Work engagement is a positive affective-motivational state of fulfilment that predicts numerous positive occupational outcomes. Previous research has demonstrated that spiritual resources function as a category of personal resources that have unique antecedent effects on work engagement among clergy and other religious workers. However, an aggregate spiritual resources construct may mask interrelationships between spiritual resources and specific independent effects. This study tested a series of hypothesized interrelationships between the spiritual resources of attachment to God, calling, and religious coping styles, and work engagement among a population of Australian vocational religious workers. Results of item-level structural equation modeling using cross-sectional data (N = 309) demonstrate that attachment to God dimensions are related to both the presence of a calling and different styles of religious coping employed in the religious work context, but the influence of attachment to God on work engagement is fully mediated by its relationship to calling and collaborative religious coping. An independent data set using a split half technique (N = 308) confirmed these findings, which were also found to be robust when controlling for the effects of personality dimensions and common method bias. The study's significance lies in disentangling specific relationships between the spiritual resources of a secure attachment to God, calling, and collaborative religious coping, and their distinct effects on the well-being of religious workers. Notably, attachment to God emerged as a key resource that appears to influence the development and management of both calling and types of religious coping, which were directly associated with work engagement.
NSTL
Educational Publishing Foundation-American Psychological Assoc
