Work Passion and Workaholism: Antecedents of Psychological Well-Being and Burnout

Introduction

Workaholism can be defined as working an excessive number of hours and having a compulsion to work (e.g., Salanova et al., 2016). Several predictor variables and outcomes have been pointed out, but the subject is still long overdue for effective intervention designs. In this sense, it is the objective of this study to test a model in which workaholism presents itself as the main variable and seek to analyze antecedents (passion for work) and consequences (burnout and psychological well-being).

Van Beek and colleagues (2012) workaholic employees work hard to preserve and enhance feelings of well-being and self-esteem, and because they personally value the associated outcomes. Workaholic employees are chronically aroused and preoccupied with work. Consequently, they have little time for their spouses, family, and friends, or for leisure activities (Shimazu et al., 2019). The continuous work without sufficient recover opportunities may reduce workaholics’ energy resources as time goes by, possibly leading to burnout (Gillet et al., 2017). Since workaholism is also linked to other adverse outcomes it can be considered a “bad” type of heavy work investment (Taris, et al., 2020).

Some studies consider (e.g., Van Beek et al., 2012) that workaholic employees work for instrumental value, so it has been suggested that workaholic employees have a negative self-image and lack self-confidence, leading to a high need to prove themselves at work to achieve a positive self-image (Robinson, 2014). On the other hand, a recent study (Taris, et al., 2020) showed that workaholism promotes introjected regulation and reduces intrinsic motivation across time, as opposed to being an outcome of these individual. Apparently, workaholic employees become more motivated by partially internalized external standards of self-worth and social approval (introjected regulation). So, it highlights the interesting to better understand the relation with work passion, such harmonious as obsessive. Harmonious work passion was associated to work engagement and obsessive work passion was found to be associated with global and specific components of both work engagement and workaholism (Tóth-Király, et al., 2020). According to Vallerand et al. (2003), passion can fuel motivation, improve well-being, and give meaning to everyday life. However, it can also arouse negative emotions, lead to inflexible persistence, and interfere with achieving balance. In this sense, the author proposed a dualistic model of passion for work composed of harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Work passion research most frequently utilizes the dualistic model of passion, which asserts two types of passion that differ based on the internalization of passion into one’s identity: harmonious (adaptive) and obsessive (maladaptive) passion (Smith et al., 2022). These two types of passion depend on how the representation of the activity was internalized in the employees´ identity and are associated with different results, as well as with different contextual and dispositional antecedents (Salessi, et al., 2017).

Studies have shown that harmonious passion for work promotes more adaptive results than obsessive passion for various cognitive, affective, and behavioral results (Vallerand, 2008). Individuals with a passion for work have high levels of performance and innovation behaviors at work (Alfrian, 2018; McAllister et al., 2017). There are also some studies (e.g., Birkeland, & Buch, 2015 [citing Liu et al., 2011]; Forest et al., 2011) that specifically point out that harmonious passion contributes to the explanation of high levels of affective commitment.

Thus, it is considered important to know the relationship between passion for work and individual consequences. In this way, the authors seek to analyze passion for work as an antecedent of workaholism and, in terms of consequences, burnout and well-being.