Flow, job performance and psychological wellbeing: the role of psychological ownership and trust in the ICT work place

Purpose -This paper, drawing on self-enhancement theory and from employee perspective, aims to develop and validate an integrative theoretical model that centers on the trust-psychological ownership (PO) link to investigate information and communications technology (ICT) employee work outcomes. Design/methodology/approach - A cross-sectional survey with PLS-SEM analysis of 424 employees in ICT industry in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, reports that all of 10 hypotheses are empirically supported. Findings - PO is found to be an important driver of employee flow, job performance and psychological wellbeing. Moreover, it is posited that trust acts a moderator of the relationship between fl ow experience and job performance, and between job performance and psychological wellbeing. Originality/value - To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is among the fi rst to affirm that trust in work environment serves as both an enabler for PO and a moderator for the relationship between fl ow experience-job performance as well as between job performance-psychological wellbeing path. The study also affirms that fl ow state plays a mediating role in the PO-job performance path, and that job performance acts as a mediator in the fl ow experience-psychological wellbeing sequence. Finally, new evidence expectedly highlights the positive impact of job performance, a short-term work outcome, on psychological wellbeing, a long-term work outcome.