Unveiling the root causes and results of illegitimate tasks: A systematic literature review

Objectives We examined whether a cluster randomized controlled participatory organizational-level workplace intervention affected the level of unnecessary, unreasonable, and illegitimate tasks. Methods A cluster randomized controlled trial was implemented in municipal pre-schools. The intervention used a participatory approach and aimed improving the psychosocial working environment by focusing on core tasks. The sample consisted of 41 pre-schools with 404 employees in the intervention group and 30 pre-schools with 230 employees in the control group. We measured unnecessary and unreasonable tasks at baseline and at two-year follow-up by one item on unnecessary and one item on unreasonable tasks, respectively, and combined both items into a measure of illegitimate tasks. We analyzed within- and between-groups changes in unnecessary and unreasonable tasks and in the combined measure of illegitimate tasks. Results The scores for unnecessary, unreasonable, and illegitimate tasks remained virtually unchanged in the intervention group and increased in the control group. The different development in the two groups was statistically significant for unreasonable tasks (+0.02 versus +0.13, P=0.04) and the combined measure of illegitimate tasks (+0.01 versus +0.11, P=0.04) but not for unnecessary tasks (+0.00 versus +0.08, P=0.16). Conclusion A comprehensive participatory organizational-level intervention with a focus on core job tasks may protect against an increase in illegitimate tasks in Danish pre-schools.

The aims of the study were to identify content categories of unreasonable and unnecessary illegitimate tasks and to investigate how unreasonable and unnecessary tasks relate to occupational wellbeing. Illegitimate tasks are a common stressor among healthcare professionals, and they have been shown to have negative associations with occupational well-being. Despite this evidence, research has not yet uncovered what kinds of tasks healthcare professionals consider illegitimate. The data gathered by means of an online survey consisted of 1024 municipal healthcare organisation employees. A theory-driven qualitative content analysis was used to analyse freely reported illegitimate tasks. For occupational well-being associations, a mixed-methods approach was used (ANCOVA and linear regression analysis). The STROBE statement-checklist for cross-sectional studies was used. Eight content categories were found for illegitimate tasks. For unreasonable tasks, these were (1) tasks outside one's occupational role (78% of all unreasonable tasks), (2) conflicting or unclear demands (9%), (3) tasks with insufficient resources (8%) and (4) tasks with difficult consequences (5%), and for unnecessary tasks, these were (1) impractical or outdated working habits (31% of all unnecessary tasks), (2) tasks related to dysfunctional technology (30%), (3) unnecessary procedures (27%) and (4) tasks related to bureaucratic demands (12%). Unreasonable and unnecessary tasks were associated with higher levels of burnout and lower work engagement and the meaningfulness of work. Our findings support the theory that illegitimate tasks are an occupational stressor with negative effects on burnout, work engagement and meaningfulness of work. The study offers insights into the types of tasks health care employees see as illegitimate and highlights the importance of good job design in promoting occupational well-being in health care.

Drawing on stress-as-offense-to-self (SOS) theory and dynamic stressor-strain perspectives, we develop and test a model of reciprocal relations between illegitimate tasks and employee wellbeing. Across two preregistered longitudinal studies with n = 1,734 and n = 1,037 employees, we examine how illegitimate tasks and negative affect as well as physical and mental health are related to one another over time. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models indicated that illegitimate tasks were positively related to negative affect and negatively related to physical and mental health at the between-person level of analysis. The assumed within-person dynamics were partially supported. In Study 1, unreasonable tasks were positively associated with high-activated negative affect over the following six months, and vice versa. In Study 2, illegitimate tasks were positively related to next-month anger, depression, and fatigue and negatively related to next-month physical health. Furthermore, anger was positively related to next-month illegitimate tasks, whereas anxiety unexpectedly predicted reduced unnecessary tasks. Overall, evidence for associations between unreasonable tasks and wellbeing was stronger compared to unnecessary tasks. These findings advance the understanding of the directionality of relations between illegitimate tasks and impaired wellbeing and suggest the need for future research to account for dynamic, within-person relations among these variables.

ABSTRACTIllegitimate tasks are tasks that violate norms for what the employee should do as part of the job, and have been found to harm employees’ well-being. The current research uses a mixed methods design to examine the role of attributions on the two types of illegitimate tasks: unreasonable and unnecessary tasks. A sample of 432 engineers described a specific illegitimate task that was assigned to them, the attributions they made and their response. They also completed a quantitative questionnaire. Results from both the qualitative (event level) and quantitative (person level) portions of our study portray differences in the attributions made to unreasonable and unnecessary tasks, as well as differential negative effects on employees’ emotions. In addition, hostile attribution bias was found to moderate the relationship between illegitimate tasks and negative emotions, particularly for unreasonable tasks. This supports the theoretical basis for illegitimate tasks because unreasonable tasks pose a potentially greater risk to the employee’s self-worth than unnecessary tasks that are more often assigned at random.

What do I expect when stating that “I am going to be a teacher”? Social roles, including professional roles, often become part of people's identity and thus, of the self. As people typically strive for maintaining a positive sense of self, threats to one's role identity are likely to induce stress. In line with these considerations, Semmer et al. recently (e.g., Semmer et al., 2007, 2015) introduced “illegitimate tasks” as a new concept of stressors. Illegitimate tasks, which are defined as unnecessary or unreasonable tasks, threaten the self because they signal a lack of appreciation regarding one's professional role. Teacher training is a phase of role transition in which the occurrence of illegitimate tasks becomes likely. A holistic understanding of these tasks, however, has been missing up to now. Is there already a professional role identity during teacher training that is vulnerable to threats like the illegitimacy of tasks? What are typical illegitimate tasks in the context of teacher training? In order to close this research gap, 39 situations taken from 16 interviews with teaching trainees were analyzed in the present study on the basis of qualitative content analysis. Seminars and standing in to hold lessons for other teachers were identified as most prevalent illegitimate tasks. More specifically, unnecessary tasks could be classified as sub challenging, inefficient and lacking in organization (e.g., writing reports about workshops no one will ever read). Unreasonable tasks appeared overextending, fell outside responsibility, and lacked supervisory support. Training interventions focusing upon task design and supervisory behavior are suggested for improvement.

INTRODUCTION: Task stressors typically refer to characteristics such as not having enough time or resources, ambiguous demands, or the like. We suggest the perceived lack of legitimacy as an additional feature of tasks as a source of stress. Tasks are “illegitimate” to the extent that it is perceived as improper to expect employees to execute them – not because of difficulties in executing them, but because of their content for a given person, time, and situation; they are illegitimate because a) they are not conforming to a specific occupational role, as in “non-nursing activities” (called unreasonable) or b) there is no legitimate need for them to exist (called unnecessary; Semmer et al., 2007). These features make illegitimate tasks a unique task-related stressor. The concept of illegitimate tasks grew from the “Stress-as-Offense-to-Self” theory (SOS; Semmer et al, 2007); it is conceptually related to role stress (Kahn et al., 1964; Beehr & Glazer, 2005) and the organizational justice tradition (Cropanzano et al., 2001; Greenberg, 2010). SOS argues that a threat to one’s self-image is at the core of many stressful experiences. Violating role expectations, illegitimate tasks can be regarded as a special case of role conflict. As roles shape identities, this violation is postulated to constitute a threat to one’s professional identity. Being assigned a task considered illegitimate is likely to be considered unfair. Lack of fairness, in turn, contains a message about one’s social standing, and thus, the self. However, the aspects discussed have not received much attention in the role stress or the justice/fairness tradition. OBJECTIVE: Illegitimate tasks are a rather recent concept that has to be established as a construct in its own right by showing that it is associated with well-being/strain while controlling for other stressors, most notably role conflict and lack of justice. The aim of the presentation is to present the evidence accumulated so far. METHODS AND RESULTS: We present several studies employing different designs, using different control variables, and testing associations with different criteria. Study 1 demonstrates associations of illegitimate tasks with self-esteem, feelings of resentment against one’s organization, and burnout, controlling for distributive justice, role conflict, and social stressors (i.e. tensions). Study 2 yielded comparable results, using the same outcome variables but controlling for distributive as well as procedural / interactional justice. Study 3 demonstrated associations between illegitimate tasks and feelings of stress, sleeping problems, and emotional exhaustion, controlling for demands, control, and social support among medical doctors. Study 4 showed that feeling appreciated by one’s superior acted as a mediator between illegitimate tasks and job satisfaction and resentments towards the military in Swiss military officers. Study 5 demonstrated an association of illegitimate tasks with counterproductive work behavior (Semmer et al. 2010). Studies 1 to 5 were cross-sectional. In Study 6, illegitimate demands predicted irritability and resentments towards one’s organization longitudinally. Study 7 also was longitudinal, focusing on intra-individual variation in multilevel modeling; occasion-specific illegitimate tasks predicted cortisol among those who judged their health as comparatively poor. Studies 1-3 and 6 used SEM, and measurement models that used unreasonable and unnecessary tasks as indicators (isolated parceling) yielded a good fit. IMPLICATIONS & CONCLUSIONS: These studies demonstrate that illegitimate tasks are a stressor in its own right that is worth studying. It illuminates the social meaning of job design, emphasizing the implications of tasks for the (professional) self, and thus combining aspects that are traditionally treated as separate, that is, social aspects and task characteristics. Practical implications are that supervisors and managers should be alerted to the social messages that may be contained in task assignments (cf. Semmer & Beehr, in press).

We proposed that effects of illegitimate tasks, which comprise unreasonable and unnecessary tasks, on self-esteem and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) are enhanced among employees who are highly sensitive to injustice. CWB was further proposed to be a moderating coping strategy, which restores justice and buffers the detrimental effects of illegitimate tasks on self-esteem. In this study, 241 employees participated in a diary study over five workdays and a follow-up questionnaire one week later. Daily effects were determined in multilevel analyses: Unreasonable tasks decreased self-esteem and increased CWB the same day, especially among employees high in trait justice sensitivity. Unnecessary tasks only related to more CWB the same day, regardless of one's justice sensitivity. Weekly effects were determined in cross-lagged panel analyses: Unreasonable and unnecessary tasks increased CWB, and justice sensitivity moderated the effect of unreasonable tasks on CWB and of unnecessary tasks on self-esteem. Moderating effects of CWB were split: In daily analyses, CWB buffered the negative effects of illegitimate tasks. In weekly analyses, CWB enhanced the negative effects of illegitimate tasks. Overall, illegitimate tasks rather affected CWB than self-esteem, with more consistent effects for unreasonable than for unnecessary tasks. Thus, we confirm illegitimate tasks as a relevant work stressor with issues of injustice being central to this concept and personality having an influence on what is perceived as (il)legitimate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examines illegitimate tasks as a specific type of job stressors. Illegitimate tasks comprise unreasonable and unnecessary tasks and refer to inappropriate task assignments that go beyond an employee's role requirements. Building on the stressor-detachment model, we hypothesized that illegitimate tasks experienced during the day predict high negative affect and low self-esteem at the end of the workday, which in turn should predict poor psychological detachment from work during evening hours, resulting in sustained high levels of negative affect and low self-esteem at bedtime. Over the course of 1 workweek, 137 employees completed daily surveys at the end of the workday and at bedtime (total of 567 days). Multilevel path modeling revealed a distinct pattern of findings at the day and the person level. At the day level, unnecessary tasks predicted high negative affect and low self-esteem at the end of the workday, with low self-esteem predicting poor psychological detachment from work during afterwork hours. Poor psychological detachment predicted a further increase in negative affect and a decrease in self-esteem over evening hours. At the between-person level, unreasonable tasks were related to high negative affect and low self-esteem at the end of the workday, with negative affect being related to poor psychological detachment from work. Overall, the findings demonstrate that illegitimate tasks are associated with unfavorable states at the end of the workday and are indirectly related to poor psychological detachment from work, undermining recovery from the stressful events experienced at work. (PsycINFO Database Record

Orientation: The quality of basic education in South Africa is in need of interventions to improve the general standard of education offered in many public schools. Teachers and their work experiences are important factors that impact this standard.Research purpose: The aim of this study was to shed light on the factors that contribute to the experiences and outcomes of illegitimate tasks, as experienced by teachers, and the potential buffers to the negative effects of these tasks.Motivation for the study: The motivation for this study was to inform human resource practices and interventions to enhance the work experiences of teachers.Research approach/design and method: Exploratory qualitative research was conducted with 10 primary school teachers (n = 10) from a selected Western Cape education district. Responses to semi-structured individual interviews were transcribed verbatim, unedited and categorised into main themes through directed content analysis.Main findings: Environmental and psychological factors that lead to the experience of unnecessary and unreasonable illegitimate tasks, the time-consuming nature and outcomes of these tasks, as well as mechanisms that can buffer the harmful effects of illegitimate tasks, were identified.Practical/managerial implications: The identification of various contributing factors resulting in teachers’ experience of different types of illegitimate tasks and associated outcomes. Potential interventions and recommendations for future research are made.Contribution/value-addition: Qualitative studies regarding teachers’ experience of illegitimate tasks in the South African context are lacking. This article sheds light on the contributing factors, unnecessary and unreasonable tasks experienced and outcomes, as well as mechanisms that buffer the effect of illegitimate tasks amongst primary school teachers.

Illegitimate tasks are responsibilities that fall outside the accepted scope of an employee’s role and have been shown to negatively impact employee well-being, especially in the public sector. Despite repeated calls for multilevel models to explore whether the negative effects of illegitimate tasks can be mitigated by leadership behaviour, research remains limited. This study examines how the two dimensions of illegitimate tasks, unnecessary and unreasonable tasks, are associated with work engagement, stress, and turnover intention employing multilevel analysis while exploring the moderating role of transformational leadership. Using questionnaires and register data from a Swedish municipality, the study included 1721 employees. The findings indicate that more unnecessary and unreasonable tasks decrease work engagement, increase stress levels, and make it more likely that employees intend to leave their jobs. Moreover, aggregated at the workgroup level, transformational leadership moderates the relationship between unreasonable tasks and turnover intention. Specifically, higher levels of transformational leadership reduce the negative effects of unreasonable tasks on turnover intention. A similar trend is observed for the relationship between unnecessary tasks and stress, where transformational leadership marginally buffers this association. The findings in the study suggest that organisations should prioritise enhancing task alignment to minimise the prevalence of illegitimate tasks. However, as eliminating such tasks entirely may be challenging, fostering transformational leadership behaviours could help mitigate their negative impact, particularly on turnover intention.

ABSTRACTDespite repeated calls for the inclusion of leadership in research on illegitimate tasks, little is known about what supervisors can actually do to mitigate negative effects of illegitimate tasks. We propose transparent leadership behavior as an effective means that buffers detrimental effects of illegitimate tasks. We further propose reciprocal effects between illegitimate tasks and job dissatisfaction. Based on a short panel study with four surveys across four consecutive weeks, data of 347 employees were analyzed using multiple group structural equation models. For the two facets of illegitimate tasks, results were more consistent for unnecessary than for unreasonable tasks. We found main and moderating effects in both the normal causal and the reversed causal direction for unnecessary tasks, with more consistent main effects in the reversed direction and stronger moderating effects in the normal direction: Job dissatisfaction rather led to unnecessary tasks than vice versa; while high transparency particularly buffered the effects of unnecessary tasks on job dissatisfaction. Thus, by means of transparent leadership behavior, supervisors are able to effectively intervene in the vicious circle between illegitimate tasks and employees’ job dissatisfaction and thereby benefit working conditions for leaders and followers alike.

The present study examined the effect of illegitimate tasks (Semmer et al. Appl Psychol Int Rev 59:70–96, 2010) within the volunteer context. A total of 191 Red Cross volunteers were surveyed to reveal the impact of unreasonable and unnecessary tasks on the volunteers’ work engagement and intent to remain at the non-profit organization (NPO). To shed light on the process through which illegitimate tasks affect outcomes, the mediating role of self-determined motivation was explored. Furthermore, the volunteers’ role orientation was assumed to moderate the relationship between illegitimate tasks and outcomes. The results showed that unreasonable tasks directly decreased the volunteers’ intent to remain. Unnecessary tasks, in contrast, had a more subtle effect in that they reduced the self-determined motivation of volunteers. Also, evidence was found for the moderating influence of the volunteers’ role orientation: Whereas unreasonable tasks were equally harmful for both groups, unnecessary tasks more strongly affected those volunteers who expressed more organizational ownership.

Madsen et al (1) recently published a secondary analysis on data provided by the Project on Burnout, Motivation and Job Satisfaction (PUMA). The aim of their study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health was to examine the associations between unnecessary work tasks and a decreased level of mental health. Though the topic was quite novel, reading this work proved disturbing and raised issues. Based on the results of this study, the authors stated that there is an association between unnecessary work tasks (assessed by a single question) and a decreased level of mental health, idem [assessed by the Mental Health Inventory (MHI-5)], in the specific population included in this PUMA survey. The authors point out a limitation of the study, namely that unnecessary work tasks were evaluated using one single question: "Do you sometimes have to do things in your job which appear to be unnecessary?". Semmer defines unnecessary work task as "tasks that should not be carried out at all because they do not make sense or because they could have been avoided, or could be carried out with less effort if things were organized more efficiently" (2). De facto, qualifying what an unnecessary task is requires stating or explaining whether the task makes sense. Making sense or not is not an objective notion. It is very difficult for either a manager or an employee to say if a task is necessary or not. Most important is that it makes sense from the worker's point of view. Making sense and being necessary are not synonyms. Some tasks do not make sense but are economically necessary (eg, when, as physicians, we are reporting our activity using ICD-10 on computers instead of being at patients' bedsides or reading this journal). Thus, there is a wide gap between Semmer's definition and the question used by the authors to evaluate his concept. A secondary analysis based on a single question is not adequate to evaluate unnecessary tasks. Nowadays, the general trend is to reduce the size of questionnaires because they are too long and cannot be used in a routine practice. But an analysis performed on a single question is quite risky: in psychometrics, redundancy is used to confirm a measurement. We lose precision on what exactly we are testing by asking a single question. Madsen et al's results show that among workers saying they are always or often performing unnecessary tasks, the MHI mean score was 74.00 versus 78.20 for people who never or almost never perform unnecessary tasks (P=0.0038). Even though it is a statistically significant result, its clinical relevance is never questioned. What is the impact of losing 4.20 points at MHI test instead of losing 20 points for instance? Statistical difference does not mean clinical relevance. These results show a statistical association, not a causality relationship. The authors did not show that performing unnecessary tasks lowers the level of mental health. It may be the exact opposite. Maybe having poorer mental health (eg, depression, with anhedonia) may make the workers think that what they're doing is useless. In their conclusion, Madsen et al suggest that the elimination of unnecessary work tasks may be beneficial for employees' mental health. To our mind, on the contrary, it may increase psychic suffering. If we suggest to fight unnecessary tasks in workplaces, this may encourage reduction of the margin of manoeuvre (3). The principle of removing unnecessary tasks is part of a Taylorized organization. Some tasks may seem unnecessary or bothersome, but may correspond to work periods that allow for temporary rest. Concretely, in the workplace, managers rather than the employee will be the ones to decide whether a task is useless or not. To improve well-being in the workplace, a global vision of work organization is required. From our point of view, the conclusion drawn from this study should not be that we must eliminate unnecessary tasks, but that we should focus on what makes sense for the worker, with a global view on his work and - as usual - the aim of carrying out further studies on this subject. Conflicts of interest The authors declare no conflict of interest.

According to the concept of abusive supervision, abusive supervisors display hostility towards their employees by humiliating and ridiculing them, giving them the silent treatment, and breaking promises. In this study, we argue that abusive supervision may not be limited to mistreatment at the relationship level and that the abuse is likely to extend to employees’ work tasks. Drawing upon the notion that supervisors play a key role in assigning work tasks to employees, we propose that abusive supervisors may display disrespect and devaluation towards their employees through assigning illegitimate (i.e., unnecessary and unreasonable) tasks. Survey data were obtained from 268 healthcare and social services workers. The results showed that abusive supervision was strongly and positively related to illegitimate tasks. Moreover, we found that the relationship between abusive supervision and unreasonable tasks was stronger for nonsupervisory employees at the lowest hierarchical level than for supervisory employees at higher hierarchical levels. The findings indicate that abusive supervision may go beyond relatively overt forms of hostility at the relationship level. Task-level stressors may be an important additional source of stress for employees with abusive supervisors that should be considered to fully understand the devastating effects of abusive supervision on employee functioning and well-being.

Illegitimate tasks violate the norms of what is considered part of the employee’s work role and have been found to harm individuals, groups and organisations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between key organisational conditions – span of control, recruitment needs, administrative support and organisational changes – and the prevalence of unnecessary and unreasonable illegitimate tasks experienced by managers and their subordinates. Data were collected from a sample comprising 80 managers and 863 subordinates in a Swedish municipality using questionnaires to assess their perceptions of illegitimate tasks. Organisational conditions were collected from the human resources register in the municipality. Multilevel analysis results reveal a positive association between the size of workgroups and illegitimate tasks; the more subordinates per workgroup, the more unnecessary and unreasonable tasks managers reported and the more unreasonable tasks the subordinates reported. These findings hold practical implications for organisations because they indicate that illegitimate tasks can be reduced by decreasing the number of employees in larger workgroups.