Excellence or perfection: Examining work performance mediated through employee engagement in India

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The model of excellencism and perfectionism (MEP) theorizes that the attitude toward goals as characterized in excellencism is desirable over perfectionism. Using the self-determination theory (SDT), this study aims to investigate the varying effects of perfectionism and excellencism on work engagement and performance. The study used a time-lagged multi-phase, multi-source, and cross-sectional online survey to collect responses from 360 corporate employees of Indian companies in the services industry. The results indicate that while both perfectionism and excellencism entail pursuing high standards, they relate differently with performance and work engagement. Interestingly, excellencism and work engagement were significantly associated with performance (p < .001); however, perfectionism was insignificant (p = .989). Perfectionism strengthens work engagement (β = 0.112; p = .013), while excellencism has an insignificant effect (β = 0.035; p = .537). Work engagement fully mediates the perfectionism-performance relationship. This demonstrates that striving for excellence alone is sufficient to achieve positive performance, challenging the traditional belief that one must focus on perfection. Furthermore, perfectionism is positively associated with performance only when employees are engaged and have positive motivation toward work.

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    • Figure 1. Proposed research model
    • Table 1. Measurement scale
    • Table 2. Construct reliability and validity
    • Table 3. Heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) ratio matrix
    • Table 4. Fornell-Larcker criterion
    • Table 5. Descriptives and correlation among variables
    • Table 6. Work performance as the outcome variable
    • Table 7. Work engagement as the outcome variable
    • Table 8. Mediation effect
    • Phase 1: Questions on demographics and independent variables
    • Phase 2: Questions to capture mediator and dependent variables
    • Phase 3: Questions asked from the supervisor/HR manager
    • Conceptualization
      Kanika Kohli, Nandan Prabhu
    • Data curation
      Kanika Kohli
    • Formal Analysis
      Kanika Kohli, Archana Tyagi
    • Investigation
      Kanika Kohli, Archana Tyagi, Poonam Khurana
    • Methodology
      Kanika Kohli, Poonam Khurana, Nandan Prabhu
    • Project administration
      Kanika Kohli, Archana Tyagi, Poonam Khurana
    • Resources
      Kanika Kohli, Archana Tyagi, Poonam Khurana, Nandan Prabhu
    • Software
      Kanika Kohli, Poonam Khurana, Nandan Prabhu
    • Supervision
      Kanika Kohli, Archana Tyagi, Nandan Prabhu
    • Validation
      Kanika Kohli, Archana Tyagi, Poonam Khurana, Nandan Prabhu
    • Visualization
      Kanika Kohli, Archana Tyagi, Poonam Khurana
    • Writing – original draft
      Kanika Kohli
    • Writing – review & editing
      Kanika Kohli, Archana Tyagi, Poonam Khurana, Nandan Prabhu