Author(s)

Hao Peng^1*, Li Chen Lim², Poh Kiong Tee³

Affiliation(s)

¹Graduate School of Business, Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

²School of Business Management, Operation and Research, Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

³Graduate School of Business, Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Corresponding Author

Hao Peng

ABSTRACT

Employees' work engagement is essential for an organisation's success. Past studies showed a declining trend in work engagement among administrative staff compared to academic staff in public universities in China. Yet, limited studies have been found on the work engagement of administrative staff affiliated with public universities. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impacts of self-efficacy and proactive personality on university administrative staff's work engagement, notably job satisfaction, which was included as a mediator. Responses from 420 administrative staff from 30 public universities were collected using an online survey. Descriptive analysis was conducted using SPSS. PLS-SEM was used to test the hypotheses and the model's predictive power. The findings show that proactive personality and self-efficacy are positively correlated with job satisfaction and work engagement. Also, job satisfaction was found to significantly mediate the relationship between proactive personality and self-efficacy in terms of work engagement. As a whole, self-efficacy has a greater effect on job satisfaction and work engagement. This study expands the existing knowledge by testifying to the mediating role of job satisfaction and providing insight concerning administrative staff member work engagement. Lastly, implications of the study findings are discussed, along with limitations and future research directions.

KEYWORDS

Proactive personality; Self-efficacy; Job satisfaction; Work engagement; Administrative staff

CITE THIS PAPER

Hao Peng, Li Chen Lim, Poh Kiong Te. Interplay of proactive personality, self-efficacy, and work engagement: a mediating role of job satisfaction. Trends in Social Sciences and Humanities Research. 2024, 2(8): 35-44. DOI: 10.61784/tsshr3079.

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