Heavy Work Investment, Workaholism, Servant Leadership, and Organizational Outcomes: A Study among Italian Workers

Abstract

Heavy Work Investment (HWI) is a construct that comprises both workaholism and work engagement. We tested a path analysis model on 364 Italian workers, with servant leadership as a predictor of HWI and HWI as a predictor of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB) and Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWB). We also performed ANOVAs and MANOVAs. Among the main findings, servant leadership is a positive predictor of both workaholism and work engagement. Work engagement is a positive predictor of OCB and a negative predictor of CWB. Conversely, workaholism, is a positive predictor of CWB, but it does not predict OCB. Hence, we encourage implementing soft-skills interventions aimed at making leaders aware of the different worker types in their organization to develop tailored measures to foster work engagement rather than workaholism. Also, we recommend controlling for work engagement when analyzing workaholism, given the different findings that arose when controlling or not controlling for work engagement.