Heavy work investment, personality and organizational climate

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the relative importance of personality and organizational climate for two forms of heavy work investment; workaholism, a “bad” and work engagement, which represents a “good” kind of heavy work investment. More specifically, it is hypothesized that workaholism is positively related to neuroticism (H1) and that work engagement is negatively related to neuroticism and positively to the remaining Big Five personality traits (H2). In addition it is hypothesized that workaholism is positively related to an overwork climate (H3), whereas work engagement is positively related to an employee growth climate (H4). Design/methodology/approach – An online survey was conducted among a sample of the Dutch workforce (n=1,973) and the research model was tested using structural equation modeling. Findings – It appeared that, in accordance to H1 and H2, particularly neuroticism is related to workaholism, while all personality traits are related to work engagement (predominantly openness to experience and neuroticism). Moreover, and also in accordance with the hypotheses, workaholism is exclusively related to an overwork climate (and not to a growth climate), whereas work engagement is exclusively related to an employee growth climate (and not to an overwork climate). Originality/value – For the first time the simultaneous impact of personality and organizational climate on two different forms of heavy work investment is investigated. Since no interaction effects have been observed it means that of personality and organizational climate have an independent but also specific impact on both forms of heavy work investment.