How Challenge and Hindrance Appraisal Jointly Affect Employee Performance?

Challenge and hindrance appraisals are two interrelated dimensions of demanding situations. However, it is much unknown whether and how the two dimensions jointly predict employee performance. Integrating need satisfaction theory and goal orientation theory, the current study seeks to explore the optimal and suboptimal motivational processes by which the interaction between challenge and hindrance appraisal affects employee task performance and the moderation of individual goal orientations. In a diary study among 96 employees over 10 executive workdays (N Occasion = 960, N Employee = 96), we tested the three-way mediation and moderated mediation hypotheses. The results show that challenge appraisal, hindrance appraisal, and performance-approach goal orientation jointly predict employee perceived job meaningfulness and the resulting task performance, while challenge appraisal, hindrance appraisal, and learning goal orientation jointly predict employee challenge crafting and the resulting task performance. The research findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of demanding situations and how these situations affect employee performance.