Overwork Climate Research Articles

The manner in which you craft your job depends on the context: evidence from Poland and China

PurposeDrawing on the job demands-resources theory (JD-R), this study aims to discuss the relationship between paradoxical leadership and job crafting (approach and avoidance), considering the moderating role of overwork climate and organisational identification in two cultural context (China and Poland).Design/methodology/approachThe research was conducted on employees from diversified organisations in two different cultural context: China (N = 408) and Poland (N = 400). Statistical verifications of the three-way interaction effect were conducted with Jamovi version 2.3 and multigroup analysis with SPSS AMOS version 29.FindingsThe results showed that employees who perceive high levels of paradoxical leadership and overwork climate as well as possess a high level of organisational identification engage stronger in job crafting, both approach and avoidance. Moreover, the results demonstrated that the dimensions of culture: individualism-collectivism moderate the relationship between the variables tested, in such a way that the relationship is stronger with the lower level of individualism.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has two limitations: its cross-sectional design and the use of self-reported questionnaire data.Originality/valueThe study expands knowledge of the relationship between paradoxical leadership and job crafting in two different cultural contexts.

Reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Overwork Climate Scale.

This study aimed to investigate the validity and reliability of the Japanese version of the Overwork Climate Scale. Japanese workers were invited to participate in online surveys at baseline and 1-month follow-up. The Overwork Climate Scale was translated into Japanese, according to international guidelines. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha and the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), while structural validity was evaluated through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Psychological job demands, work engagement, psychological safety, and workaholism were assessed for convergent validity. The number of respondents was 302 at baseline and 169 at follow-up. Results indicated robust Cronbach's alpha values of 0.86 (for overwork endorsement) and 0.80 (for lacking overwork reward) at baseline, complemented by ICC of 0.89 and 0.82, respectively. CFA confirmed the suitability of the two-factor model. Moreover, the Japanese Overwork Climate Scale exhibited significant correlations with anticipated constructs. Structural equation modeling revealed a consistent association between overwork climate and both workaholism and work engagement, similar to the original version. In conclusion, the Japanese version of the Overwork Climate Scale demonstrates acceptable levels of reliability and validity, warranting its potential adoption among Japanese workers.

When calling and overwork climate collide: the effect on burnout and intention to change careers

ABSTRACT Research Question Working within one’s calling provides individuals with several work-related benefits, while an overwork climate negatively impacts employees’ work experience. How do the concepts interact, especially within an industry where both exist within the workplace? The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of living a calling and experiencing overwork climate on negative work-related behaviors of sport employees. Additionally, the study examined how overwork climate mitigated these relationships. Research Methods Data were collected from employees working in NCAA Division I, II, and III athletic departments (n = 4522). Our survey included instruments assessing vocational calling, overwork climate, burnout, and intention to change careers. The data were then analyzed utilizing simple and multiple linear regression. Results and Findings Results indicated that sport employees living their calling are more career committed and resistant to burnout. However, when those who are living their calling are faced with an overwork climate, they experience increased burnout and intent to change careers. Implications These findings support the dual outcomes of calling proposed in the Work As Calling Theoretical Model. The findings also provide practical implications for sport employers and organizations in high-calling, high-demand settings. Particularly, sport managers are faced with employing a high number of called employees within the industry but resisting the urge to push their work commitment beyond an acceptable threshold, therefore exposing employees to greater burnout and willingness to change their careers.

Antecedents of Feedback-Seeking Behavior and Its Conditional Impacts: Applying the Framework of Workplace Entitlement

This study proposes and empirically tests a more elaborate model for feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) by including new potential predictors (perceived overqualification, hostile attributional style, and overwork climate) involved with a range of entitlement forms. As well, it aims to identify the extent to which FSB varies within its boundary conditions (i.e., regulatory foci, mutual recognition respect, and motivational climate). A series of hierarchical, moderated regression analyses were used to explore the hypotheses. Data were collected from a stratified sample of 444 employees working largely in manufacturing and IT service industries in eastern China. A hostile attributional style and an overwork climate negatively impact FSB. Although perceived overqualification does not have a direct effect, its interaction with a prevention focus (rather than a promotion focus) easily induces FSB. From the use of the influential predictors and moderators, a thorough understanding of their effects on FSB not only neutralizes the concern over reducing employees’ FSB, but also assists in providing possibilities to create a feedback-rich culture. We provide some insights on how an inflated sense of entitlement can be extended to understand the evolving nature of FSB through another feedback-seeking motive behind the instrumental one. As a different attempt, it adds further value in ongoing feedback research by showing the conditional impacts on such behaviors.

The gendered effect of an overwork climate and high personal standards for work–home conflict during the pandemic

Although working from home and various other forms of flexible work are often presented as measures to strengthen work–life balance, research depicts a less optimistic picture. Previous research has shown that the impact of telework on work–home conflict is controversial, depending on various factors that are also frequently gender-specific. In this study, the authors evaluate and compare the effects of external expectations (i.e., an organizational overwork climate) and internal expectations (i.e., high personal standards) on changes in work–home conflict between working men and women during the COVID-19 pandemic in Lithuania. Both types of expectations were associated with difficulties reconciling work and private life. Due to their interactions with stereotypical gender roles, organizational expectations encouraging overtime work had a more pronounced effect on male employees. Results suggest that an overwork climate within organizations is a problem not only for employees’ well-being but also poses a risk to gender equality in work and private life.

Impacts of career commitment, gender, and job position on turnover intentions among athletic department employees: a moderated mediation model

ABSTRACT Research question Research suggests long hours and frequent travel contribute to an overwork climate and negative employee outcomes (e.g. turnover) in the sports industry. Recent studies indicate individual factors like job position and gender may impact employees’ work experiences while also suggesting sport industry employees remain highly committed to the industry. Therefore, four hypotheses were examined to better understand the impacts of career commitment, job position, and gender on the relationship between overwork climate and turnover intentions. Research methods Survey data collection methods were used to sample intercollegiate athletic department employees (N = 4,627). Hayes’ PROCESS macro was used to examine career adaptability and the dual-moderated mediation of career commitment, job position, and gender on the relationship between overwork climate and turnover intentions. Results Results indicated overwork climate impacted the intent to change job and industry. Additionally, career commitment was found to mediate the relationship between overwork climate and intent to change jobs and industry. Finally, gender and job position significantly impacted the moderated mediation relationship between overwork climate, career commitment, and intent to change to jobs but not industries. Implications These findings suggest employees with higher levels of career commitment are less likely to change jobs and industries in the presence of an overwork climate. However, in overwork climates, certain employees (i.e. women, entry-level employees) are more likely to change jobs or leave their organization, but not the sport industry, illustrating the acceptance of an industry-wide overwork culture. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

When working from home might come at a cost: the relationship between family boundary permeability, overwork climate and exhaustion

PurposeDrawing on boundary theory, this study aims to analyse whether the intensity of working from home will be related to higher exhaustion through family boundary permeability, with this relationship being more robust when overwork climate is high.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper eight hundred eighty-three white-collar employees working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic in Lithuania were surveyed online.FindingsThe results confirmed the hypotheses, demonstrating that family boundary permeability may explain the relationship between telework intensity and exhaustion. Furthermore, the mediating relationship between the intensity of working from home, family boundary permeability and exhaustion were moderated by overwork climate. Employees who felt the pressure to overwork were more likely to have a more permeable family boundary when working from home and appeared to experience a much higher psychological cost in terms of emotional exhaustion.Originality/valueThe study provides an insight into the relationships between the intensity of working from home, boundary permeability and exhaustion and their boundary conditions when working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pressed to overwork to exhaustion? The role of psychological detachment and exhaustion in the context of teleworking

This study aims to longitudinally investigate the undesirable effect of overwork climate and its underlying mechanism in the context of telework. Teleworkers have been known for intensive working and even overwork. Moreover, although some empirical evidence shows the adverse effects of overwork climate, its longitudinal effects and mechanism have been underexplored thus far. Consequently, this study expected overwork climate to be related to lower levels of psychological detachment that eventually leads to higher exhaustion, with this effect being more profound among full-time teleworkers. The authors base their analyses on a two-wave study with four-month time intervals, with a sample of 375 teleworkers. The results show that an overwork climate led to exhaustion four months later due to impaired ability to detach from work. Notably, this effect was more substantial among those teleworkers who worked from home full-time.

Stress among nurses from countries variously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic - results collected in Poland and Iran.

Nursing involves numerous stressful situations, such as overwork, night shifts, responsibility for the patients' health, rapid pace of work, emotional demands, contact with suffering individuals, and patients' aggressive behaviors. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is an additional demand on the already demanding profession. Thus, the aim of the current study was to assess the character of the relationship between overwork and subjectively experienced stress, taking into account the moderating role of contact with patients and work in facilities dedicated for COVID-19 patients, and the strategies of coping with stress, including resilience, in countries affected by the pandemic to various degrees. The study was carried out on 151 Iranian and 158 Polish nurses at the beginning of June 2020. The following research tools were used: the Overwork Climate Scale, the Brief COPE, the Resilience Scale, and the Perception of Stress Questionnaire. The participants were also asked about their contacts with patients infected with COVID-19, and work in facilities dedicated for such patients. Polish and Iranian nurses reported similar levels of overwork, but they differed with respect to the level of subjectively experienced stress and they used different coping strategies to various degrees. Contact with patients infected with COVID-19 and work in facilities dedicated for such patients also moderated the relationship between overwork climate and resilience. Stress levels among Iranian and Polish nurses during the pandemic are different and are related to the intensity of contact with patients infected with COVID-19. Culture and context have an important impact on coping strategies which requires further studies with a multinational approach. Med Pr. 2021;72(5):457-65.

Same Involvement, Different Reasons: How Personality Factors and Organizations Contribute to Heavy Work Investment.

The academic literature has drawn a clear distinction between a positive form (i.e., work engagement) and a negative form (i.e., workaholism) of heavy work investment (HWI). Nevertheless, the different weight of individual and situational factors contributing to their development was not thoroughly explored. This study aims to investigate the role of individual variables (i.e., obsessive–compulsive traits, achievement orientation, perfectionism, and conscientiousness) and situational factors (i.e., job demands and overwork climate) regarding engagement and workaholism simultaneously. Hypotheses were tested using a sample of 523 Italian employees. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that overwork climate and job demands were conversely related to engagement and workaholism, with job demand reporting the strongest association with workaholism. Furthermore, fear of failure was the only individual factor showing a significant and opposite relationship with workaholism and engagement. In contrast, perfectionism was positively associated with both forms of HWI. These results shed light on the potential effectiveness of intervention strategies focused on the employees and organizations in preventing workaholism and promoting engagement.

Lack of control over work and organizational citizenship behavior: overwork climate as a suppressor variable.

This study investigates a suppressor effect in the relationship between lack of control over work and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Suppressor effects operate when the addition of a predictor (in our study it is an overwork climate) increases the predictive power of another variable (lack of control over work) in predicting an outcome variable (OCB). Suppressor effects can play a valuable role in explicating the meaning of examined variables by bringing into clearer focus opposing elements that are inherent - but largely hidden - in the measurement of these variables. Data were collected through online questionnaires in a cross-sectional study. Using a sample of Polish employees (N = 580) we performed structural equation modelling (SEM) with robust maximum likelihood estimation to test our hypotheses. Confirming our hypothesis, we found that overwork climate, as a suppressor variable, in isolation is not correlated with OCB, but is strongly associated with lack of control over work, which is a significant predictor of OCB. In our study, we demonstrated that both lack of control over work and organizational citizenship behaviors encompass two dimensions simultaneously. The first, namely dedication to work (which they both share), constitutes the positive correlation between these two variables. The second dimension (which separates the two variables), which constitutes the negative correlation between them, is an attitude. Lack of control over work is rooted in the negative attitude and stems from the overwork climate, while organizational citizenship behaviors can be more widely associated with the positive attitude which generally stems from positive evaluation of the working environment.

Analysis on the status quo and influencing factors of workaholism of clinical nurses in Class III Grade A hospitals

Objective To investigate the workaholism, organization overwork climate and achievement motives of clinical nurses in Class Ⅲ Grade A hospitals, and to explore the influencing factors of workaholism. Methods From August to October 2018, we selected clinical nurses from two ClassⅢ Grade A hospitals in Zhejiang Province by convenience sampling as subjects. The investigation was carried out with the General Information Questionnaire, Work Addiction Scale for Nurses, Overwork Climate Questionnaire and the Achievement Motives Scale (AMS) . The SPSS 20.0 was used to statistical description, simple correlation and multiple linear regression. A total of 750 questionnaires were sent out and 687 of them were collected with 91.6% for the effective recovery rate. Results Among 687 clinical nurses of Class Ⅲ Grade A hospitals, the scores of workaholism, organization overwork climate, pursuing success motive dimension and avoiding failure in AMS were (59.11±13.59) , (29.14±5.72) , (2.79±0.65) and (2.58±0.61) respectively. Simple correlation showed that the correlated factors of workaholism of clinical nurses included overwork climate, pursuing success, avoiding failure, genders, education levels, titles, personal connection and number of children (P<0.05) . Multiple linear regression found that the influencing factors of workaholism were pursuing success motive, organization overwork climate, contract system personal connection and education levels (P<0.05) . Conclusions Hospital managers should pay attention to nurses' tendency of workaholism and take measures to control workaholism of nurses with obvious workaholism tendency in an appropriate level so as to promote the long-term and stable hospital development. Key words: Nurses; ClassⅢ Grade A hospitals; Organization overwork climate; Achievement motives; Workaholism

Epistemic curiosity and perceived workload: a moderated mediation model of achievement striving and overwork climate

In today’s increasingly complex and highly competitive business environment, hiring individuals who can cope with challenging job demands is considered critical. In this context, epistemic curiosity, which enables enhanced learning and intellectual development, has long been known to positively impact on-job performance. This study explores the less positive side of curiosity by examining the relationship between epistemic curiosity and perceived workload, as well as the mediating role of achievement striving and the moderating role of an overwork climate. We collected data from 252 employees in various organizations across Pakistan. The results support the predicted positive relationship between epistemic curiosity and perceived workload and indicate that achievement striving fully mediates this relationship. In addition, overwork climate moderates the relationship between epistemic curiosity and perceived workload via achievement striving, such that the relationship weakens as an overwork climate develops. The study has implications for recruitment practice, the work environment, and training and development.

A preliminary adaptation and validation of the Overwork Climate Scale by Mazzetti, Schaufeli, Guglielmi and Depolo

The aim of the research was to perform the initial adaptation and validation of the Overwork Climate Scale (OWCS) developed by Mazzetti, Schaufeli, Guglielmi and Depolo. The scale was designed to measure 2 dimensions: overwork endorsement and lacking overwork rewards. The study was conducted on 2 samples of 580 and 103 workers respectively. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the OWCS structure. The validity of the scale was tested by correlation analysis using criterion variables including the perceived frequency of organizational stressors, job satisfaction, burnout and work engagement. The reliability of the Polish version of the OWCS was estimated by computing 2 internal consistency measures - Cronbach's α and McDonald's ω. The result of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the 2-factor model adequately represents the data and has a substantially better fit index than the 1-factor model. The reliability of both measured dimensions, i.e., overwork endorsement (α = 0.80, ω = 0.85) and lacking overwork rewards (α = 0.74, ω = 0.79) was found to be satisfactory, with the overall overwork climate (α = 0.82, ω = 0.86) also measured reliably. As expected, it was shown that as the perception of the overwork climate increases, there is a higher frequency of organizational stressors declared, the organization is evaluated as more oppressive, and higher loss of control over work is reported. The results of preliminary research using the Polish version of the OWCS indicate that the tool has good psychometric properties, which encourages further research on its full validation, including the development of a statistical standard. Med Pr. 2019;70(2):177-88.

Heavy work investment, personality and organizational climate

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the relative importance of personality and organizational climate for two forms of heavy work investment; workaholism, a “bad” and work engagement, which represents a “good” kind of heavy work investment. More specifically, it is hypothesized that workaholism is positively related to neuroticism (H1) and that work engagement is negatively related to neuroticism and positively to the remaining Big Five personality traits (H2). In addition it is hypothesized that workaholism is positively related to an overwork climate (H3), whereas work engagement is positively related to an employee growth climate (H4). Design/methodology/approach – An online survey was conducted among a sample of the Dutch workforce (n=1,973) and the research model was tested using structural equation modeling. Findings – It appeared that, in accordance to H1 and H2, particularly neuroticism is related to workaholism, while all personality traits are related to work engagement (predominantly openness to experience and neuroticism). Moreover, and also in accordance with the hypotheses, workaholism is exclusively related to an overwork climate (and not to a growth climate), whereas work engagement is exclusively related to an employee growth climate (and not to an overwork climate). Originality/value – For the first time the simultaneous impact of personality and organizational climate on two different forms of heavy work investment is investigated. Since no interaction effects have been observed it means that of personality and organizational climate have an independent but also specific impact on both forms of heavy work investment.

Overwork climate scale: psychometric properties and relationships with working hard

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether employees’ tendency to work excessive hours is motivated by the perception of a work environment that encourages overwork (overwork climate). Thus, this study introduces a self-report questionnaire aimed at assessing the perception of a psychological climate for overwork in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach – In Study 1, the overwork climate scale (OWCS) was developed and evaluated using principal component analysis (n=395) and confirmatory factor analysis (n=396). In Study 2, the total sample (n=791) was used to explore the association of the overwork climate with opposite types of working hard (work engagement and workaholism). Findings – Two overwork climate dimensions were distinguished, namely, overwork endorsement and lacking overwork rewards. The lack of overwork rewards was negatively associated with engagement, whereas workaholism showed a strong positive association with overwork endorsement. These relationships remained significant after controlling for the impact of psychological job demands. Research limitations/implications – The findings rely on self-report data and a cross-sectional design. Practical implications – The perception of a work environment that encourages overwork but does not allocate additional compensation seems to foster workaholism. Moreover, the inadequacy of overwork rewards constitutes a lack of resources that negatively affect employees’ engagement. Originality/value – This study represents one of the first attempts to develop a questionnaire aimed at assessing a psychological climate for overwork and to explore whether the perception of this type of climate may be significantly related to workaholism and work engagement.

Are workaholics born or made? Relations of workaholism with person characteristics and overwork climate.

While the academic literature acknowledges that workaholism may result from individual characteristics as well as from environmental factors, little is known about the joint impact of these two kinds of antecedents. The present study explores whether the interaction between the perception of an overwork climate in the workplace and person characteristics (i.e., achievement motivation, perfectionism, conscientiousness, self-efficacy) may foster workaholism. Data were collected on a sample of 333 Dutch employees. The results of moderated regression analyses fully supported our hypotheses and showed that the interaction between an overwork climate and person characteristics is related to workaholism. More specifically, our results revealed a significant increase in workaholism when employees both possessed person characteristics that predispose them toward workaholism and perceived an overwork climate in their workplaces. In addition, conscientiousness and self-efficacy were related to workaholism, but only in interaction with the presence of an overwork climate. These results contribute to the ongoing conceptualization of workaholism by demonstrating empirically that a work environment characterized by an overwork climate may foster workaholism, especially for those high in achievement motivation, perfectionism, conscientiousness, and self-efficacy.