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How Does Workaholism Affect Worker Health and Performance? The Mediating Role of Coping

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Abstract

Background

The underlying mechanisms connecting workaholism on the one hand and ill-health and performance on the other hand have to date hardly been examined empirically.

Purpose

The aim was to study the mediating role of coping (i.e., active coping and emotional discharge) in the relationship between workaholism, ill-health (i.e., psychological distress and physical complaints), and job performance.

Method

A theory-based model was tested among 757 employees of a Japanese construction machinery company.

Results

Workaholism was positively related to active coping, which was, in its turn, negatively associated with ill-health and positively with job performance. Workaholism was also positively related to emotional discharge, which was positively associated with ill-health. In addition, workaholism was positively and directly related to ill-health, whereas it was not significantly related to job performance.

Conclusion

Workaholism is associated with both active coping and emotional discharge. Active coping leads to better health and performance, whereas emotional discharge leads to poor health. In addition, workaholism coincides with poor health. Since the costs for workaholics themselves (in terms of ill-health) are high, workaholism has on average adverse effects on health and performance.

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Notes

  1. Preliminary analyses in which job demands were controlled for revealed the same pattern of results, i.e., the relationships among workaholism, active coping/emotional discharge, and ill-health/job performance, were virtually identical to the relationships presented in this paper.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Akihito Shimazu

  2. Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Wilmar B. Schaufeli & Toon W. Taris

Authors
  1. Akihito Shimazu
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  2. Wilmar B. Schaufeli
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  3. Toon W. Taris
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Correspondence to Akihito Shimazu.

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Shimazu, A., Schaufeli, W.B. & Taris, T.W. How Does Workaholism Affect Worker Health and Performance? The Mediating Role of Coping. Int.J. Behav. Med. 17, 154–160 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-010-9077-x

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