The Double-edged Sword Effect of Overtime Work on Employee Career Success: The Role of Team Overtime

Abstract

Despite the increasing use of overtime in organizations, the investigation into whether overtime contributes to or hinders employees’ career success remains unanswered. Drawing on human capital theory and conservation of resources theory, this study offers a model that postulates that employee overtime relates positively to employee career success through increasing employee in-role performance, but that overtime also hinders employee career success through damaging employee subjective wellbeing. In addition, team-level overtime moderates the indirect effect of employee overtime on career success via in-role job performance as well as subjective wellbeing. We tested our hypotheses in Study 1 with a four-month time-lagged survey from 613 employees nested in 95 teams nested in 25 Chinese firms, and Study s with a three-wave longitudinal study from 280 employees in a Western cultural context. Taking together, our research provides support for a double-edged sword effect of employee overtime on career success, and illustrates the importance of team-level overtime.