My job characteristics make me procrastinate or not : An emotional perspective

Yangxin WANG, Hong ZHANG, Zhen WANG*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

Abstract

Workplace procrastination is a prevalent phenomenon that significantly impacts employee productivity and organizational competitiveness. Drawing on cognitive–motivational–relational theory, this study adopts an emotional perspective to investigate how and when job characteristics (i.e. hindrance job demands, challenge job demands and job resources) impact employees' workplace procrastination in distinct ways. We suggest that both hindrance and challenge demands may evoke fear of tasks, eliciting an action tendency of escape and avoidance, thus indirectly leading to procrastination. Notably, challenge demands may exhibit a dual effect by simultaneously enhancing interest in tasks with an action tendency of exploration, thus negatively and indirectly influencing procrastination. Job resources may generate joy about tasks, fostering an action tendency of free activation, thereby indirectly reducing procrastination. We further investigate how psychological capital, which largely shapes employees' appraisal of job characteristics, may alter the above relationships. We conducted two studies to examine our hypotheses and delve into the potential reversed relationships between job characteristics and procrastination. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere12551
Number of pages31
JournalJournal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology
Volume98
Issue number1
Early online date7 Oct 2024
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 7 Oct 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The British Psychological Society.

Funding

This research was supported by the ‘National Natural Science Foundation of China’ (72302235 and 71971211).

Keywords

  • emotional responses
  • job characteristics
  • psychological capital
  • workplace procrastination

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