175 Summary and General Discussion According to the Effort-Recovery Model (Meijman & Mulder, 1998), effort expenditure at work leads to fatigue, but when an individual is no longer exposed to the work or similar demands, this process may be reversed and recovery occurs. At the same time, people may engage in recovery-like activities – e.g., hobbies after work or coffee breaks at work – as part of a routine or habit, in response to physiological triggers, because they have little to do, because they are not feeling well, because they dislike their task, or to reward themselves (Bosch & Sonnentag, 2019). Moreover, studies that examine the effects of recovery on performance outcomes are scarce, and their results inconsistent (Sonnentag et al., 2017). In contrast, proactive vitality management involves intentional and goal-directed behavior. Moreover, following the conceptualization of proactive vitality management, the studies in the current manuscript show a robust pattern linking proactive vitality management to various indicators of performance at work. Research Question 2: What are the consequential processes of proactive vitality management? The findings from the studies presented in this dissertation generally indicate that individuals who proactively manage their vitality for work – e.g., by intentionally going for an energizing walk or by taking the initiative to talk to inspiring colleagues – feel better in terms of physical and mental energy – they are more enthusiastic and more cognitively flexible. In addition, they tend to have more creative ideas and they perform better. For example, findings detailed in Chapter 2 showed that proactive vitality management was related to better job performance and more creative work performance, both on the person- and day-level. Moreover, on days individuals had proactively managed their vitality, they performed better on the Remote Associates Test, which measures one’s cognitive capacity to think associatively and to create new combinations that are useful. These findings were corroborated in a weekly diary study detailed in Chapter 3, which showed that employees performed more creatively at work during weeks in which they had proactively managed their vitality. These results provide initial support for the value of proactive vitality management. In the studies described throughout Chapter 4-6, I aimed to take a closer look by focusing on the underlying mechanisms that bridge proactive vitality management to favorable outcomes. 7
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