Economic individualism—involving a belief that the individual should be in control of his/her own economic decisions and an increased emphasis on competition and achievement—is becoming more prominent in several areas of the world, but little is known about the implications of this characteristic for employee attitudes and behavior. Our study investigated the impact of economic individualism on job engagement. More specifically, the research developed and examined a model involving work motivation as a mediator and growth need strength as a moderator. Employees (N = 235, 58.3% male, 33.6% 20–29 years old, 53.2% with a bachelor’s degree) from several companies in South Korea completed survey measures of economic individualism, job engagement, work motivation, and growth need strength. Findings supported work motivation as a mediator and indicated that the indirect effect through work motivation was significant at high levels of growth need strength although not at low levels. These findings provide new insights regarding the individual-level engagement implications of economic individualism and when and why these implications hold, as prior research on economic individualism has focused on the organizational and societal levels.

We extend the literature on personality dynamics and state work engagement by examining whether facets of state extraversion and neuroticism incrementally predict state work engagement beyond state domain personality (and other conceptually related covariates). This research contributes to the literature on state engagement and state personality by highlighting the dynamic and unique predictive potential of particular state facets for day-to-day engagement and its respective dimensions. Using a daily diary design, we collected data from 95 full-time employees over the course of 10 workdays (804 daily observations). Results indicated that state extraversion and neuroticism facets were related to overall state work engagement and that the facets predicted both broad and narrow (i.e., dimensions of) state work engagement beyond state domain personality. Specifically, state assertiveness predicted state work engagement beyond lagged engagement, state extraversion, and state positive affect. Similarly, state anxiety predicted state work engagement beyond lagged engagement, state neuroticism, and state negative affect. These findings further support the idea that state personality has predictive value for important dynamic workplace outcomes and extends this conclusion to state personality facets.