Juan A. Moriano. Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain. Marjan J. GorgievskiErasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Consequences of workaholism and work engagement for Spanish entrepreneurs

15th conference of the EAWOP, Maastricht, 27 May 2011

What predicts good entrepreneurial performance?

Personality (e.g., Rauch & Frese, 2007; Zhao & Seibert, 2006)?

Competencies (e.g. Markman, 2007)?Selfish passion for work (e.g., Shane, Locke &

Collins, 2003)?

Introduction

Work engagement (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003)VigorDedicationAbsorption

Workaholism (Schaufeli, Taris & Bakker, 2006)Excessive workingCompulsive working

Selfish passion for work

Passion and Performance

Working excessively

Working Compulsively

Work Engagement

In-Role Performance

Extra - RolePerformance

Innovativeness

.53

-.47

-.40

.44

.24

.78

.33

.32

.25

.63

.05.18

Gorgievski, Bakker & Schaufeli, 2010

Work engaged people work from a positive motivation, related to positive affect, broader scope of attention, better performance (Frederickson, 2001) and beter well being

Workaholics work from a negative motivation, related to negative affect, narrower scope of attention. Performance may be good at the cost of poorer well-being through resource (energy) depletion

(Gorgievski, Bakker & Schaufeli, 2010; Gorgievski & Bakker, 2010)

Dual pathway

226 Spanish entrepreneurs. 59.1% men and 40.9% women A mean age of 42 years (SD = 10.25).

MethodSample

MeasuresWork Engagement: 9-item UWES (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006)Workaholism: 20-item DUWAS (Schaufeli & Taris, 2004)Affective state: 20-item PANAS (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988)Innovative behavior: 9-item scale of individual innovative behavior (Janssen,

2001)Work Overload: 7-item scale (VBBA; Veldhoven & Meijman)Business performance: 3-item self-reported business performance scale (Dej,

2011).Entrepreneurial satisfaction: 5-item self-reported satisfaction scale (adapted

version of the satisfaction of life scale by Diener).

Data were analyzed using SmartPLS (Ringle et al. 2005).

Standardized data were used in the analysis missing data (n = 9) were excluded listwise Significance was evaluated using bootstrapping of 500

samples of 177 cases, which led to a critical t-value of 1.96 for p < .05.

Method: Data Analysis

Results for Work engagement

Work engagement

Innovative behavior

Positive affect

Work overload

Subjective business Performance

Entrepreneurial satisfaction

Negative affect

.58

.50

-.23

.30

.27

.24

-.19

.19

.63

-.19

Results for Workaholism

Workaholism

Innovative behavior

Positive affect

Work overload

Subjective business Performance

Entrepreneurial satisfaction

Negative affect

.27

.58

.53

.56

.24

-.19

.19

.62-.29

-.18

Results are in line with the dual path model

Workaholism is negative for entrepreneurs’ well being (i.e. affective state and satisfaction). However, in terms of self-reported business performance, workaholism

seems to lead entrepreneurs to innovation by spending a lot of time trying to solve problems and not give up.

Work engagement is related strongly to entrepreneurs’ innovative behavior and positive affective state. However, work engagement increases work overload, which is turn,

decreases work satisfaction.

Conclusions and Discussion