“Due tomorrow? Do tomorrow”. A moderated mediation model linking workaholism to procrastination

Workaholism is an increasingly prevalent form of addiction within the modern workforce. Defined as a multidimensional construct comprised of an inner compulsion to work, persistent thoughts about work, experiencing negative emotions when not working, and working far beyond what is required, workaholism is known to be detrimental for employee well-being. However, further research is needed to elucidate how workaholism affects performance and productivity. In the current study, we extend existing literature on this topic by examining the association among workaholism and an often-neglected aspect of performance, namely procrastination. Additionally, we explore the mechanisms that may drive and strengthen this relationship. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources theory, we expect that workaholism may exhaust employees’ cognitive, emotional, motivation and behavioural resources, so that workaholics may adopt procrastination as a defensive mode to preserve the self and to avoid additional resource loss. We argue that job-related affective strain may be the mediating mechanism through which workaholism leads to procrastination. Furthermore, since organisational behaviours do not occur in a vacuum, we hypothesise that a pressure to produce climate may boost the direct effect of workaholism on strain, and, in turn, its indirect effect on procrastination. We collected data from a sample of 939 Italian employees from different work contexts, and employed structural equation modelling to investigate our hypotheses. We found that workaholism was linked to (more) procrastination through the mediating effect of affective strain. Moreover, our moderated-mediation model showed that the conditional indirect effect of workaholism on (more) procrastination via affective strain was intensified as levels of pressure to produce increase. In a rapidly changing labour market, the results of our study further underline how workaholic tendencies may have negative implications for organisational performance and productivity.