Organizational nostalgia as a novel pathway toward greater employee well-being

Abstract

Employee well-being is a critical consideration for organizations. It may be particularly so in the post COVID-19 era, where many still suffer from the pandemic's after-effects. We propose a novel pathway to maintain and improve employee well-being: organizational nostalgia, one's sentimental longing or wistful affection for past organizational events. We advocate that organizational nostalgia is associated with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and that telecommuting frequency (i.e., the extent to which employees work remotely) moderates this association. Additionally, we examine employees' perceptions of organizational cultural strength as an antecedent of organizational nostalgia. Findings from two studies support our theoretical proposals and offer fresh insight into how organizations could sustain their employees' well-being by leveraging organizational nostalgia.