Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Energy Management Scale

Abstract

In high-demand financial environments, employees’ capacity to regulate and sustain personal energy may constitute a critical yet underdeveloped organizational resource. Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model and Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study conceptualizes energy management as a multidimensional personal resource that may support adaptive functioning and innovation under demanding work conditions. Despite increasing conceptual attention to energy-related constructs, systematic scale validation and cross-level performance evidence remain limited. This research adopts a two-study design to develop and validate a multidimensional Energy Management Scale within financial institutions. Study 1 (N = 299 employees from 11 financial institutions) examines the factorial structure, reliability, and nomological validity of the scale. Confirmatory factor analysis is used to examine the proposed four-dimensional configuration of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy. The scale demonstrates acceptable internal consistency reliability and evidence of structural validity, including convergent and discriminant validity. Structural modeling results reveal that overall energy management is positively related to innovative behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. However, perceived workload was significantly associated only with physical energy, suggesting that demand-related mechanisms of energy may not operate uniformly across energy components. Additionally, exploratory institution-level aggregation analyses showed preliminary, counterintuitive negative associations between mean organizational energy levels and return on equity (ROE) in some years. Given the limited number of institutional clusters, these cross-level findings are preliminary and intended to provide initial external criterion evidence rather than confirmatory causal inference. Study 2 (N = 148 employees from two institutions) further examines alternative scale versions and external validity through stress coping capacity, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction. Results were discussed to examine the robustness and predictive validity of the scale across samples. Collectively, this study advances energy management research by providing a psychometrically supported measurement instrument and preliminary multilevel evidence of its organizational relevance. The findings position energy management as a measurable human-capital resource with implications for sustainable workforce innovation and performance in financial institutions.

1. Introduction

In contemporary financial institutions, employees operate under persistent performance pressure, accelerated information flow, and growing expectations for adaptability, service quality, and innovation. Within such high-demand environments, the ability to maintain and regulate one’s energy may represent a critical yet insufficiently theorized organizational resource. Although organizations have long emphasized skills, motivation, and engagement as drivers of effectiveness, the underlying capacity that enables employees to sustain effort, remain psychologically available, and respond constructively to demanding work conditions has received comparatively less systematic attention. Energy management may therefore be understood not merely as an individual wellness concern, but as a strategically relevant human-capital resource with implications for both employee functioning and organizational performance.

This perspective can be meaningfully grounded in the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model and Conservation of Resources (COR) theory. From a JD-R perspective, personal resources help employees cope with job demands, maintain motivation, and support positive work outcomes. COR theory similarly suggests that individuals strive to obtain, preserve, and build valued resources, especially under conditions of stress and resource depletion. Within these frameworks, energy can be conceptualized as a multidimensional personal resource comprising physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual domains. Such a view moves beyond narrow interpretations of energy as mere vitality or fatigue and instead highlights the broader regulatory processes through which employees mobilize and sustain personal capacity. In demanding service- and knowledge-intensive sectors such as finance, these forms of energy may be especially relevant to innovative behavior, organizational citizenship behavior, and broader indicators of adaptive performance.

Despite growing interest in energy-related constructs, the literature remains limited in two important respects. First, scale development and validation efforts have not sufficiently established a multidimensional and psychometrically robust measure of energy management applicable to organizational contexts. Second, evidence remains underdeveloped regarding whether energy management demonstrates meaningful relevance to work-related behaviors, broader well-being indicators, and preliminary organizational performance outcomes. To address the first gap, Study 1 examines whether energy management can be represented as a reliable and valid four-dimensional construct consisting of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy. Study 1 also begins to address the second gap by examining its associations with innovative behavior, organizational citizenship behavior, perceived workload, and preliminary institution-level performance indicators. Study 2 further addresses the second gap by evaluating the robustness of the scale across alternative item formulations and examining its external validity through associations with stress coping capacity, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction.

Accordingly, this research develops and validates a Multidimensional Energy Management Scale and examines its relevance to employee and institutional outcomes in financial settings. Study 1 examines whether energy management can be reliably and validly measured as a four-dimensional construct in financial institutions and whether it is meaningfully associated with adaptive employee behaviors, perceived workload, and preliminary institution-level performance indicators. Study 2 examines whether the scale remains robust across alternative item formulations and demonstrates external validity through associations with stress coping capacity, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction. By addressing these questions, this research extends current understanding of energy management from a primarily personal or health-related construct to one that is also connected to innovation, citizenship behavior, well-being-related outcomes, and preliminary organizational performance relevance.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Energy Management as a Multidimensional Personal Resource

In organizational research, energy is increasingly conceptualized as a dynamic personal resource rather than merely a physiological condition or a transient feeling of vigor. It reflects an individual’s available capacity to sustain functioning, regulate effort, and remain psychologically engaged under demanding conditions. This perspective is consistent with the concept of subjective vitality, which defines energy as a state-like experience of aliveness and mental availability rather than a fixed trait (Ryan & Frederick, 1997). However, subjective vitality primarily captures the experienced state of feeling alive and energized, whereas energy management focuses on the behavioral and regulatory processes through which individuals maintain, allocate, and renew energy across work and nonwork demands. It also aligns with energy management research emphasizing that sustainable performance depends on how individuals renew and allocate their resources across work demands (Loehr & Schwartz, 2003; Schwartz & McCarthy, 2007).

Energy management is conceptually related to, but distinct from, engagement, well-being, vitality, and burnout. Engagement refers to work-related involvement and enthusiasm, well-being reflects broader positive functioning, vitality captures felt aliveness, and burnout represents chronic depletion. By contrast, energy management concerns the active regulation of personal capacity across tasks and role demands. Thus, while subjective vitality describes the extent to which individuals feel energetic and alive, energy management describes what individuals do to preserve or restore such capacity over time. It is therefore better understood as an underlying resource-regulation process that may shape these adjacent outcomes rather than as a synonymous construct. In this regard, proactive vitality management provides a particularly relevant framework because it highlights individuals’ strategic efforts to maintain or restore functional energy before severe depletion occurs (Op den Kamp et al., 2018; Bakker et al., 2020).

The theoretical basis for viewing energy management as a strategic personal resource can be derived from Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and the job demands–resources (JD-R) model. COR theory posits that individuals seek to acquire, preserve, and protect valued resources, and that stress emerges when such resources are threatened or lost (Hobfoll, 1989, 2001). Within this logic, energy is a core personal resource because it supports continued functioning under pressure and helps prevent resource-loss spirals. Similarly, JD-R theory suggests that personal resources help employees cope with job demands and sustain motivation and performance (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). The effort–recovery perspective further indicates that sustained effort without adequate replenishment leads to accumulated strain and impaired functioning (Meijman & Mulder, 2013). Together, these perspectives support the view that energy management is not peripheral to organizational life, but a critical self-regulatory resource linked to adaptability, resilience, and sustained performance.

Importantly, the literature suggests that energy should be treated as multidimensional rather than unidimensional. A prominent framework conceptualizes energy in four interrelated forms: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual or meaning-related energy (Loehr & Schwartz, 2003; Schwartz & McCarthy, 2007; Klijn et al., 2021). Physical energy refers to bodily stamina and recovery capacity; emotional energy concerns affective regulation and emotional stability; mental energy involves attention, focus, and cognitive flexibility; and spiritual energy reflects meaning, purpose, and value alignment. In this study, spiritual energy is defined in operational rather than religious terms, referring to purpose-driven and values-based energy derived from the alignment between work activities, personal values, meaningful goals, and perceived contribution to others or the broader environment. Thus, in a business research context, spiritual energy is understood as a work-related source of meaning, direction, and sustained motivation rather than as religious belief or spiritual practice. Because these dimensions capture different aspects of human functioning, they are unlikely to operate identically under demanding work conditions. This multidimensional perspective provides a strong conceptual foundation for developing an energy management scale that can more accurately capture how employees mobilize and sustain personal resources in organizational settings.

Beyond treating energy management as another personal resource within JD-R and COR theory, this study conceptualizes it as a self-regulatory mechanism through which employees actively preserve, allocate, and renew their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual resources. In this sense, energy management refines JD-R theory by specifying how personal resources are mobilized in response to job demands, rather than merely assuming that resources are available (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). It also extends COR theory by emphasizing the behavioral and regulatory processes through which individuals prevent resource loss and support resource gain (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Consistent with proactive vitality management, energy management should therefore be understood not only as a resource stock, but also as a dynamic regulatory capability that helps employees sustain adaptive functioning under demanding work conditions (Op den Kamp et al., 2018).

2.2. Energy Management, Adaptive Work Behavior, and Organizational Performance Relevance

Energy management has increasing relevance for employee behavior because it shapes whether individuals can sustain attention, regulate affect, and mobilize effort under demanding work conditions. In resource-based terms, energy is not merely a background state but an active capacity that enables employees to translate motivation and psychological readiness into effective action. Prior work suggests that energy management is positively associated with innovative behavior, particularly when employees operate in environments that provide autonomy, supportive leadership, and collaborative conditions conducive to idea generation and implementation (van Essen, 2025; van Essen et al., 2022; van Essen & de Leede, 2023). This argument is also consistent with broader energy management perspectives emphasizing that physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy jointly support high performance, and that these dimensions do not function independently (Loehr & Schwartz, 2003; Schwartz & McCarthy, 2007).

The behavioral relevance of energy management may extend beyond innovation to broader forms of discretionary contribution, including organizational citizenship behavior. Employees with better-managed energy are more likely to retain the emotional stability, cognitive availability, and self-regulatory capacity required for helping, cooperation, and constructive extra-role behavior. Conversely, when energy is chronically depleted, employees are more vulnerable to strain, withdrawal, and defensive responses. This pattern is especially important in relation to workload. Perceived workload is inherently subjective and can intensify stress, fatigue, and performance deterioration when demands exceed employees’ regulatory capacity, although moderate increases in workload may in some circumstances stimulate performance if they remain manageable (R. A. Karasek, 1979; Johnson & Hall, 1988; R. Karasek & Theorell, 1990; Cox-Fuenzalida, 2007). Accordingly, the relationship between energy management and workload-related outcomes is unlikely to be uniform. Different energy dimensions may buffer different forms of strain: for example, mental energy may be more relevant to cognitive overload, emotional energy to frustration and interpersonal pressure, and physical energy to endurance and recovery.

Importantly, the value of employee energy may extend beyond individual attitudes and behaviors to broader organizational functioning. If energy management enhances employees’ innovative and citizenship-related contributions while reducing the disruptive effects of excessive strain, its relevance should not be confined to the individual level alone. In knowledge-intensive and performance-sensitive sectors such as financial services, the aggregate energy profile of the workforce may plausibly influence service quality, adaptive capacity, and sustained organizational effectiveness. On this basis, exploring institution-level mean energy in relation to indicators such as return on equity (ROE) is theoretically defensible, even if such analysis should remain preliminary when the number of organizational units is limited. Framed conservatively, such cross-level examination does not imply direct causal inference; rather, it provides initial external criterion evidence that energy management may have organizational performance relevance beyond the employee level.

2.3. Measurement Gaps and Research Design for Scale Development

Despite increasing recognition of energy as a meaningful psychological and organizational resource, existing measurement research remains fragmented. A recent systematic review noted that personal energy at work has been studied through diverse but related concepts and proposed an integrative framework comprising physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions (Klijn et al., 2021). However, many energy-related discussions remain conceptual or intervention-oriented, emphasizing recovery, vitality, or general well-being without providing a sufficiently integrated measurement framework for organizational research.

Existing scales have made important contributions but do not fully capture energy management as a multidimensional regulatory capability. For example, subjective vitality measures the experienced state of feeling alive and energetic (Ryan & Frederick, 1997), while proactive vitality management captures self-initiated strategies to maintain or enhance vitality at work (Op den Kamp et al., 2018). More recently, the Worker Vitality Scale incorporated physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual vitality, further supporting the value of multidimensional energy-related measurement, although its focus remains on vitality rather than energy management (Shapiro et al., 2026). Thus, although prior literature has identified physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual or meaning-related energy as important dimensions, these dimensions have not yet been fully incorporated into a context-relevant and psychometrically validated scale for demanding work environments (Loehr & Schwartz, 2003; Schwartz & McCarthy, 2007; Klijn et al., 2021). Energy is dynamic, multidimensional, and regulable, yet much of the existing work stops short of establishing a robust measurement instrument that can capture these dimensions in a systematic and empirically defensible manner.

This limitation points to the need for a multidimensional energy management scale with stronger construct validation. In particular, scale development in this area should move beyond broad conceptual description and demonstrate whether distinct energy dimensions can be empirically differentiated while still contributing to a coherent higher-order construct. Such an instrument should also establish convergent validity, discriminant validity, and predictive or nomological validity in relation to theoretically relevant outcomes. From this perspective, validating an energy management scale is not only a measurement exercise but also a theory-building process: it clarifies the dimensional structure of energy, specifies its boundaries relative to adjacent constructs, and tests whether the construct shows meaningful associations with employee and organizationally relevant criteria.

To address these gaps, the present research adopts a two-study design. Study 1 focuses on scale development and core validation by examining the factorial structure, reliability, and nomological validity of a proposed multidimensional energy management scale among employees in financial institutions. Study 2 then extends this effort by examining alternative scale specifications and external validity using conceptually relevant criteria in a separate sample. Taken together, the two studies aim to provide a psychometrically supported and context-relevant measurement instrument while also offering initial evidence that energy management has implications beyond individual experience, with potential relevance for broader organizational functioning. In this way, the study contributes to the literature by advancing energy management from a promising conceptual theme to a more rigorously measured construct in organizational research.

3. Research Methods

3.1. Research Design and Scale Development Strategy

This study adopted a two-study design to develop and validate a multidimensional Energy Management Scale for employees in financial institutions. The overall research purpose was to establish a context-relevant and psychometrically sound instrument that captures employees’ energy management capability and to examine its relationships with theoretically relevant behavioral and performance-related outcomes. Study 1 focused on initial scale development and validation, including factorial structure, internal consistency reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and nomological validity. Study 2 was designed to further examine the robustness of the scale by comparing alternative item versions and assessing external validity through conceptually related criteria, including stress coping capacity, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction.

The scale development process was based on the energy audit checklist proposed by Schwartz and McCarthy (2007), which assesses four domains of energy: physical/body, emotional, mental/mind, and spiritual/spirit energy. Because the original checklist was designed as a diagnostic self-check instrument using negatively worded statements, the present study adapted the items into positively worded Likert-scale statements suitable for organizational survey research. The adaptation process involved three steps. First, the original checklist statements were translated into Chinese and adapted with reference to the Traditional Chinese version (Schwartz & McCarthy, 2008; Cho, 2013), while retaining the original four-dimensional structure and substantive meaning. Second, five senior managers in the insurance and financial industries reviewed the items to assess wording clarity, contextual appropriateness, and relevance to Taiwanese financial employees. Third, a pilot test was conducted with university graduate students to check item clarity, readability, and response burden. The graduate-student pilot test was used only for linguistic and response-process refinement, whereas content appropriateness for financial-sector employees was evaluated through senior manager review and the subsequent validation sample drawn from financial institutions. Based on expert and pilot feedback, minor wording revisions were made, and one compound statement each in the mental and emotional energy dimensions was separated into two clearer item statements where necessary (see Appendix A 

Table A1. Study 1.

Spiritual	Most of the work I do consists of tasks that I am good at and enjoy.
	I often devote my time and energy to what I consider the most important matters in life.
	The decisions I make at work are based on my own values rather than on external demands.
	I often invest a great deal of time and energy in bringing about positive changes in others or in the environment.
Physical	I get enough sleep and do not feel fatigued when I wake up in the morning.
	I eat breakfast every day and pay attention to a healthy diet with less oil and salt.
	I have a habit of exercising at least three times a week.
	After working for a period of time, I allow myself to take breaks at appropriate times.
Emotional	Even when my workload is heavy, I am able to maintain emotional stability (e.g., not becoming irritable, impatient, anxious, or restless).
	I am able to fully enjoy the time I spend with family and friends.
	I am able to have my own time to engage in activities that I enjoy.
	I often express gratitude to others in a timely manner for what they have done.
	I am able to affirm myself and do not deny my own achievements.
Mental	I am able to concentrate on one task for a period of time.
	I am able to stay focused on long-term, more valuable, or more impactful matters, even when unexpected situations arise.
	I have enough time for reflection, strategic planning, and innovative thinking.
	I do not continue working after work hours or on weekends and holidays.
	I rarely receive company phone calls, text messages, or emails during my vacation.

Note: Highlighted items in gray shaded area were retained for CFA.

and Appendix B 

Table A4. Study 2: version 3.

Physical	□ I rarely get seven to eight hours of sleep on weekdays, and I often feel fatigued when I wake up in the morning.
	□ I often skip breakfast or eat food with little nutritional value just to fill myself up.
	□ I do not get enough exercise (i.e., I do not engage in at least three cardio workouts and one strength-training session per week).
	□ I do not take regular breaks to recharge while working; I often eat lunch at my desk or even skip it altogether.
Emotional	□ I often become irritable, impatient, anxious, or uneasy while working, especially when my workload is heavy.
	□ I do not have enough time to be with my family and loved ones, and I am often mentally absent even when I am with them.
	□ I do not have time to engage in the activities I enjoy most.
	□ I rarely pause to express gratitude to others or to acknowledge my own achievements and blessings.
Mental	□ I find it difficult to focus on one task for a period of time, and I am easily distracted at work, especially when I receive emails.
	□ At work, I often have to deal with urgent unexpected situations or demands that require immediate attention, leaving me unable to focus on matters with greater long-term value and impact.
	□ I do not spend enough time on reflection, strategic planning, or creative thinking.
	□ I work after hours or on weekends, and I cannot detach from email even during vacations.
Spiritual	□ At work, I rarely engage in the tasks I do best and enjoy most.
	□ There is a large gap between what I consider most important in life and how I actually allocate my time and energy.
	□ The decisions I make at work are usually based on external demands rather than on a strong and clear sense of purpose of my own.
	□ I rarely devote time and energy to bringing about positive change in others or in the environment.

). No new dimensions were added during this process; the purpose was to adapt and refine the original checklist for Likert-scale measurement and subsequent CFA validation.

3.2. Participants and Data Collection Procedures

The target population consisted of employees working in Taiwan’s financial sector, particularly those employed in banking, securities, and related financial service organizations. Formal data collection was conducted using anonymous paper-based questionnaires. The questionnaires were mailed to participating financial institutions, where a designated contact person at each institution assisted in distributing them to employees. After completion, the questionnaires were collected and mailed back to the researchers. The period from questionnaire mailing to return receipt was approximately 15–20 days.

Study 1 involved distributing 320 questionnaires to employees from 11 financial institutions, of which 299 were returned, yielding a response rate of 93.4%. After excluding five incomplete questionnaires, 294 valid responses were retained for analysis, resulting in a valid response rate of 91.9%. Study 1 served as the primary sample for scale validation and for exploratory analysis of associations between aggregated institution-level energy scores and return on equity (ROE) (Goodinfo, 2026; DBS Bank, 2021–2026). This cross-level evidence was interpreted cautiously because of the limited number of organizational clusters.

To ensure transparency, part of the Study 1 dataset overlaps with a previously published Chinese-language article by Wang and Gau (2025). However, the present manuscript addresses a different research objective by focusing on scale development and validation, cross-version robustness, external validity, and preliminary institutional-level evidence, rather than primarily testing the relationships among energy management, perceived workload, and innovative behavior. Study 2 involved distributing 160 questionnaires to employees from two institutions, of which 148 were returned, yielding a response rate of 92.5%. These 148 responses, drawn from two institutions with 76 and 72 participants, respectively, were used to examine scale stability across alternative versions and provide additional evidence of external validity.

The survey instrument included items assessing background characteristics, energy management, perceived workload, employee innovative behavior, and organizational citizenship behavior. In Study 2, three additional single-item indicators were included to capture external validity criteria: stress coping capacity (“I am able to cope well with work stress”), job satisfaction (“I am satisfied with my current job”), and life satisfaction (“Overall, I am satisfied with my life”). These variables were incorporated to evaluate whether the energy management scale demonstrated theoretically meaningful relationships beyond the focal organizational behavior constructs.

All respondents participated voluntarily and anonymously. Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and completion and submission of the anonymous questionnaire were taken as consent to participate. Formal ethical review was not required because this study involved a minimal-risk, non-interventional questionnaire survey, did not collect directly identifiable personal information, and used aggregate data analysis only. This exemption is consistent with Article 5 of Taiwan’s Human Subjects Research Act (Ministry of Justice, 2 January 2019) and the Ministry of Health and Welfare notice issued on 5 July 2012 (No. 1010265075), which specifies categories of human subjects research exempt from ethics review (Rootlaw, 2012; Taiwan Centers for Disease Control, 2012). Therefore, no formal IRB approval was obtained. Artificial intelligence tools (GPT-5.5 Thinking) were used only for language refinement and manuscript editing; all research design, analysis, and interpretation were conducted by the authors.

3.3. Measures and Instrument Construction

The Energy Management Scale was the focal instrument of this study. In Study 1, the scale was primarily based on the energy management framework proposed by Schwartz and McCarthy (2007), with items rated on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). The conceptual structure reflected four proposed dimensions: physical energy, emotional energy, mental energy, and spiritual energy. In Study 2, three alternative versions of the scale were examined. Version 1 retained a more theory-driven and stricter ideal-form wording. Version 2 used more accessible and localized wording and was also the version employed in Study 1. Version 3 adopted a checklist-style reverse formulation in which respondents indicated problematic energy-related conditions, with a greater number of checked items reflecting poorer energy management (see Appendix B). This multi-version design allowed the study to compare alternative operationalizations of the same construct and to assess whether the scale’s validity remained stable across different response formats and item phrasings.

Perceived workload was measured using items adapted from several related traditions, including the Role Conflict and Ambiguity Scale (Rizzo et al., 1970), the Job Content Questionnaire (R. Karasek et al., 1998), and the Job Demands–Resources model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). The measurement content covered role ambiguity, role conflict, psychological workload, and quantitative job demands, including work speed, effort intensity, nervous strain, fatigue after work, excessive workload, lack of rest time, relative task heaviness, and performance pressure. Employee behavioral outcomes included organizational citizenship behavior and innovative behavior. Organizational citizenship behavior was measured using seven items covering organizational identification, helping coworkers, and conscientiousness. Innovative behavior was captured with three items reflecting idea generation, idea promotion, and creativity or idea realization at work, drawing on Scott and Bruce (1994), West and Farr (1989), and Janssen (2000).

3.4. Analytical Procedures for Construct Validation

The analytical strategy was designed to support scale development, construct validation, and preliminary criterion testing. In Study 1, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the proposed four-dimensional structure of the Energy Management Scale. Internal consistency reliability was assessed to determine the stability of each dimension and the overall construct. Convergent validity and discriminant validity were examined to evaluate whether the proposed dimensions were empirically coherent yet distinguishable. In addition, structural modeling was used to examine nomological validity by testing whether energy management was meaningfully associated with innovative behavior, organizational citizenship behavior, and perceived workload. The findings were expected to clarify whether different energy dimensions functioned uniformly or differentially in relation to behavioral and strain-related outcomes.

Study 2 extended the validation process in two ways. First, it compared alternative scale versions to examine whether the construct could be measured robustly across different item formulations. Second, it assessed external validity by relating the scale to stress coping capacity, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction. Together, the two studies were intended to provide evidence for factorial validity, reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, nomological validity, and external validity. Through this two-stage design, the research aimed to establish the Energy Management Scale as a contextually appropriate and psychometrically supported instrument for use in financial organizational settings.

4. Results

4.1. Psychometric and Criterion-Related Evidence

Study 1 supported the proposed four-factor structure of the Energy Management Scale, encompassing physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy. The initial item pool contained 18 items: four physical, five emotional, five mental, and four spiritual energy items. Items with standardized regression weights below 0.699 were removed. Specifically, one physical energy item, one emotional energy item, two mental energy items, and one spiritual energy item were removed, resulting in a final 13-item structure with three physical, four emotional, three mental, and three spiritual energy items for subsequent analyses (see Appendix A Table A1). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated acceptable model fit, χ²/df = 2.326, IFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.95, CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.067, and the proposed four-factor model outperformed the one-factor model, χ²/df = 5.586, IFI = 0.86, TLI = 0.83, CFI = 0.85, RMSEA = 0.125. These results support the interpretation that energy management consists of related but distinguishable physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions.

Because the individual-level data were collected through self-report questionnaires, common method bias was also assessed following recommended diagnostic procedures for survey-based behavioral research (Podsakoff et al., 2003, 2012). Harman’s single-factor test showed that the first unrotated factor explained 45.97% of the variance before item removal and 51.93% after item removal. Although the latter value slightly exceeded the conventional 50% guideline, the substantially poorer fit of the one-factor CFA model compared with the proposed four-factor model suggests that common method bias was unlikely to fully account for the observed factor structure and associations. Therefore, while common method bias cannot be completely ruled out, it does not appear to represent a dominant threat to the interpretation of the findings.

Reliability and construct validity were also satisfactory. Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.788 to 0.821 across the four dimensions, and the total scale reliability was 0.855. Construct reliability values exceeded 0.70, and all AVE values were above 0.50, supporting convergent validity. Discriminant validity was also established, as each dimension’s AVE exceeded the squared correlations with the other dimensions (

Table 1. Reliability, Validity, and Nomological Associations of the Energy Management Dimensions.

Dimension	Cronbach’s Alpha	Composite Reliability	Emotional	Mental	Spiritual	Physical	Innovative Behavior	Organizational Citizenship Behavior	Perceived Workload
Emotional	0.821	0.83	0.54	0.524	0.456	0.424	0.522 **	0.566 **	n.s.
Mental	0.807	0.81	0.724	0.59	0.397	0.327	0.509 **	0.531 **	n.s.
Spiritual	0.788	0.86	0.675	0.630	0.67	0.238	0.535 **	0.470 **	n.s.
Physical	0.795	0.80	0.651	0.572	0.488	0.57	0.488 **	0.494 **	0.214 **
Total Energy Management	0.855	N/A	0.890	0.842	0.832	0.819	0.610 **	0.608 **	n.s.

Notes: n.s. = non-significant. In the shaded area, lower-left entries in brown indicate inter-construct correlations, upper-right entries indicate squared correlations, and bold diagonal values represent average variance extracted (AVE). All AVE values exceeded 0.50, and each AVE was greater than the corresponding squared inter-construct correlations, supporting convergent and discriminant validity. ** indicates p < 0.01.

). These findings indicate that the four dimensions are related but empirically distinguishable.

Nomological validity was supported by positive associations between energy management and both innovative behavior and organizational citizenship behavior (Table 1). All four dimensions were significantly and positively related to these two outcomes, whereas perceived workload showed a significant association only with physical energy (r = 0.214, p < 0.01). This pattern suggests that the behavioral relevance of energy management is broadly consistent across dimensions, but its relationship with workload may be dimension-specific.

Exploratory institution-level analyses further provided preliminary external criterion evidence. Based on ROE data from 11 institutions, physical energy was negatively associated with ROE in several years. However, only the association between physical energy and ROE in 2025 reached the conventional significance threshold, Spearman’s ρ = −0.644, p = 0.033. Other negative associations were marginal and should be interpreted cautiously: physical energy with ROE in 2024, ρ = −0.562, p = 0.072, and 2021, ρ = −0.525, p = 0.097; and total energy with ROE in 2025, ρ = −0.525, p = 0.097, and 2021, ρ = −0.534, p = 0.090. Given the limited number of institutions, these findings should be interpreted as preliminary rather than confirmatory.

4.2. Cross-Version Robustness and External Validity

Study 2 examined whether the Energy Management Scale remained robust across alternative item formulations and whether it demonstrated external validity in a separate sample. The correlation between Version 1 and Version 2 was very high (r = 0.943), indicating strong consistency across the two positively worded formats. In contrast, the correlation between Version 1 and the reverse-coded checklist Version 3 was weakly negative (r = −0.180), with only the physical dimension showing a significant association (r = −0.322). This near-zero association raises a validity concern, suggesting that Version 3 may not have captured the same underlying construct as the positively worded versions. Rather than serving as an equivalent reverse-coded version of the scale, Version 3 may have reflected a different response process, such as problem recognition, self-criticism, or stricter self-evaluation. Therefore, subsequent interpretation placed greater emphasis on Versions 1 and 2, particularly Version 2, which demonstrated both strong correspondence with Version 1 and more accessible wording.

Further institutional-level ANOVA analysis indicated that, when the two companies were compared, Company B scored higher than Company A on both Version 1 and Version 2, whereas Version 3 did not yield a consistent pattern. Based on the logic of the reverse-checklist format, Company B would be expected to have fewer checked items, reflecting better adherence to energy management principles. However, the results showed that Company B had higher checked counts across all four dimensions (

Table 2. Comparison of Energy Management Scale Scores between Two Companies in Study 2.

	Company A (n = 76)	Company B (n = 72)	F	p
Version 1	2.905	3.259	19.024	p < 0.001
Version 2	2.899	3.287	22.053	p < 0.001
Version 3	2.118	4.514	26.431	p < 0.001
Version 3: Physical	0.763	1.653	22.717	p < 0.001
Version 3: Emotional	0.474	1.264	26.143	p < 0.001
Version 3: Mental	0.684	1.097	7.755	0.006
Version 3: Spiritual	0.395	1.000	16.458	p < 0.001

). These results suggest that Versions 1 and 2 captured the same underlying construct more consistently, whereas Version 3 may have operated differently at the measurement level. Given its conceptual clarity and greater practical accessibility, Version 2 appears to be the more suitable option for applied organizational research.

External validity was also supported. Version 1 was positively correlated with stress coping capacity, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction (r = 0.669, 0.711, and 0.621, respectively), and Version 2 showed similarly positive associations with these variables (r = 0.692, 0.718, and 0.646, respectively). Taken together, these findings suggest that the scale demonstrated both cross-version robustness and predictive relevance, supporting its usefulness as a practically meaningful measure of energy management.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

5.1. Theoretical and Measurement Contributions

This study contributes to the literature by supporting the view that energy management is a multidimensional rather than unidimensional construct. The findings confirmed a four-dimensional structure comprising emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical energy, with satisfactory reliability and construct validity. This suggests that employee energy management is better understood as a set of related but distinguishable personal resource-regulation capacities rather than as a single global state.

The study also advances energy research from a broad conceptual theme to a validated measurement construct. Although prior studies have emphasized the importance of energy for employee functioning and performance, fewer have provided a psychometrically supported instrument for organizational research. By establishing factorial validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and nomological validity, this study clarifies the structure and boundaries of energy management in high-demand work contexts. The observed associations with work-relevant outcomes further suggest the organizational performance relevance of energy management.

The theoretical contribution of this study lies not only in identifying energy management as a multidimensional personal resource, but also in clarifying its regulatory function within JD-R and COR frameworks. From a JD-R perspective, energy management may help explain how employees mobilize personal resources into adaptive behaviors such as innovative behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. From a COR perspective, it represents a practical mechanism through which individuals protect existing resources, reduce resource loss, and rebuild depleted capacity. Thus, this study extends prior resource-based explanations by showing that energy management is not simply a resource possessed by employees, but a regulatory capability through which employees sustain functioning in demanding organizational environments.

5.2. Behavioral Relevance of Energy Management

The present findings indicate that energy management is meaningfully associated with adaptive employee behavior. All four energy dimensions were positively related to innovative behavior and organizational citizenship behavior, suggesting that employees who reported more effective energy management also tended to report higher levels of proactive, constructive, and discretionary work behaviors. Energy management, therefore, appears relevant not only to individual functioning, but also to forms of behavior that are consequential for organizational effectiveness.

This pattern is particularly noteworthy in financial institutions, where employees are often required to operate under sustained pressure, rapid information flow, and demanding performance expectations. In such contexts, effective energy management may help employees maintain the cognitive, emotional, and motivational resources needed to remain engaged, cooperative, and behaviorally adaptive. The findings thus extend the relevance of energy management beyond personal well-being by showing its connection to work behaviors that support organizational functioning.

At the same time, the results suggest that the energy dimensions do not operate identically across outcomes. Perceived workload was significantly associated only with physical energy (r = 0.214, p < 0.01), whereas its relationships with emotional, mental, and spiritual energy were not significant. Given that physical energy was assessed through sleep, diet, and exercise habits, this pattern may reflect the possibility that employees facing heavier workloads become more attentive to maintaining their physical condition as a way of coping with demanding work. It may also suggest that perceived workload in this context captured not only strain, but also a high-demand work environment in which self-discipline and health-related regulation become more salient. Although the effect size was modest and should be interpreted with caution, this uneven pattern points to the possibility that different forms of energy are implicated in different aspects of workplace adaptation.

5.3. Differential Functions of Energy Dimensions

The differential pattern of associations further underscores the value of conceptualizing energy management as a multidimensional construct. Although all four dimensions were positively associated with innovative behavior and organizational citizenship behavior, only physical energy was significantly related to perceived workload. This suggests that the various energy dimensions may serve distinct regulatory functions, rather than reflecting a single undifferentiated resource that responds uniformly to job demands.

More specifically, physical energy appears more closely connected to endurance, recovery, and the maintenance of health-related routines, whereas mental, emotional, and spiritual energy may be more relevant to concentration, affective regulation, sense of meaning, and sustained motivational engagement. From this perspective, a multidimensional approach may provide a more precise account of how employees adapt to demanding work conditions. It also offers practical value by helping organizations identify which aspects of energy may be most relevant to particular outcomes. Rather than treating energy as a global personal resource, the present findings suggest that its behavioral significance may depend on the specific energy domain under consideration.

5.4. Cross-Level Relevance and Practical Utility

The exploratory institution-level findings should be interpreted cautiously, given the limited number of organizations and the mixed pattern of associations with ROE. These results do not provide confirmatory evidence of organizational-level effects. However, they suggest that employee energy may have relevance beyond individual attitudes and behaviors and may therefore warrant further multilevel investigation.

Interestingly, physical energy and total energy showed negative associations with ROE in some years, which runs counter to the intuitive expectation of a positive relationship. This pattern should not be interpreted as evidence that physical energy reduces organizational performance. Rather, given the exploratory design and small number of institutions, the negative ROE–physical energy association may reflect either resource depletion in high-pressure institutions or reduced need for compensatory energy-management routines in more efficient institutions.

First, institutions with stronger short-term financial performance may operate under higher performance pressure, longer working hours, or more intensive workload conditions, leaving employees with fewer opportunities for sleep, exercise, breaks, and health routines. This interpretation is consistent with resource-based and effort–recovery perspectives, which suggest that sustained demands may deplete employees’ resources when recovery opportunities are constrained (Hobfoll, 1989; Meijman & Mulder, 2013). Second, higher-ROE institutions may have more efficient systems, better resource allocation, or lower perceived workload. Additional exploratory institution-level checks showed that aggregated perceived workload was negatively associated with ROE in 2025 and 2024, suggesting that higher-performing institutions in this sample did not necessarily report higher workload pressure. In this case, employees may have less need to engage in effortful physical energy-management routines.

The second interpretation is particularly consistent with the individual-level finding that perceived workload was positively associated with physical energy. Employees facing heavier workloads may become more attentive to maintaining sleep, exercise, breaks, and health routines in order to sustain functioning under pressure. In this sense, higher reported physical energy may reflect compensatory effort or self-regulation under demanding work conditions, rather than simply a lower level of strain (Hockey, 1997; Bakker & de Vries, 2021). By contrast, when workload is lower, the same compensatory regulation may not be activated. Taken together, the institution-level and individual-level findings suggest that physical energy is shaped by work context rather than by well-being alone. However, because the ROE findings were based on a small number of institutions and were partly marginal, this cross-level interpretation remains tentative and should be tested in future multilevel research.

Study 2 further strengthens the practical utility of the scale. The very high correlation between Versions 1 and 2 indicates robust measurement across positively worded formats, whereas the weaker association with Version 3 suggests that the reverse-checklist format may capture the construct less consistently. This interpretation is further supported by the between-company comparison: Company B scored higher than Company A on Versions 1 and 2, but Version 3 did not show a consistent pattern under the reverse-checklist logic. One possible explanation is that the reverse-worded checklist format may have prompted stricter self-evaluation among employees in Company B. Thus, although they reported higher energy management than employees in Company A on Versions 1 and 2, they may also have applied higher self-standards when responding to the reverse-checklist items, making them more likely to endorse statements indicating that they had not fully met the intended energy-management practices. Alternative explanations are also possible, including response-style effects associated with negatively worded or checklist-format items, differences in acquiescence bias, social desirability concerns, or problem-focused responding across companies. For this reason, the Version 3 anomaly is better interpreted as a validity concern regarding the reverse-checklist format than as evidence that Company B had poorer energy management. This discrepancy suggests that Version 3 may reflect the construct less clearly in applied organizational settings.

Because Version 2 showed strong correspondence with Version 1 while using simpler and more accessible wording, it appears to be the most suitable format for applied organizational research. These findings suggest the practical usefulness of the scale beyond its measurement properties. In particular, the scale may be valuable for theory development, future multilevel research, organizational diagnosis, employee support, leadership development, and sustainable talent management in financial institutions.

5.5. Limitations, Future Research, and Conclusions

Several limitations should be noted. The institution-level analysis was based on a small number of organizations, major constructs were measured through self-report, and the study focused on financial institutions in Taiwan. Although additional diagnostic checks suggested that common method bias was unlikely to fully account for the findings, it cannot be completely ruled out because the individual-level variables were collected from the same respondents in a single survey. In addition, the largely cross-sectional design limits causal interpretation.

Another limitation concerns the empirical differentiation of energy management from adjacent constructs. Although this study conceptually distinguished energy management from engagement, well-being, vitality, and burnout, these distinctions were not directly tested against all related constructs. Future research should examine the incremental validity of energy management by testing whether it predicts adaptive work behaviors, recovery, or performance beyond established constructs such as engagement, subjective vitality, well-being, and burnout.

Such comparisons would help determine whether energy management explains unique variance in adaptive work behaviors, stress coping, recovery, or performance beyond these related constructs. Conceptually, energy management may differ from these constructs because it focuses less on employees’ current affective or motivational state and more on their active capacity to regulate, allocate, and renew personal resources across work and nonwork demands. Practically, this distinction suggests that energy management may capture not only how energized or depleted employees feel, but also how effectively they manage their resources to sustain functioning under changing work conditions.

Future research should also validate the scale in other industries and cultural settings, particularly to examine whether the purpose-driven and values-based interpretation of spiritual energy remains stable across different cultural, occupational, and religious contexts. It should further examine changes in employee energy over time and test multilevel mechanisms with larger organizational samples. In addition, it would be valuable to compare whether different energy dimensions differentially predict strain, retention, recovery, or long-term performance.

In conclusion, this study developed and validated a multidimensional Energy Management Scale and showed that energy management is a measurable personal resource with behavioral and preliminary organizational relevance. By providing a psychometrically supported instrument, the study extends energy research and contributes to the literature on sustainable workforce capability and organizational performance.