Sloan Network Encyclopedia Entry

*This Encyclopedia Entry was part of the former Sloan Work and Family Research Network which is no longer in operation.

Workaholism (short version) (2005)

Author: Gayle Porter, Rutgers University- School of Business

Date: April 2005

Basic Concepts & Definitions

· Workaholism is a condition of working to excess. This tendency may coincide with, but does not stem from, demanding conditions in the workplace. · There is lack of consensus among researchers as to what conditions constitute workaholism and the theories that should be incorporated into explanation and further exploration of the phenomenon. · Most pertinent to work-family studies is the research suggesting that workaholics (those who engage in workaholism) are pursuing work in a way that is detrimental to other life interests, particularly family relationships. · The term work addiction is often used as synonymous with workaholism, indicating an internal drive that has dysfunctional implications like any other addiction. This entry emphasizes the term workaholism as representing an addictive pattern.

Importance of Topic to Work-Family Studies

Workaholism is the drive to work to the exclusion of all other potential sources of life satisfaction. Family, friends, community involvement, and even personal health are all secondary to work. To the extent that time with family is considered important, increasing hours at work is, in itself, a potential problem. However, there is no set formula for an appropriate number of hours with family, and other activities may also counterbalance the effects. Therefore, it may be even more important to consider that allowing work to become the sole source of satisfaction also means less psychological or emotional involvement with family.

In practical terms, a common difficulty in dealing with workaholism is the extent to which society supports the idea that, because hard work is good, more hard work must be even better. When families are struggling with the negative outcomes of workaholism, there is little or no support for their efforts to influence the individual away from excessive work involvement.

State of the Body of Knowledge

On the one hand, many organizations have implemented programs promoting more balanced lives while, on the other hand, competitive pressure and technology-enhanced work contact seem to push employees toward even more attention to work.

Definition of the Workaholism Construct

The term workaholism first appeared in an article by Oates in 1968. His original essay drew a parallel to alcoholism (drinking to excess) and the term was intended to represent a similar compulsion for working to a detrimental extreme.

Marilyn Machlowitz (1980) further popularized the term workaholic, when she profiled individuals who worked long hours even when they could have chosen not to. Her results acknowledged a category of workaholics who were very happy and productive in what they did, as long as the conditions were right - specifically, that their jobs were a good fit AND their families were accommodating. Among organizational researchers, some continue to conceptualize workaholism in the tradition of Machlowitz, using the term for anyone who works long hours, with variations in the outcome and, accordingly, whether or not it is a problem (e.g., Scott, Moore & Miceli, 1993; Friedman & Lobel, 2003).

Other researchers have chosen to emphasize Oates’ original meaning of the word. Clinicians and researchers primarily concerned with individual and family dynamics tend more often to approach the issue as one of work addiction. When considering workaholism within the dysfunctional pattern of addiction, there are numerous implications for organizational functioning, in addition to the difficulties in family and personal life (Porter, 1996, 2001a). These problems include a range of interpersonal difficulties - untrustworthiness, lack of ability to delegate or share control, perfectionist standards that supply endless work - all contributing to general stress in the workplace.

Although working long hours fits the popular notion of a workaholic, several studies have found that number of hours worked does not relate definitively to the measures of workaholism that include inner compulsion or feeling driven to work (Burke, 1999a; McMillan, Brady, O’Driscoll 7 March 2002; Taris, Schaufeli & Verhoeven, 2005). Overall, measuring hours worked is not the essence of the construct definition debate. The contrast is simply that it’s applied differently by researchers adopting each perspective - one group starting with long hours and looking for variation in consequences; the other starting with an overall relationship to work, within which long hours may be a symptom.

Measurement of Workaholism

One established measure of workaholism is the Work Addiction Risk Test (WART). This 25 item survey was developed by Bryan Robinson and various colleagues who have confirmed validity and reliability

(Robinson, 1996; Robinson & Phillips, 1995; Robinson & Post, 1994, 1995) and more recently specifying five underlying dimensions of (1) compulsive tendencies, (2) control, (3) impaired communications/self- absorption, (4) inability to delegate, and (5) self-worth (Flowers & Robinson, 2002). This measure has shown more consistent validity for measuring the intended construct than any others.

Spence and Robbins (1992) measured, and examined in matrix format, combinations of high work involvement and whether people were driven to work a lot or did so from joy in the work itself. Those working for the joy of it were classified as work enthusiasts, while those with high involvement based on feeling driven to work were call workaholics. This combined measure (high involvement, low joy, high driven) is the one most often utilized by organizational researchers attempting to empirically identify workaholism.

Recently Mudrack and Naughton (2001) proposed new measures based on an individual’s tendencies to both take on non-required work and to attempt to control the work of others. It remains to be seen whether this will be adopted by other researchers. To date, most empirical work has applied and/or expanded on the measures introduced by Robinson or Spence and Robbins.

In analysis of the meaning of work, Harpaz and Snir (2000) defined workaholism as the total weekly work hours (including overtime), while controlling for financial need. They considered their study unbiased by not assuming hours worked were either a positive or negative. They concluded with the suggestion that future work move away from the controversial terminology of workaholism, favoring a replacement term, such as “work-directed behavior and cognition” (p 314).

Taris and colleagues (2005) build a strong case for use of the Compulsive Tendencies (CT) subscale as adequately representative of workaholism. The 9 item subscale may help researchers begin to more fully explore the relationship between excess work tendencies and other variables of interest.

Finding the Workaholics - Convergence of Interest but Not of Results

Across these various definitions and measurement choices, researchers continue to explore whether workaholism is more prevalent in certain demographic or professional groups.

· Comparing joy in work (from Spence & Robbins) to perfectionism (as an indicator of compulsive work habits), Porter (2001a) found no significant differences by race or gender.

· Using the WART and CT subscale, Taris et al (2005) also found no differences by gender.

· Hodson (2004) proposes that gender effects sometimes result from the nature of the jobs occupied by men and woman. His social interaction measure did not vary by gender after controlling for job and organizational characteristics.

· Harpaz and Snir found more men to be workaholics than women, (contradicting Burke’s 1999 study as their chosen point of comparison). They explained this as men staying at the office more hours because women working outside the home still carried responsibility for most of the home tasks.

· Both Porter (2001a) and Taris et al (2005) found that their respective operationalization of workaholism was negatively related to age - less workaholism among older workers.

· Hodson’s (2004) analysis of organizational ethnographies, suggests that people at higher organizational levels - typically correlated with age - experience more social fulfillment on the job. His interpretation related to workaholism is that this may cause people to prefer work to home until they gradually “emotionally relocate their lives from home to work.” (Hodson, 2004, p. 223).

There has always been some recognition that people may be drawn to the workplace due to an attraction to the work activities or be pushed to the workplace as an escape from a less satisfying situation in the home. What is distinctly lacking in the research is any longitudinal study to determine whether aging is related to any actual change in individual workaholic tendencies.

Studies often include attention to specific professionals, such as attorneys (e.g., Doerfler & Kammer, 1986; Hibbs, 2001), who seem particularly susceptible to forming workaholic habits. It is generally difficult to separate the individual drive from the external demands. Within a profession known to have high demands on employees’ time - or similarly high ranking jobs within an organization - it remains difficult to show that the individual, and not the job, is the driving force. Workaholism is put forth as an individual characteristic, suggesting you could find these tendencies in any organization, at any level, and even among people not doing paid work. Yet, there is some evidence to suggest, at least, that the workaholic individuals tend to find professions that readily support these tendencies or cluster in some organizations until they have affected the entire culture (c.f. Schaef & Fassel, 1988).

Summary of Research Approaches

Research on workaholism in recent years has been scattered, with authors selectively adopting their preferred approach to the topic, both in terms of their definition of the term workaholism and its measurement. No one has successfully provided a definitive framework that others are willing to consistently apply. A diagram is offered to facilitate summarizing the relationships of extant research and to visually demonstrate the points of common interest.

Please click here to view this diagram.

Starting at the left of the diagram, researchers in the Machlowitz tradition (e.g., Machlowitz 1980; Scott, et al, 1993), begin with the label of workaholic applied to everyone who works more than some norm for a standard hours. From this starting point, anyone who works the standard hours or less is eliminated from the study, and the focus is on whether there are positive or negative outcomes from extra work hours.

This leaves open the question of defining a norm for number of working hours. Some investigators are willing to assign a fixed value, such as 50 hours per week (e.g., Mosier, 1983, as cited in Harpaz & Snir, 2000). Others, as mentioned earlier, have shown that the number of hours is not definitive in identifying workaholics (e.g., McMillan, 2002). Further, Schor (1992) documented a trend in the mid to late 20th century toward more hours on the job, which would imply a moving target for identifying the norm.

Using hours to identify excess work might also be problematic when crossing national and cultural boundaries, although the concept of excessive work is recognized in various countries. Japan acknowledges karoshi, or death by overwork (e.g., Tamaki, 1998), and German researchers write about Arbeitssucht - work mania or work craze (e.g., Heide, 1999). A recent article in a leading business magazine shows that Brazilians now recognize and are concerned about workaholism (Correa, 2002).

Under some definition, the problem of excess work seems to have gained recognition around the globe, but cultural differences might lead to different conclusions as to what constitutes the norms for both a work day and desired family time. Useful research might grow from international comparisons including countries that have reduced their workweek below 40 hours (cf. Rifkin, 2004, regarding France and Belgium).

This hours-based approach also maintains a focus on formal work for pay. The Harpaz and Snir (2000) study is a recent example. Although they used hours of work in the formal workplace as their basis for conceptualizing workaholism, this study included some recognition that the issue is more complex than merely hours by controlling for financial need - an index combining marital status, whether there is a working spouse, and the number of dependents.

In the above diagram, this approach of identifying subjects first by hours work is summarized by the boxes connected by dotted lines. These researchers promote the idea of a positive category of workaholism, (Machlowitz, 1980; Scott, et al, 1993; Spence & Robbins 1992) and point to both individual satisfaction and the benefits derived by the organization as outcomes of the long hours. This combination brings to mind work on job satisfaction, which early on (e.g. Rabinowitz, Hall & Goodale, 1977) recognize the interaction of job features with individual characteristics but also reinforced that “job involvement and satisfaction are distinct variables which behave in different ways” (Rabinowitz, et al, 1977, p 279, referencing even earlier work of Lawler & Hall, 1970).

Overall, even within the premise that working long hours could have positive outcomes, it should not be assumed that the two referenced positives - individual satisfaction and organizational benefit - go hand in hand. In addition, it’s important to remember that family relations might suffer from this high investment in work, even in the presence of either or both the organizational and the individual benefits.

Friedman and Lobel (2003) recently wrote about “Happy Workaholics” being those whose long hours are compatible with their personal value systems. The key conclusions of their study is the premise that creating a workplace in which employees believe they can give the desired amount of attention to their personal lives does not require having a boss who models “balance.” Rather, the boss should model “authenticity” - each individual’s work being guided by personal values. If the individual’s priority is work, long hours are good.

By being “authentic,” the individual manager can be personally satisfied through his or her own long hours, while creating a work environment in which everyone can be true to their own values - an assumed overall benefit to the organization. However, the article also acknowledges that these managers are making “sacrifices in their personal lives to achieve business results” (Friedman & Lobel, 2003, p 88).

The premise of long hours being connected with organizational benefit is one that many counselors and therapists have previously accepted as part of the challenge in combating workaholism. Being concerned primarily with the family dynamics, researchers from this background are more likely to take the “work addiction” approach which starts at the top of the diagram and is connect by dashed lines to pertinent outcomes. The workaholics' addictive behavior is negative, because of the difficulties experienced by spouses and children (e.g., Fassel, 1990; Killinger, 1991; Robinson, 1989). The most quantifiable symptom of this difficulty is likely to be long hours in the workplace rather than at home. However, the long hours are a manifestation of the problem, not the problem itself.

Because this view traditionally included assumption of benefits to the organization, it served to position family against the company in battle for a finite amount of psychological, emotional, and physical investment from the individual employee. In practice, this dichotomy created difficulties for those managers attempting to uphold their responsibilities to the company but who also had genuine concern for employees experiencing personal problems due to work/life imbalance.

Rather than continue the assumption that the family is sacrificed for benefit of the organization, Porter (1996) continued application of the addiction framework to discuss its dysfunctionality within the organization, in addition to the damage to home and family life. Again, long hours may well be involved but not considered the initial benchmark or sole defining characteristic. This focus is shown in the diagram with solid lines connecting the boxes.

Note that this view also opens the best opportunity for examining workaholism as a phenomenon that can occur across several activity domains of which the workplace is one. Consider, for example, the

executive who neglects family, not just for the direct company responsibilities but for a cluster of activity including both job and community responsibilities. Whereas, in some cases, community involvement might provide a balancing source of satisfaction, for other people it might be one more excuse to stay overwhelmed with work. It’s the difference of whether that added activity is on the “life” side or the “work” side of the work/life balance equation. From the family’s view, the name under which more work intrudes may be relatively unimportant. So far, this remains an unexplored area, most likely because of the added difficulty in measuring a tendency not contained within one distinct environment.

Other behavioral addictions have received attention in isolation from work and workplace tendencies. However, once the addiction view is accepted in relation to workaholism, with recognition that it is detrimental to the organization as well as the individual, efforts to expand the domain of inquiry can draw from a wealth of addiction research to develop a more complete picture of the phenomenon.

Those who study addictive behaviors, in general, recognize that any comprehensive theory must take into account a broad range of factors: cognitive, social, biological, behavioral, and environmental (e.g., Institute of Medicine, 1997; Miller, W., 1980), so there is much opportunity for study of work addiction in this framework.

Further, addiction researchers learned long ago that studying various types of addiction in isolation limits understanding compared to studying them as they coincide in individuals’ lives (Elster, 1999; Miller, P. 1985; Orford, 1985). In line with this approach, new work is appearing that considers work and use of technology as closely linked, mutually reinforcing addictive behaviors (Porter & Kakabadse, 2003). As neither work nor use of technology can easily be eliminated from people’s lives today, determining the appropriate personal investment in each or both is more likely to grow in importance than to decline. In similar discussion, Ammons and Markham (2004) consider the likelihood that telecommuting white collar workers might more readily slip into workaholic behaviors due to the blurring of work and home boundaries.

In terms of working to excess, people may believe it is necessary to work more at various times, like getting one’s career established. According to Porter (2001b), this is not necessarily a problem. The defining decision point is when that need has passed. Does the individual remember to scale back to what originally had seemed more reasonable, or is he/she unable to back away from the new accustomed level of activation? Orford (1985) warns that it is easy to underestimate the strength of a habit that begins as small, gradual steps.

At this time, there is increased interest in, and therefore visibility for, attempts to identify what constitutes a healthy investment in work at one’s job. The next few years should reveal whether this is a brief fad or a long-term trend toward more balanced lives.

Implications for Future Research & Practice

The above summary highlights specific opportunities for advancing work on this important topic. Therefore, this conclusion is limited to only a few general observations.

· The growing attention to work/life balance and work/family issues has helped create awareness that workaholism is an important workplace concern. This begins with the realization that work demands have an impact on both time and energy available for family and home life. It extends farther by recognizing that trust, stress, and other interpersonal dynamics become distorted in the workplace, as well as threatening home and family life.

· Including negative impact within the workplace as part of the workaholism problem - whether as the primary definition or one variation - is important for practice, as managers need to realize that the person putting in the heaviest personal investment may not be the best worker. This perspective also opens new considerations for research that combines concern for business outcomes with concern for social benefit, rather than positioning job and family as opposing forces.

· There is some difference in emphasis moving forward between researchers and practitioners. For advancement of research, consensus must evolve on basic definitions. Recognition in the last decade of the problems caused in the workplace should help funnel attention toward more compatible research across disciplines, emphasizing the common issues across home and work environments.

In practice, many people recognize the negative side of workaholism and the problems it creates. What they want most is a set of guidelines for what to do about the problem, as well as help in convincing the non-believers that the problem is real. It may take some time before research reaches the stage of empirically demonstrating causal relationships in the workplace - even longer to verify that any prescriptions for relief have had the intended effect. As this evolves, the knowledge will benefit both scholars and business people. Policy changes regarding work hours and related demands on employees sometimes occur based on anecdotal evidence alone, but more notable changes will require better empirical evidence of what workaholism entails, when it is a problems and which remedies are most effective.

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