The role of a perceived ethical leadership style in the relationship between workaholism and occupational burnout

Abstract

Abstract. Background. Academic literature has shown that working conditions created by ethical leaders might have positive as well as negative consequences for the employees. Research has revealed that it might contribute to employees' workaholism and occupational burnout, but this relationship is still controversial.

Do dimensions of transformational leadership have an effect on workaholism?

“…This finding is congruent with the idea that the demanding management encourages the employees to devote a considerable amount of time and energy to their work, and hence fosters workaholism. Thus, it can be hypothesised that workaholism is likely to develop when the employees perceive that fulfilling and even exceeding the manager's expectations are considered to be indispensable conditions for success and career advancement (Schaufeli, 2016;Morkevičiūtė and Endriulaitienė, 2017;Mazzetti et al, 2014;Bovornusvakool et al, 2012;Moyer et al, 2017). When the excessive amount of energy that workaholics spend at work is not counterbalanced with an appropriate recovery, the employees might eventually exhaust their energy back-up.…”

“…However, these relationships are still controversial. For instance, important antecedents of workaholism are control and pressure applied by the leader (Morkevičiūtė and Endriulaitienė, 2017). As Ojha et al…”

“…In this way, the transformational manager promotes collaboration and does not create a competitive working environment. It is plausible that this creates an unfavourable environment for the development of the employees' workaholism (Morkevičiūtė and Endriulaitienė, 2017). However, the transformational manager may unintentionally act as a "pusher" or "enabler" who encourages heavy work investment of his employees (Schaufeli, 2016).…”

“…The above literature provides more rationales for a positive impact of transformational leadership. Hence, on the basis of Ojha et al (2018), Choi et al (2017) and Morkevičiūtė and Endriulaitienė (2017), the following hypotheses have been formulated: H3. The perceived fostering the acceptance of group goals (as a constituting dimension of transformational leadership) is negatively correlated to workaholism.…”

“…How much importance the employees are going to attach to work often depends on the perception of other authoritative persons. The most influential role models might be leaders of organisations (Vincent-Höper et al, 2012;Krishnan, 2012;Mazzetti et al, 2016;Stare et al, 2013;Morkevičiūtė and Endriulaitienė, 2017). Therefore, when analysing the employees' workaholism, their perception of their managers' leadership style has to be discussed (Stelmokienė and Endriulaitienė, 2015).…”