The multilevel interplay of team health culture, department health culture, and employee health motivation to predict health behaviors and job satisfaction

Abstract

To combat rising healthcare costs (WHO, 2018), organizations are focusing on strategies to improve employee health, such as creating a culture of health throughout the entire organization. Despite theories about organizations containing multiple levels of culture (Chao, 2000), most studies of organizational culture have only focused on one level at a time (Chatman & O’Reilly, 2016). To address these gaps, I measured employee health motivation and health culture at the team and department levels in a midsized, multinational organization (NEmp. = 282, NTeams = 63, NDept. = 39) to predict employees’ diets, physical activity, alcohol consumption, smoking behaviors, and job satisfaction. Hypotheses were tested using multilevel models. Team weight maintenance culture positively predicted vigorous physical activity above and beyond department culture. No level of health culture predicted diet, alcohol consumption, or smoking behaviors, and department health culture failed to relate to any health behavior. Though health motivation failed to interact with health culture at any level, it did significantly relate to employees’ physical activity, vegetable consumption, and smoking behaviors. Last, both team health culture and health motivation positively predicted job satisfaction. Results are discussed in terms of motivated action theory (DeShon & Gillespie, 2005) and situational strength (Mischel, 1976).