Flow as a mediator between psychological ownership and employees’ subjective happiness

The purpose of this paper is to explore flow as an underlying mechanism linking psychological ownership (PO) and subjective happiness and identify how flow affects employees’ subjective happiness.

Two separate samples were used. Sample 1 examined the responses of 120 female spa workers. Sample 2 examined the responses of 334 male logistics technicians. Data were collected through paper-based questionnaires across two time points.

PO was positively related to employees’ subjective happiness across both samples. Furthermore, PO has distinct impacts on employees’ subjective happiness through two distinct measures of flow: immersion and mastery. The authors found that immersion fully mediates the relationship between PO and employee subjective happiness in Sample 1, and mastery in Sample 2.

This is one of the first empirical studies to examine whether and how PO increases employees’ subjective happiness. The results contribute to the literature by providing a theoretical rationale for and an empirical analysis of a model wherein flow mediates the linkage between employees’ feelings of PO and their subjective happiness.