**1. Introduction**

Employee wellbeing is a multidimensional construct covering various facets and experiences, and it has no single definition [1–3]. However, probably the most influential narrative on wellbeing and health in the workplace is the seminal review by Danna and Griffin [4]. After a thorough synthesis of the literature, these authors propose a theoretical framework to organize and direct future theory, research, and practice focused on wellbeing and health in the workplace. In their model, wellbeing is proposed as the broader, encompassing construct that includes two main elements of the organizational research arena. First, the model suggests including both generalized job-related experiences (e.g., job satisfaction) and more facet-specific dimensions (satisfaction with co-workers). Second, the model also suggests including general health as a sub-component of wellbeing, including mental (e.g., anxiety) or physical indicators (e.g., blood pressure). Based on this model, we study wellbeing at work by focusing on job satisfaction and mental health as main indicators of employees' wellbeing.

*Ceteris paribus*, researchers often assume that job satisfaction and mental health are associated with each other in a harmonious way, and this assumption is solidly based on previous meta-analytical evidence. For instance, a meta-analysis of 22 studies of over 4000 workers in Hong Kong [5] and another meta-analysis of 485 studies of over 250,000 individuals [6] show that employees with high job satisfaction also show high levels of mental health. Thus, there is strong evidence that these two indicators of wellbeing may have a harmonious association in which high job satisfaction is correlated with high mental health [5,6], and the opposite may be true, that is, low job satisfaction would be associated with low mental health [6]. However, in this study we consider cases where job satisfaction and mental health are associated in misaligned ways; i.e., high job satisfaction could be associated with low mental health, and vice-versa. We first provide some examples of previous research describing these paradoxical patterns, and then we propose and clarify the aim of this study.

The first misaligned wellbeing pattern is characterized by high levels of job satisfaction and low mental health. For instance, an employee may be satisfied with his/her contribution to a new program launch and, at the same time, stressed because the program unfolds more slowly than expected [7]. Another example of this type of misalignment is an employee who occupies a high-level job position who, although enjoying greater job satisfaction, might also experience low mental health in the form of high levels of job-related anxiety [8]. This type of wellbeing misalignment may also be present when high performing employees with higher-than-average salaries have high job satisfaction but also higher levels of job-demands, leading to emotional exhaustion and low mental health [2].

The second misaligned wellbeing pattern is characterized by low levels of job satisfaction and high mental health. A situation illustrating this second scenario might be the case of overqualification. Researchers have shown that overqualified employees, although reporting low levels of job satisfaction in terms of payment, growth, and promotion opportunities or incentives, also report high levels of life satisfaction, which is an indicator of mental health [9–11]. As such, this is a counterintuitive situation and contrasts with the concept of wellbeing spillover, which suggests that the work-domain and family-domain have similar effects on each other [12], and that low levels of job satisfaction should be related to low levels of life satisfaction or mental health.

Together, these two misaligned wellbeing patterns challenge the concept of wellbeing spillover. At the same time, they also challenge the idea that wellbeing at work should be more responsive to conditions and activities in the work-domain, and that context-free wellbeing should be more responsive to health or family-domains [13]. Paradoxically, what these misaligned wellbeing patterns suggest is that specific conditions, activities, or situations at work may simultaneously and independently impact several work-domain (e.g., job satisfaction) or context-free (e.g., mental health) aspects of wellbeing.

Therefore, the main aim of this study is to make a theoretical contribution to the understanding of misaligned wellbeing patterns. To accomplish this research aim, we propose two specific research objectives. The first objective involves the empirical identification of four wellbeing patterns. We argue that we can identify the four just mentioned wellbeing patterns by combining job satisfaction and mental health; they are: the satisfied-healthy pattern (both job satisfaction and mental health are optimized); the unsatisfied-unhealthy pattern (neither job satisfaction nor mental health are optimized); the satisfied-unhealthy pattern (job satisfaction is optimized, but not mental health); and the unsatisfied-healthy pattern (job satisfaction is not optimized, but mental health is). The second specific research objective involves identifying organizational and personal antecedents that characterize and differentiate each of the four patterns. Based on the model of health and wellbeing in the workplace, proposed by Danna and Griffin [4], we consider organizational stress (in terms of role stress and overqualification) and personal factors (in terms of job importance) as possible antecedents of the four wellbeing patterns. In Table A1, we list the constructs definitions and their relationship with employees' wellbeing. In the following, we argue on the role they may have on the mis/aligned wellbeing patterns.

#### *1.1. Role Stress*

Job-related role stress has been a topic of concern across multiple disciplines [14]. Role stress can involve role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload. Here, we briefly introduce how these components are related to job satisfaction and mental health at work.

Role conflict occurs when an employee receives contradictory or incompatible requests from different parties, or when an employee needs to produce results in different contradictory aspects. Role ambiguity occurs when employees may not have clear information about tasks required by their roles, which makes them feel uncertain about what actions to take. In today's workplace context, role conflict and role ambiguity are salient characteristics in organizational settings. For instance, in complex organizational environments (e.g., digitalization, job redesign, multicultural works), employees are constantly required to fulfill multiple expectations and organizational roles that are ambiguous and/or contradict each other [15–17]. Meta-analytic evidence shows that conflicting and ambiguous roles correlate with low job satisfaction and low health [18], corroborating the role theory, which states that role conflict and role ambiguity will lead to job dissatisfaction and anxiety [19]. However, the strength of the effects of role ambiguity and role conflict on job satisfaction and mental health, although significant, may not be same. Miles [20] indicated that role ambiguity has stronger effects than role conflict on job satisfaction and mental health. Consistent with this finding, we argue that the stronger effect of role ambiguity, compared to role conflict, on the unsatisfied-unhealthy pattern is still pending confirmation. However, we do know that both role ambiguity and role conflict are significantly and negatively related to job satisfaction and mental health.

Role overload occurs when employees have too much work to do within a limited time or with limited resources, which increases the demands they must deal with. Role expansion theory states that multiple roles are beneficial for the individual because the positive effects of strong engagement in both paid work and family life outweigh the possible stressful effects on wellbeing [21]. Thus, engaging in various roles (role overload), although depleting mental health, might have positive outcomes for employee job satisfaction in terms of earning extra income, privilege, and status security [21,22], which would be related to the satisfied-unhealthy wellbeing pattern. However, further research is needed to empirically confirm whether role overload is positively related to job satisfaction, but negatively related to mental health wellbeing.

#### 1.1.1. Job Importance

Some scholars have shown that job importance, as an antecedent of employee wellbeing patterns, is associated with high job satisfaction and life satisfaction [23]. Being satisfied with life may also be related to positive mental health [10], which may predict the satisfied-healthy wellbeing pattern. More specifically, studies have shown that jobs that provide employees with job facets that are important to them can enhance their job satisfaction and decrease stress [24]. Therefore, we argue that jobs that provide employees with intrinsic, extrinsic, and social job importance facets enhance job satisfaction and mental health. Accordingly, based on role theory and empirical evidence on job importance, we hypothesize that:

**H1**: *Role conflict, role ambiguity, and job importance will mainly differentiate between the unsatisfied-unhealthy and the satisfied-healthy patterns*.

**H2**: *High role overload will characterize employees with the satisfied-unhealthy wellbeing pattern*.
