Consumerism at work and its relationship to employees’ personal goals, self-concept clarity, well-being and growth mindset

BACKGROUND: Consumerism at work is a new concept. It is linked to materialism and consumption experience, which is why its relations with people's well-being, self-concept clarity, life aspirations and growth mindset are not obvious. The phenomenon can be manifested as obtaining documents confirming acquired qualifications and professional experience by frequent changes of workplace not motivated by a real need, but rather a desire of collecting. Consumerism at work consists of three dimensions: external attestation of competence, orientation towards self-improvement and exploratory orientation, which are related to extrinsic motivation. It is a phenomenon observed contemporarily and may be attributable to changes in the labor market. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE: The aim of the article is to explore consumerism at work and to examine the relationship between the phenomenon, employees' personal goals, self-concept clarity, well-being and growth mindset. For that purpose, two studies were conducted among employees using a paper-pencil survey. There were 206 participants in the first study and 91 in the second one. In the new method, the Consumerism at Work Scale, the Aspirations Index, the Self-Concept Clarity Scale, the Growth Mindset Questionnaire and Ultra-Short Scales for measuring subjective well-being were used. RESULTS: The study results show that consumerism at work is negatively related to self-concept clarity and positively related to extrinsic goals. Nonetheless, there are no relations between consumerism at work, well-being and a growth mindset. CONCLUSIONS: It can be concluded that consumerism at work is a negative phenomenon in the context of employee's self-concept clarity, and that it is associated with materialistic goals, while it is not related to growth mindset and well-being.