The effects of workaholism on health and performance

Recently, Schaufeli et al. (2008) defined workaholism as “the tendency to work excessively hard in a compulsive way”. Most authors have focused their attention on the negative consequences of workaholism, both in terms of health and in terms of negative work-family spillover. Instead, the studies conducted in order to investigate the relationship between workaholism and job performance are few, and with contradictory results. Schaufeli et al. (2006) found a positive relationship between workaholism and performance, but only in relation to the extra-role performance. Shimazu et al. (2009) detected a negative relationship in a first study, but in a second study they found no direct relationship, only a weak relationship mediated by coping strategies. As noted by the authors, the transversal limit of the various studies is the usage of self-report measures, which causes the possibility for factors such as social desirability, common method variance and negative affectivity to influence the results obtained. The present study aims to detect the direct relationship between workaholism and performance, using both the self-evaluation of the worker and the hetero-evaluation of the supervisor as a performance measure. It also aims to test the direct effect of workaholism on the psycho-physical health measured by the organizational physician, as well as the possible mediating effect of psycho-physical health between workaholism and performance. The study involved all the workers (N=340) of an Italian organization. Workaholism was assessed by using an Italian version of the DUWAS (Kravina et al., 2010) Job performance was assessed using a single item from the Work Performance Questionnaire. In order to assess the psycho-physical health of the workers, the organizational physician used the V.I.S. Method, which allows to identify five types of symptoms. Structural equation modeling was used. The results show no direct effects between workaholism and performance, measured through self-assessment as well as through hetero-evaluation. Direct effects between workaholism and the psycho-physical health measured by the organizational physician are instead found. Finally, the mediating role of psycho-physical health is not confirmed. The study has provided insights about the consequences of workaholism through the usage of hetero-evaluation of performance measures and psycho-physical health, never used to date in the study of workaholism. The results suggest that workaholism is directly and strongly associated with psycho-physical disease. However, performance does not appear to be compromised. Probably the possible effects on performance should be better detailed through a longitudinal research design