Abstract
The current work examines a contemporary workplace stressor that has only recently been introduced into the literature: illegitimate tasks. Illegitimate tasks are work tasks that violate identity role norms about what can reasonably be expected from an employee in a given position. Although illegitimate tasks have been linked to employee well-being in past work, we know little about the potential explanatory mechanisms linking illegitimate tasks to work-relevant negative psychological states. Using a sample of 213 US-based employees of mixed occupations and a cross-sectional design, the present study examines job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation as outcomes of illegitimate tasks. Additionally, we examine perception of effort-reward imbalance (ERI) as a potential mediating mechanism through which illegitimate tasks relate to job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation, highlighting a possible pathway by which these relationships are functioning. Finally, we explore gender as a socially constructed variable that could contribute to variation in responses to illegitimate tasks and moderate the mediated link between illegitimate tasks and outcomes. Results indicated that illegitimate tasks were significantly related to job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation both directly and indirectly through perceptions of ERI in the predicted directions. Moreover, a moderated-mediation effect was found such that male workers reacted more than female workers to illegitimate tasks through the mechanism of perceived ERI.
Highlights
Employee work well-being continues to be central to organizational research and practice, given its importance to individual workers, as well as to organizational and societal-level functioning (Griffin and Clarke, 2011)
Our results indicated that illegitimate tasks was significantly negatively related to job satisfaction (r = −0.41, p < 0.01) and intrinsic motivation (r = −0.25, p < 0.01), in support of hypotheses 1a and 1b
Consistent with Stress-As-Offense-to-Self ” (SOS) theory (Semmer et al, 2007), the current study suggests the assignment of illegitimate tasks may threaten one’s job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation by creating the perception of an effort-reward imbalance (ERI)
Summary
Employee work well-being continues to be central to organizational research and practice, given its importance to individual workers, as well as to organizational and societal-level functioning (Griffin and Clarke, 2011). Illegitimate Tasks and Well-Being motivation has been positively linked to job performance (Ryan and Deci, 2000; Grant et al, 2007), as well as negatively related to turnover intentions (Richer et al, 2002), and burnout (Richer et al, 2002; Cerasoli et al, 2014). Given their importance to -and centrality within- work-related nomology, continued efforts are necessary to understand better how work conditions predict these outcomes.
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