An Integrated Approach to Linking Job Love with Contextual Factors and Performance: An Empirical Study from Pakistan

Abstract

Job love is an emerging phenomenon, which is the utmost approach to fulfilling employees' and organizations' mutual interests, especially performance. The current study aims to define and extend the existing proposed construct of "loving one's job" as job love. It provides a novel theoretical multi-level framework of job love, contextual factors, and performance principled on the attraction-selection-attrition framework and social exchange theory through an integrated approach. This study collected cross-sectional data through a questionnaire from 332 nurses across eight tertiary hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The findings are based on the structural equation modeling technique (SEM) at multi-levels. The results show significant relationships between job love, contextual factors, and performance at the individual and organization levels. There are some insignificant relationships between the variables at the cross-level. Job love plays a key role for both employees and organizations. It facilitates the individuals in the recruitment process to select the job they love, be a good fit, and stay committed to that particular job and organization. This phenomenon allows people to pursue their common interests. Job love assists firms in developing human resource capacity utilization plans that satisfy the needed requirements.

1. Introduction

The management literature and theories focus on motivation, cognition, and emotional constructs for employee and organizational success (Aflah et al., 2021). For this, studies added the moderating and mediating variables in research designs without investigating the deep phenomena; covering motivational, cognitive, and emotional sources as a single construct has become the top trend (2014). The psychology literature suggests that love is motivation - a drive to attain self-interest, an emotion - intense feelings, and an attitude - motives, desires, or dispositions (Lamy, 2016). “Triangular Theory of Love” (Sternberg, 1986) assumed that love is a combination of motivational (passion-the drive for attraction), emotional (intimacy-intense feeling of attachment), and cognitive (decision/commitment-the short-term decision to love or not and long-term commitment) components.

The management research studied “love” as workplace romanticism or intimacy. In workplace romanticism, the employees have a love as friendship for their coworkers (Wilson, 2015). Likewise, at the workplace, the employees may have a love for their job, which is important for performance. For the last four decades, job love has become the focal construct of management researchers (Nguyen, 2018). The literature highlighted that job love is important for both employees and organizational success (Osbaldiston et al., 2019).

Job love is an amalgamation of three dimensions, including; passion, intimacy, and decision/commitment toward the job. Job love is defined as the degree of job attraction, the feeling of connectedness, attachment and closeness, and conscious control of extending one’s job (Kelloway et al., 2010). Hence, this study assumes that job love may deal with the degree of cognitive, motivational, and emotional sources as a single construct. Previously, parallel studies (Kelloway et al., 2010; Nguyen, 2018) defined job love based on Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love in association with several determinants and consequences of job love. These studies inadequately provided empirical findings. This creates a loophole in the management research to operationalize and validate job love in relationship to its determinants and consequences. Therefore, the current study incorporates job love to fill the theoretical and empirical gap in the research. Hence, the principal objectives of this study are described below.

First, this study defines and extends job love principled on a triangular theory of love by criticizing neo-psyche of the dimensions (passion, intimacy, and decision/commitment) used in “loving one’s job” (section 2. literature review). Passion is considered as the motivational state same as defined in “loving one’s job.” Intimacy is the emotional state of attachment and connection with the job. Whereas the construct “loving one’s job” considered intimacy as the motivational state reflected through informal relationships toward coworkers to fulfill the need for belongingness. In a close relationship, intimacy is specific to the subject (Sternberg, 1986). In job love, the subject is “job”, so intimacy should be the close connection toward the job, not toward coworkers. This gives new direction to characterize job love on two major dimensions; i) love for the job (passion, intimacy, and decision/commitment) and ii) love at the job (workplace friendships). Decision/commitment is a single dimension (cognitive and emotional) of love. “Loving one’s job” only considered “commitment” as an emotional state while ignoring the “decision” component.

Second, the above studies proposed the determinants and consequences of job love and inadequately provided empirical support. Therefore, this study designs a multi-level research framework. It integrates job love with performance through contextual factors principled on Schneider’s (1987) attraction-selection-attrition framework and Emerson’s (1976) social exchange theory. This multilevel research design will address the problem of selecting a loveable job; leading to desirable outcomes, specifically in developing and underdeveloped countries. The organizations make a good fit with job incumbents’ characteristics for effective performance. Job incumbents do not have the choice to select the job that is attractive to them because the purpose of their job is to fulfill the basic needs of living. In personal relationships, the attraction of the beloved characteristics, matching those characteristics, assists the individuals to love and extend the relationship to fulfill mutual desires (Sternberg, 1986).

Similarly, the attraction toward the particular characteristics of the job and the organization helps individuals to select and exchange resources for fulfilling mutual interests. This suggested that the more attractive and matched job may encourage to love the job, leading to increased performance. The following section details the literature review, methodology, results, discussion, conclusion, the implication of the study, limitations, and future research.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Job Love

2.1.1. Love for the Job

The current study reviews “loving one’s job” (Kelloway et al., 2010) and identifies drawbacks, such as the misconception of intimacy, decision/commitment, and confusion in the neoclassical psyche of love components. “Love for the job” means a person recruited for the job should value his or her job. He/she must be emotionally, cognitively, and motivationally involved in the job.

Passion is the motivational force that creates intense feelings and attraction toward a job (Kelloway et al., 2010). It encourages an individual to work with full dedication and interest. Passion involves the motivational psyche, which is the strong desire to get something (Straatmann et al., 2017). So this study also emphasizes that passion is a motivational factor because it involves eagerness, enjoyment, and excitement in doing work.

Intimacy is connectedness, attachment, and belonging ness with the job. Kelloway et al. (2010) proposed intimacy as connectedness with coworkers, subordinates, and clients and considered intimacy as motivational in terms of the need for belongingness. The current study conceptualizes intimacy as an emotional factor that involves an exchange of emotions in a relationship. It is connectedness with the beloved, not with the beloved’s surroundings (Sternberg, 1986). Hence, the beloved is the job, not an individual’s job surrounding. Intimacy toward coworkers, subordinates, and clients differs from intimacy with the job. It is the need for belongingness and creating workplace friendly relationships, also known as “love at the job.” Therefore, the study includes both concepts by categorizing these into two dimensions; “love for the job” and workplace friendships.

Decision/Commitment is the short-term decision to love the job or not and the long-term commitment to the job. Both decision and commitment involve the conscious choice to stay or not (Sternberg, 1986). Commitment refers to organizational commitment with three dimensions; (i) normative commitment - compliance with the job, (ii) continuance commitment- lack of other alternatives, and (iii) affective commitment - emotional commitment (Cesário & Chambel, 2017). Kelloway et al. (2010) defined commitment as an emotional choice of an individual to stay in the organization. The study only emphasized the affective component as the ingredient of commitment. But other types of commitment, such as the normative commitment (compliance with the job) and continuance commitment (lack of other alternatives) must be considered. The study also neglected “decision” in theory. Decision/commitment is a cognitive state that is a conscious and emotional control over the choice to love and extend the relationship. The current study considered decision/commitment an important component of love. The study also emphasizes that commitment and decision are cognitive aspects that involve consciousness and the ability to choose alternatives.

2.1.2. Love at Job

Love at a job (workplace friendships) is an informal relationship among co-workers (Methot et al., 2016). The current study does not consider workplace friendships as workplace romanticism. Workplace friendship is mutual support, trust, and loyalty toward co-workers (Omuris, 2019). Workplace friendships have a positive relationship with performance because of trust, exchange of information, support, and loyalty (Amoako et al., 2021; Kim & Cho, 2020). Therefore, the above discussed literature assumed a significant relationship between performance and workplace friendships.

2.2. Contextual Factors

The contextual factors that promote job love in the organizations include perceived attractiveness, person-fit, and available alternatives. Perceived attractiveness is the degree to which individuals consider the job and organization as exciting, challenging, and provide a sense of achievement (Dinh Tho et al., 2014). If individuals find the job and organization attractive, they may experience love toward that job and organization. This attraction helps to select the job through good-fit, also known as person-fit. The study (Lam et al., 2017) defined person-fit as the compatibility between the individual and the characteristics of the job (person-job- fit) and between the organizational characteristics (person- organization-fit). Hence, this compatibility aids the individuals to select and retain the job and the organization from the pool of jobs and organizations alternatives. The available alternative is employees’ compatibility and willingness to select the particular job and the organization from the pool with the same or different characteristics (Huang et al., 2017). Thus, it suggests that the attraction, good fit, and selection of the particular job and organization may help to foster job love, leading to enhance performance.

2.3. Performance

This study measures the relationship between job love, its contextual factors, and performance (job performance and organizational performance). Job performance is the cumulative value of the employees’ behavioral actions within a specific time and organization (Motowidlo, 2003). Organizational performance is achieving milestones as per standard criteria (Miller, 2006). The aggregate of different levels of job performance reflects the high or low level of organizational performance (Sutharshini et al., 2019), so this suggests that job performance relates to organizational performance.

2.4. An Integrated Approach

The study integrates the attraction-selection-attrition framework (Schneider, 1987) and social exchange theory (Emerson, 1976) to link job love with contextual factors and performance. In a loving relationship, the individuals select their beloved ones through their attractive characteristics and fulfill the mutual interest. So, individuals should select a loveable job through its attractive characteristics. Hence, this study assumes that the individuals select the attractive job, make a good fit, and choose to retain that job available from the pool.

The management literature found job passion/work passion significantly associated with performance (Chummar et al., 2019). The study found a negative association between intimacy among co-workers (romanticism) and performance (Wilson, 2015). Organizational commitment (normative commitment, continuance commitment, and affective commitment) is positively associated with performance (Cesário & Chambel, 2017; Nguyen & Ngo, 2020). This suggested that job love may affect both job performance and organizational performance. The organizations are multi-level systems, including individual, group/team, departments/units, organizations, industries, and external environments (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Similarly, this study designs a multi-level framework (Figure 1) by linking job love with contextual factors and performance at the individual level, organizational level, and cross-level. Hence the hypotheses are (Figure 1).

H1: At the individual level, a) individual contextual factors and love for a job significantly influence job performance.

H2: Individual contextual factors have a significant positive impact on love for the job at the individual level.

H3: At the organizational level, a) organizational contextual factors and b) workplace friendships have a significant positive contribution to organizational performance.

H4: There is a significant positive association between organizational contextual factors and workplace friendships at the organizational level.

H5: At the cross-level a) Job performance, b) job love, c) organizational contextual factors, and d) individual contextual factors significantly positively contribute to organizational performance.

H6: a) Job love, b) organizational contextual factors, and c) individual contextual factors significantly contribute to increasing job performance at the cross-level of the study.

H7: At the cross-level, a) organizational contextual factors, and b) individual contextual significantly influence love for job and workplace friendships.

Figure 1: Theoretical Research Framework

3. Methodology

3.1. Population

The study targets Pakistan’s public health sector, particularly the nurses from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Health sector plays a crucial role in the economy, and it is responsible for the health of the community and provides human capital for social development and economic growth (Javed et al., 2019). The health sector includes tertiary hospitals, district headquarters (secondary health care centers), dispensaries, and basic health units (primary health care centers). The primary and secondary health care centers are only providing basic health facilities, while tertiary hospitals provide both basic and advanced health facilities. Therefore, this study targets these eight tertiary hospitals listed with the health department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The healthcare sector depends on diverse professions to run the system smoothly. Hence, nurses are the most important part of the healthcare sector. Nurses have face-to-face interaction with the patient during all duty time. They provide care, safety, treatment, emotional support, and recovery of the patients and assist the doctors. To perform these duties, they need to love their job. Hence, this study targets the nurses to investigate the effect of contextual factors on job love and job love on performance. In Pakistan, the nurses are registered with Pakistan Nursing Council constituted under Act (1952 & 1973) (Awalkhan & Ghani, 2018), so this study can be generalized to all tertiary hospitals across Pakistan.

3.2. Sample Size and Sampling Technique

The sample size is calculated with a known population at a 5% level of significance (Ryan, 2013). The minimum sample size required for this study, with a known population (2150 nurses) is 327. This study selects the nurses on geographical region and level of the hospitals through a multi-stage sampling technique. It applies the snow-balling technique to collect the data that is discussed in the data collection section.

3.3. Measurement Instruments

This study designs a self-administrated questionnaire on a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree) adapts from existing literature. The study adopts five items each to assess perceived job attractiveness (Schlechter et al., 2014), perceived organization attractiveness (Highhouse et al., 2003), four items each for person-job-fit and person- organization-fit (Saks & Ashforth, 1997), eight items (Pond & Geyer, 1987) and four (Treuren, 2013) for available job alternatives and six items to measure available organization alternatives (Treuren, 2013). This study adopts job love from the triangular theory of love (Sternberg, 1986). The management literature studied these dimensions separately, using the standard management studies scale. This study adopts the scale from a triangular theory of love that has the blank space to fill the beloved object. Therefore, this study fills the blank as the “job” for passion (twelve items), intimacy (nine items), and decision/commitment (eleven items). This study adopts one item (Nielsen et al., 2000) and six items (Mao, 2006) to evaluate workplace friendships. This study uses five items (Côté & Miners, 2006), four items (Yousef, 2000) to measure individual performance, and eleven items (Delaney & Huselid, 1996) for organizational performance.

3.4. Data Collection

This study collects the data in two phases. First, it collects the data from the public hospitals through a printed self-administrated questionnaire for the pilot study. The COVID-19 pandemic prohibited visiting the hospitals for academic research, and the tight schedules of nurses made it difficult to collect data for further research. Second, an online questionnaire (Google forms); obtains 345 responses with a response rate of 96.23% in the 6 months. This discards 16 incomplete responses and includes 332 responses in the main study. For data collection, Medical Directors (MD) of the respective hospitals are approached through a request letter. The medical directors precede the letter to the head of nurses, which further assigns it to supervisor nurses in the departments. The supervisor nurses shared the online survey URL link with the nurses of the respective departments. This facilitates the study to fulfill the required minimum sample size.

3.5. Data Analysis

The study designs a multilevel research framework. For this, the most commonly used analysis technique is hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). Multiple software is available for hierarchical linear modelings such as HLM7, MPlus, R-software, SMART PLS, AMOS, and SPSS. The best tool for hierarchical linear modeling is HLM7. This software handles the problem of multicollinearity in the data by using different files for levels’ data sets.

This study uses SPSS, HLM7, SMART PLS, and MS Excel to analyze to data. The study uses SPSS to obtain demographics, descriptive statistics, reliability (Cronbach’s alpha), and correlation results. For HLM7, fulfilling the basic assumptions is necessary (refer to section 4.2.4. Hypotheses Testing). The study does not fulfill the basic assumption and creates confusion that leads to analyzing the data through structural equation modeling (SEM) in SMART PLS. Table 2 shows that the data for the variables of the study is a mix of normal and non-normal distribution, so it uses SMART PLS. The SMART PLS gives better results for non-normally distributed data and a small sample size as compared to other tools. It also works on ordinary least squared (OLS) assumptions (Jannoo et al., 2014).

4. Results

4.1. Pilot Study 1

The study distributes 200 questionnaires to eight public health care centers from two cities; Abbottabad and Mansehra (four from each city) and obtains 156 responses from nurses and 8 questionnaires for organizational performance from the head of nurses. The value of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy (0.858) is acceptable, while Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity is also significant (chi-square = 9965.208, and degree of freedom = 3403). Table 1 shows that Cronbach’s alpha for the scale of all variables is acceptable (7 to 9). Cronbach’s alpha value greater than 0.7 is good, 0.58 to 0.68 is satisfactory, 0.45 to 0.57 is sufficient and acceptable, while below 0.4 is not acceptable (Taber, 2017). There is also a significant correlation between all variables. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) is feasible for testing the hypotheses since there is a significant variation across the group (u₀ = 0.22220), and within the group (r = 0.24280). This leads to further precede the main study.

Table 1: Correlation Matrix and Reliability for Pilot Study 2

Note: ^*p-value < 0.1; ^**p-value < 0.05; ^***p-value < 0.001. Significant at the 0.05 level. N = 156.

4.2. Main Study

The results of the pilot study show the reliability and feasibility of the main study. This study obtains 370 responses and discards 38 incomplete questionnaires. The final sample size for the analysis is 332, with an 89.72% response rate. The following section presents the results of the main study, including demographic variables, descriptive statistics, correlation, reliability of the scale, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), and hypotheses testing.

4.2.1. Demographic Variables

The results show that 83% of respondents are female and 17% are male, 49% with an average age of less than 20 to 25 years, 26–25 years (38%), 36–45 years (8%), and above 45 years (5%), on average 45% respondents are graduates, associate’s degree (29%), and higher school education (25%).

4.2.2. Descriptive Statistics

Table 2 shows that the mean value of all variables is greater than 4, suggesting that the direction of the responses is toward the positive side of the scale. The values of the variance and standard deviation are also smaller and closer to the mean values. The normality distribution shows that the data is normally distributed [range = –/+3 (Griffin & Steinbrecher, 2013)] except for decision/commitment. Kurtosis shows the peakedness of the distribution with the acceptable range of –/+10 (Griffin & Steinbrecher, 2013). The results suggest that the values for available job alternatives, passion, intimacy, decision/commitment, job performance, available organization alternatives, and workplace friendships are out of the range and have very high peakedness. Overall, the data is a mix of both normal and non-normal data.

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics, Correlation Matrix, and Cronbach’s Alpha for Main Study

Note: ^*p-value < 0.1; ^**p-value < 0.05; ^***p-value < 0.001. Significant at the 0.05 level. N = 332, Standard Error of Skewness for all variables is 0.134, and Standard Error of Kurtosis for all variables is 0.267.

4.2.3. Correlation

Table 2 demonstrates the correlation and Cronbach’s alpha. It suggests that there is a significant correlation among all variables except the correlation between organizational performance and person-job-fit. The correlation is positively weak to moderate, which also shows that there is no multicollinearity among the variables (correlation is less than 0.85). Table 2 also shows Cronbach’s alpha values, which are acceptable according to Taber (2017).

4.2.4. Hypotheses Testing

The most common analysis technique for testing a multi-level research framework is hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). To test the feasibility of the multi-level models, there are two basic assumptions; i) a significant variation in the dependent variables across the group for the null model, and ii) the intra-class correlation (ICC) should be greater than 0.05 (Heck et al., 2013). ICC is the ratio of the variance within and across the group to the total variance.

\(\)   \(\mathrm{ICC}=\frac{\tau 00}{\tau 00+\sigma^{2}}\)       (1)

Where σ² is variation within the group (residual), and is variation across the group (intercept). The smaller value of ICC suggests the sufficiency for the individual-level analysis. Table 3 suggests that there is significant variation within the group and insignificant variation across the group for the null models of the dependent variables, this rejects the first assumption. Whereas, this table shows that the ICC values are higher than 0.05 and accepts the second assumption. This ambiguity of the assumptions leads to implement the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach.

Table 3: Hierarchical Linear Modeling Null Model and Intra-Class Correlation (ICC)

^* Significant at 0.000.

The current study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) in SMART PLS to test the hypotheses by its regression. Individual-level: Figure 2 shows the significant positive relationships among all variables at the individual level, leading to acceptance of H1 and H2. Organizational level: Figure 2 also illustrates the significant positive association between all variables at the organizational level, hence, accepting H3 and accepting H4.

Figure 2: Individual Level and Organizational Level Analysis

Note: ^*p-value < 0.1; ^**p-value < 0.05; ^***p-value < 0.001. Significant at the 0.05 level. N = 332.

Cross-level: Figure 3 shows the significant positive associations between job performance and organizational performance (H5a). Perceived organization attractiveness and, available organization alternatives (H5c), and available job alternatives (H5d) are significantly positively associated with organizational performance. Job love dimensions (H6a), perceived organization attractiveness and available organization alternatives (H6b), perceived job attractiveness, and available job alternatives (H6c) significantly positively affect job performance. Person-fit has an insignificant relationship with job performance and organizational performance.

Figure 3: Cross-level Analysis

Note: ^*p-value < 0.1; ^**p-value < 0.05; ^***p-value < 0.001. Significant at the 0.05 level. N = 332.

Figure 3 also suggests that perceived organization attractiveness and available organization alternatives (H₇a), and available job alternatives (H₇b) have a significant association with job love dimensions. At the same time, the association of person-organization-fit with workplace friendships, perceived job attractiveness with intimacy, and decision/commitment is also significant. The relationship of person-organization-fit with passion, intimacy and decision/ commitment, perceived job attractiveness with workplace friendships and passion, and person-job-fit with job love is insignificant, and the hypotheses for these variables are undetermined.

5. Discussion

The current study measures the role of job love (passion, intimacy, decision/commitment, and, workplace friendships), its contextual factors (perceived attractiveness, person-fit, and available alternatives), and performance at multi-level analysis (individual level, organizational level, and cross-level). The existing literature operationalizes the dimensions of job love through using the management measuring instruments, while the current study adopts the measuring scale from the psychological literature.

The findings of this study suggest that the individuals are attracted to the characteristics of the particular job and organization, such as knowledge sharing, social support, and empowerment; they make a good fit with the characteristics. The selection of attractive and good-fit jobs and the organization from the available pool affects passion, intimacy, and decision/commitment, leading to higher performance. Following the social exchange theory and self-determination theory, attraction and selection through the matched characteristic of the job and organization involve intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which facilitate to fulfill mutual interest. Intrinsic motivation is also associated with passion; employees are eager to achieve extra milestones (Menges et al., 2017). With intimacy, they identify themselves with their job. While decision/ commitment to the job has a high level of motivation and emotional attachment (Cesário & Chambel, 2017). Consistent with these arguments from literature (Hamstra et al., 2019; Huang et al., 2017) and theories, the current study finds a positive association between job love, its contextual factors, and job performance at the individual level.

Intrinsically motivated dyadic relationships are based on trust and support in workplace friendships (Wilson, 2015), which leads to higher performance. Aligning with this argument and theoretical background, the current study uncovers the positive association between contextual factors and organizational performance through workplace friendships at the organizational level.

The findings argued that the said characteristics of the job and organizations encourage the individuals to make informal relationships, work passionately, and be engaged and committed to the job and the organization, further leading to enhanced job performance. So, consistent with Rana and Sharma’s (2019) discussion, the current study finds a positive association between contextual factors, job love, and performance at the cross-level. Furthermore, the results of the study cannot uncover the association between job love, contextual factors, and organizational performance, as the relationships between these variables at the cross-level are insignificant. The reason for the insignificant relationship among variables may be the small sample size and non-normality of data; this leads to an ambivalent decision of accepting the cross-level hypotheses. Therefore, it suggests further exploring job love at the cross-level. Further details are mentioned in limitations and future research.

6. Conclusion and Limitations

Whether job love is an un-mythical or mythical phenomenon, this study proves that the individuals’ preferences for the job and the organization have a significant role in job love. The attractive characteristics of the job and the organization encourage individuals to select that job and the organization, which is a good fit with the desired characteristics. This facilitates the individuals to foster job love through loving their job, making friendly relationships with coworkers, and increasing their performance. The significant role of job love in organizations gives future research direction for researchers to further explore this construct extensively.

The study contributes to theoretical knowledge, empirical research, and organizational management. It defines and extends the existing proposed construct of “loving one’s job” and designs a novel multi-level theoretical framework of job love, contributing to theoretical knowledge and empirical research. Job love is adding the concepts to social exchange theory by mutual exchange of love among co-workers, job, and the organization for the benefit of each other. In the organizations, this study is significant at both the employee level and organizational level. At the employee level, employees select the job through attractive and matched characteristics of that job during the recruitment process, which helps them to love their job and create a friendly environment. At the managerial level, it helps to make organizational policies for maximum utilization of human resources by encouraging them to love their job.

Despite systematic research and inadequate existing empirical literature, this study has some limitations. First, the sample size of the organizational level data is not enough for the feasibility of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). For satisfactory results, group data should be greater than 15, although 5 to 10 is satisfactory (Huta, 2014). This study is limited to 8 hospitals that are the only listed hospitals with health departments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The second limitation of the study is the non-normal distribution of the data that leads to the shifting of significant regression coefficients to insignificant when all the variables are added to the path model for cross-level. The reasons for changing the significant regression coefficients to insignificant are multicollinearity, small sample size, non-normality of data, the unreliability of the scale, poor model fit, and no correlation (Aarts et al., 2012). To overcome this, the repeat and trial data collection technique should be applied, but the study cannot incorporate this technique due to time limitations.

The third limitation of the study is the single analysis of top-down and down-up processes in the hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) approach and HLM7 software. It only covers the top-down process, so this study is limited to structural equation modeling (SEM). The last limitation is a measurement scale for passion, intimacy, and decision/ commitment. This study uses the measurement scale for these variables from the triangular theory of love (Sternberg, 1997). While the management studies have separate scales for these variables, such as passion (Astakhova & Ho, 2018), intimacy/workplace friendships (Wilson, 2015), decision (Stashevsky & Elizur, 2000), and organizational commitment (Cesário & Chambel, 2017). The study is limited to only Sternberg (1997) because of the time framework and to avoid lengthy questionnaires.

The limitations of the study indicate the direction for future research. First, for more accurate results, the research framework can be empirically tested on the different industries with a larger number of groups within the specific industry, such as the educational sector, banking industry, or art and fashion industry. Second, the measurement scale for passion, intimacy, and decision/commitment from management studies can be used on a repeat and trial basis. Third, future research studies can compare the constructs of job love and no-job love, job love, and hated job, likewise as satisfaction and no-satisfaction and satisfaction and dissatisfaction from Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory.

Fourth, the study was conducted from an employee perspective; the same study can be conducted from an employer perspective. Future research can contrast the employee and employer perspectives of job love. Fifth, job love is an emerging concept that needs to study with more concepts. The studies on personal relationships (Oravecz et al., 2020) and brand love (Rauschnabel et al., 2015) found a significant relationship between personality traits with the love dimensions, and personality traits have a positive impact on performance (Tunio et al., 2021), so future research may incorporate the personality traits in job love framework. Last, future research needs to explore other potential factors of job love through a qualitative approach and implement a triangulation approach to validate the findings of this study.