveal that perceived employee resilience is negatively associated with self-reported presenteeism, whereas job meaningfulness is positively associated with presenteeism. Presenteeism, in turn, shows a modest positive association with self-reported task performance. The indirect effect analysis provides preliminary evidence of a small indirect pathway between resilience and task performance through presenteeism. Research limitations/implications Reliance on self-reported data may introduce common method bias, and the cross-sectional design limits causal inference. Additionally, the presenteeism measure captures attendance frequency without distinguishing between functional and dysfunctional episodes. Originality/value This study contributes to the presenteeism literature by demonstrating that distinct personal and motivational resources may be associated with self-reported presenteeism through different processes. Specifically, resilience was negatively associated with self-reported presenteeism, whereas job meaningfulness showed a small positive association with self-reported presenteeism. The findings further highlight the importance of considering occupational context and measurement approaches when interpreting relationships between personal resources and attendance behaviour.