Work Overload and Self-Endangering Work Behavior

Abstract. There is increasing debate about whether worktime and workplace autonomy lead to employees coping with high workloads at the expense of their private lives, thereby willingly endangering themselves. This article also discusses the competencies required to balance job and home demands. We tested a moderated indirect effect model that assumes that both worktime and workplace autonomy amplify and self-leadership weakens the indirect relationship between work overload and emotional exhaustion via (job-to-home) spillover. The results of an online survey with 1,000 employees only supported the moderating role of worktime and workplace autonomy. Work autonomy amplified the indirect positive relationship between work overload and emotional exhaustion via spillover. Explorative analyses supported these findings only for worktime autonomy and indicated that self-leadership buffered the positive indirect association between qualitative – but not between quantitative – work overload and emotional exhaustion via spillover. These results call for differential approaches to prevent spillover and emotional exhaustion.