Although hybrid workplace arrangements are increasingly touted as beneficial for
employee engagement, less is known about when and why such structural flexibility may
produce unintended consequences under conditions of resource threat. Drawing on the
Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study develops and tests a moderated mediation
model to examine how hybrid workplace (HW) structures influence job engagement (JE),
contingent on the effects of workplace anxiety (WA) and mediated by organizational, political
engagement (OPE). We propose that while HW represents a valuable contextual resource, its
effects on engagement are not uniformly experienced; instead, psychological anxiety may
activate compensatory behavioral strategies that alter these outcomes.
To test this framework, we conducted a time-lagged survey of N= 152 white-collar
employees across Bangladesh's manufacturing and telecommunications sectors who work in a
Hybrid workplace setup. Consistent with predictions, results indicate that HW positively predicts
OPE, with the effect significantly more substantial under high WA. Furthermore, OPE mediates
the interaction between HW and WA in predicting JE, such that the indirect effect of HW on JE
via OPE is amplified when WA is high. These findings suggest that anxious employees in hybrid
settings may engage politically as a resource-preserving response, paradoxically undermining
engagement.
Theoretically, this study extends COR theory by illustrating how structural resources and
resource threats interact to shape political engagement and impact overall employees' job
engagement.
