Help or Hindrance? A Daily Diary Study on the Workaholism-Performance Relation

摘要

There are mounting calls for investigating the underlying mechanisms through which workaholism influences job performance and testing multilevel homology of these relationships (i.e., the similarity of the relationships across different levels of analyses). In response to these calls, we examined the mediation roles of workload and emotional exhaustion in the relationship between workaholism and job performance across within-person and between-person levels. To test our hypotheses, we adopted a daily diary design to collect data from a sample of 119 employees over ten consecutive workdays. The results of multilevel analysis indicated that at the within-person level, daily workaholism was directly and indirectly (via daily workload and emotional exhaustion) related to daily performance. At the between-person level, workaholism did not directly affect performance, but indirectly affected performance via workload and emotional exhaustion. At both levels, the indirect effect of workaholism via workload canceled out the indirect effect via emotional exhaustion, resulting in a null indirect effect of workaholism on performance. Finally, this study supported a lack of multilevel homology in the direct and indirect effects of workaholism on job performance across within-person and between-person levels. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed for improving workaholics' job performance and well-being.