The Effects of Difficult Work Assignments via Electronic Communication during Non-work Time on Employee Negative Affect, Stress, Recovery, and Task Performance: The Moderating Roles of Leader-Member Exchange and Agreeableness
Author
Abstract
The advances of communication technology improve work efficiency and decrease the cost of communication in the organizations nowadays. However, employees' work overtime also increases owing to receiving work assignments from supervisors via electronic communication during non-work time. Drawing from the Effort-Recovery model, this study used the experience sampling method to examine that if difficult work assignments via electronic communication (e.g., LINE, Facebook) during non-work time cause detrimental effects on employees (e.g., increased negative moods and stress states, and reduced feeling of recovery and task performance). Moreover, we explored whether leader-member exchange (LMX) and agreeableness can buffer these detrimental effects. In total, 73 employees from 50 different organizations completed the daily questionnaires across 10 successive workdays (313 valid matched daily responses). The results of Mplus suggested that difficult work assignments via electronic communication during non-work time increased employees' stress states at night via increased negative moods. The stress states in turn reduced employee task performance on the next day via reduced feeling of recovery the next morning. Finally, the relationship between difficult work assignments via electronic communication during non-work time and negative affect is buffered by agreeableness. However, high LMX would strengthen this association.
Key Words
work assignments via electronic communication during non-work time, negative moods, recovery, leader-member exchange, agreeableness
