Business Travel: The Role of Meaning and Control

Control over business trips has been considered an important resource for frequent business travelers. Building on past research and conservation of resources theory, this two-wave study among 210 frequent business travelers investigated whether work meaning moderates the relationship between two kinds of control, job control and trip-scheduling control, and two important work outcomes, work satisfaction and perceived task performance. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that when work meaning was lower, trip-scheduling control was negatively related to work satisfaction and perceived task performance 6 months later. However, there were no significant interactions between job control and work meaning on the two outcomes. Findings support the reasoning that trip-scheduling control is of specific importance in the context of business travel and that this particular kind of control is not per se positive but contingent on work meaning and thus the larger context.