Pressed to overwork to exhaustion? The role of psychological detachment and exhaustion in the context of teleworking

Abstract

This study aims to longitudinally investigate the undesirable effect of overwork climate and its underlying mechanism in the context of telework. Teleworkers have been known for intensive working and even overwork. Moreover, although some empirical evidence shows the adverse effects of overwork climate, its longitudinal effects and mechanism have been underexplored thus far. Consequently, this study expected overwork climate to be related to lower levels of psychological detachment that eventually leads to higher exhaustion, with this effect being more profound among full-time teleworkers. The authors base their analyses on a two-wave study with four-month time intervals, with a sample of 375 teleworkers. The results show that an overwork climate led to exhaustion four months later due to impaired ability to detach from work. Notably, this effect was more substantial among those teleworkers who worked from home full-time.