THE INFLUENCE OF NEW GENERATION EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL NETWORK ON MEANINGFULNESS OF WORK FROM CAREER AND SOCIAL IDENTITY PERSPECTIVES
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Abstract
The lack of a sense of meaning at work among the new generation of employees, the natives of the Internet born post-1995, has become a common problem for managers around the world. Based on social network theory and self-determination theory, this article explores the mechanism of influence of the new generation employees’ social network on the sense of meaning at work. The hypothesis verification results were obtained by issuing questionnaires to 414 new generation employees in major cities in China and analyzing the sample data using SPSS and AMOS software. The results indicate that the social network of new generation employees has a significant positive influence on the sense of meaning at work, professional identity plays a partly mediating role in the social network of new generation employees and the sense of meaning at work, and social identity moderates the positive relationship between the social network of new generation employees and the meaningfulness of work. The findings of this paper provide implications for the management practices of new generation employees in China, Thailand and other countries.
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