The job characteristics literature has revealed that job demands can be differentiated into hindrance and challenge demands. However, there has been little consensus on this categorization. Additionally, studies have revealed that job demands can be perceived as hindering and challenging at the same time. The present study aims to bring nuance to this topic by investigating two job demands (i.e., time pressure and emotionally demanding situations) and to what degree they are appraised as challenging and hindering for two occupational groups (i.e., nurses and real estate agents). This study also investigates the impact of emotional dispositions on demand appraisals. A convenience sample (N = 851 Norwegian students) read vignettes and reported their appraisals for six different job situations. A factor analysis revealed that our measures of demand appraisals differed from those reported in previous studies. We therefore labeled the two kinds of appraisals as hindrance-like and challenge-like since they overlap without being identical to the previously reported labels of hindrance and challenge, respectively. Furthermore, we found that job demands were appraised as hindrance-like and challenge-like at the same time but to different degrees. Job demands for core tasks were typically appraised as more challenge-like than hindrance-like. Job demands for non-core tasks were typically appraised as more hindrance-like than challenge-like. Positive trait emotions predicted challenge-like appraisals. By documenting how imagined job demands appear as hindrances and challenges, our study supports previous studies showing that challenge-like demands may play a role in the motivational process in the job demands–resources model. Limitations to vignette studies are discussed.

The study investigates if the job-demands resources (JD-R) model could be improved by including workaholism in its health impairment process. Salient predictors and antecedents of workaholism and work engagement are identified in a sample of 12170 employees at Norwegian universities and university colleges. Structural equation modeling suggested that job demands and job resources relate to workaholism and work engagement, respectively. The results also revealed that both workaholics and work-engaged employees put in more hours at work than was expected of them. We found that workaholism was negatively related to work-related health, whereas work engagement was positively related to work-related health. These findings support the notion of workaholism and work engagement as two different forms of working hard. Finally, we tested the buffer hypothesis that job resources would moderate the effect of job demands on workaholism. The moderations were in the expected direction, but effect sizes were weaker than those typically reported in previous investigations. In conclusion, the present study supports the expansion of including workaholism in the JD-R model.

The present study addresses one of the limitations of the JD-R model, namely, that analyses of the outcomes of the motivational process have largely focused on organizational outcomes and have neglected to investigate the associations between job resources, work engagement and health-related outcomes. Specifically, the aim of this paper is to show that health-related indicators may be outcomes of the motivational process in the job demands-resources (JD-R) model. We achieve this through a two-wave panel study with a two-year time lag. The results provide longitudinal evidence that two well-established job resources (i.e., social support and feedback) predicted work engagement, that work engagement was negatively related to sick leave and that this relation was mediated by subjective health. By showing that health-related indicators could also be outcomes of the motivational process in the JD-R model, we have strengthened the model.