Stress in Highly Demanding IT Jobs: Transformational ... - APA PsycNET

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 2013, Vol. 18, No. 3, 252–261

© 2013 American Psychological Association 1076-8998/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0033085

Stress in Highly Demanding IT Jobs: Transformational Leadership Moderates the Impact of Time Pressure on Exhaustion and Work–Life Balance Christine J. Syrek, Ella Apostel, and Conny H. Antoni

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University of Trier

The objective of this article is to investigate transformational leadership as a potential moderator of the negative relationship of time pressure to work–life balance and of the positive relationship between time pressure and exhaustion. Recent research regards time pressure as a challenge stressor; while being positively related to motivation and performance, time pressure also increases employee strain and decreases well-being. Building on the Job Demand-Resources model, we hypothesize that transformational leadership moderates the relationships between time pressure and both employees’ exhaustion and work–life balance such that both relationships will be weaker when transformational leadership is higher. Of seven information technology organizations in Germany, 262 employees participated in the study. Established scales for time pressure, transformational leadership, work–life balance, and exhaustion were used, all showing good internal consistencies. The results support our assumptions. Specifically, we find that under high transformational leadership the impact of time pressure on exhaustion and work–life balance was less strong. The results of this study suggest that, particularly under high time pressure, transformational leadership is an important factor for both employees’ work–life balance and exhaustion. Keywords: job demands, time pressure, transformational leadership, emotional exhaustion, work–life balance

try and health care sector) of employees feeling pressured to work more in the same time (DGB, Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, 2011). In the IT sector, work councils overlooking working hours and overtime regulations are the exception rather than the rule (Artus, Boehm, Luecking, & Trinczek, 2009). Scholars addressing employees in IT find that the level of exhaustion is particularly high (Hetland, Sandal, & Johnson, 2007). In addition, the interplay between work and private life is affected: research shows that employees who are confronted with time pressure report problems with balancing the two life domains (e.g., Callan, 2007; Guillaume & Pochic, 2009; Perrons, Fagan, McDowell, Ray, & Ward, 2007; van der Lippe, 2007; Watts, 2009). This in turn causes high costs for organizations because of sick leave and employee absence (Clausen, Nielsen, Gomes Carneiro, & Borg, 2012), and in the long run, results in higher health care costs (Ganster, Fox, & Dwyer, 2001). According to LePine, Podsakoff, and LePine (2005), time pressure is seen as an exemplary challenge stressor. While having a considerable impact on strain, challenge stressors are indeed beneficial as they are also associated with high motivation and improved performance. Thus, rather than advising managers to reduce or eliminate challenge stressors because of their effect on strain, research faces the task of identifying variables that are able to moderate the associated strains (LePine et al., 2005). Leadership is viewed as one of the “single biggest factors contributing to employee perceptions in the workplace and workforce engagement” (Wang & Walumbwa, 2007, p. 399), which makes it a potentially influential moderator of the relationship between time demands and employees’ well-being. Accordingly, Bakker and Demerouti (2007) summarize studies showing that the

In many of today’s jobs, employees are confronted with high demands. Particularly in the information technology (IT) sector, because of globalization, outsourcing, and increasing competition, employees are under ever-escalating pressure to meet deadlines and reduce response time to customer requests (e.g., Salanova, Peiró, & Schaufeli, 2002). Time pressure is one of the most influential stressors and produces poor-well being for the employee (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Even though the German “Working Hours Act” lays down the maximum length of the working day (8 hr) and regulates overtime, most organizations in Germany have increased working time since 2005 (Hans Boeckler Stiftung, 2008). Green (2001) showed that in the late 20th century, 75% of professional employees were already reporting to be working very hard or as hard as they could. Moreover, a representative study by the Federation of German Trade Unions indicates that 63% of employees in Germany feel that their work has intensified over the last years and that they experienced more time pressure (DGB, Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, 2011). This is particularly the case for employees working in the IT sector: comparing the branches, the IT sector ranks third place (after construction indus-

Christine J. Syrek, Ella Apostel, and Conny H. Antoni, Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany. This study is part of the research network project “Allwiss–Working, Learning, Living in the Field of Knowledge Work,” supported by a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christine J. Syrek, Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Trier, D-54286 Trier, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] 252


STRESS IN HIGHLY DEMANDING IT JOBS

quality of the relationship with one’s leader, leaders’ appreciation, support, or effective feedback may act as moderators between high job demands and employees’ well-being. Building on these considerations, we propose that specifically transformational leadership is a potential moderator variable. Transformational leadership refers to leaders motivating and empowering employees, supporting and challenging them to develop new skills, enabling them to face problems and find creative solutions, recognizing good performance, having an inspiring vision of the future, and acting on a personal level with the employee (Bass, 1985; Bass & Riggio, 2006; Shin & Zhou, 2003), which is related with less exhaustion (Corrigan, Diwan, Campion, & Rashid, 2002; Hetland et al., 2007) and associated with higher levels of work–life balance (Munir, Nielsen, Garde, Albertsen, & Carneiro, 2012). Transformational leadership not only incorporates the behaviors that Bakker and Demerouti term as essential to reduce the negative effect of job demands, but specifically aims at attending to employee’ needs, providing constructive feedback and fostering a climate for individual growth (Bass, 1985; Wang & Walumbwa, 2007). These behaviors might enable employees to perceive time pressure as less threatening and to better cope with this demand. Therefore, we expect that transformational leadership may influence the impact of time pressure on both work–life balance and exhaustion. The purpose of this research is to examine the assumed moderating effect of transformational leadership on the negative relationship between time pressure and work–life balance, as well as on the positive relationship between time pressure and exhaustion. Thus, our research contributes to previous work in several ways: First, we analyze interaction effects between time pressure and transformational leadership on work–life balance and exhaustion. While previous authors have pointed to the main effects of (supportive) leadership and time pressure for employees’ work–family conflict (e.g., Thompson, Beauvais, & Lyness, 1999), our study provides insight into transformational leadership as a moderator of the stressor–strain relation. Especially in the IT sector where time pressure is high (Hetland et al., 2007), the identification of transformational leadership as a protective factor might lead to important practical implications. Second, in line with Bakker and Demerouti’s (2007) argument that predictors of negative and positive outcomes are not always identical, our study provides insight into exhaustion as an indicator of impaired well-being and includes satisfaction with work–life balance as a positive outcome. Widmer, Semmer, Kaelin, Jacobshagen, and Meier (2012) point out that positive and negative indicators of well-being are not opposite to one another, as they may co-occur and each “deserves attention in its own right” (p. 424). Third, by including work–life balance we add to research exploring the interplay of work and private life domain (Demerouti, Bakker, & Bulters, 2004; Guest, 2002), rather than limiting the effect to outcomes in the work context.

Time Pressure as a Challenge Stressor Bakker and Demerouti (2007) assume that specific jobs show a pattern of demands and resources. The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2003; Demerouti, Bakker, De Jonge, Janssen, & Schaufeli, 2001; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001) defines job demands as physical, psychological, social, and organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical and/or psychological effort and are

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therefore associated with certain physiological and/or psychological costs. Job demands can turn into stressors when employees are not able to recover from the effort necessary to meet the demand (Meijman & Mulder, 1998). More recently, LePine et al. (2005) called to attention that work demands might be appraised as hindrances or challenges. Building on the work of Lazarus (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and Vroom (1964), they point out that employees who face challenge stressors are more likely expected to be able to cope with the demand by increasing their effort. For hindrance stressors, the increased effort deployed to cope with the demand is related to a low likelihood to meet the demand. Therefore, individuals are not motivated to expend extra effort to deal with hindrance stressors. We view time pressure following Roe and Zijlstra’s (2000) definition of work pressure as a cognitive evaluation resulting from the reflection on the amount of work to be done in relation to perceived capacity or time available. Time pressure can be classified as a challenge stressor, as successful coping in the form of increased effort can also lead to an increased sense of personal accomplishment and recognition (LePine et al., 2005). Challenge stressors as time pressure are seen by employees to hold opportunity for achievement and development (Podsakoff, LePine, & LePine, 2007). As challenge stressors confirm employees’ selfworth and increase feelings of competence (Widmer et al., 2012), Podsakoff et al. (2007) and Widmer et al. (2012) find that time pressure is positively related to positive outcomes (job satisfaction and commitment; Podsakoff et al. (2007); positive attitude toward life, Widmer et al., 2012). While challenge stressors increase motivation and performance, these relationships are negative for hindrance stressors (LePine et al., 2005). Nevertheless, challenge stressors as well as hindrance stressors have positive relationships with strains. Both are associated with emotional and cognitive effort deployed in the coping process (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Widmer et al. regard time pressure as a prototypical challenge stressor and show, in line with the challenge– hindrance framework (LePine et al., 2005), that time pressure is associated with strain. In addition, Podsakoff et al. find in their meta-analysis support for the assumption that challenge stressors such as time pressure are positively related to strain. This health impairment process has been confirmed in previous studies, showing in several organizational settings that the experience of high time pressure exhausts employees and leads to health problems (e.g., Teuchmann, Totterdell, & Parker, 1999; Toppinen–Tanner, Kalimo, & Mutanen, 2002; for a review see Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). Specifically in the IT sector, employees mostly work on projects with tight schedules and information from and to customers as well as about new products is flowing with increasing speed. Employees have to deal with unpredictable difficulties and the need to stay up-to-date. In today’s digital era, information is received (almost) in real time, and consequently time frames to respond to customer requests shrink because of organizations’ goal to compete in the top of the league (Crawford, 2005). One could assume that, as half of the employees in Germany work in organizations with a work council representing employees’ interests and overseeing overtime, time pressure is not a severe problem in the German IT sector. However, even if working time is overseen by work councils, employees feel that their work has intensified (DGB, Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, 2011).


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SYREK, APOSTEL, AND ANTONI

Moreover, Artus et al. (2009) find that German IT organizations very seldom have work councils controlling working hours and that participation in a work council is actually seen as a career risk. Employment contracts of collective labor agreements are not even a remote reference point for the IT sector and employees willingly accept phases with excessive working hours (Artus et al., 2009). Therefore, time pressure is exceptionally high for employees in the IT sector. As strong relationships to exhaustion are consistently reported (Demerouti et al., 2004; Toppinen–Tanner et al., 2002), it is not surprising that IT organizations have to deal with high absenteeism and personnel turnover, which are significant disadvantages in a sector competing for qualified personnel. Therefore, we expect in line with the challenge-hindrance framework (LePine et al., 2005) that employees are more exhausted when they are confronted with time pressure at work. Moreover, we assume that employees who feel that their work is increasingly making greater demands on them and perceive that the pressure at work rises, are less satisfied with their work–life balance, in accordance to Demerouti et al. (2004) who showed that work pressure causes more work– home interference. Following Ulich and Wiese (2011) and Syrek, Bauer–Emmel, Antoni, and Klusemann (2011), we define work–life balance as employees’ attitude toward their life situation–specifically their satisfaction with their balance between the different areas of life, different roles, and goals. In accordance with Marks and McDermid (1996) we chose to focus on the aspect of balance rather than on one direction of influence. Work–life balance means that employees are satisfied as to how their aspired balance complies with the realized arrangement (Syrek et al., 2011). We chose this concept as it incorporates work–family roles, but also includes roles and goals concerning the whole private life domain and as it focuses on the aspect of balance rather than on conflict (Frone, 2003). In addition, the benefit of this concept is that it highlights the balance between all areas of life that are—at the moment— of importance for the employee and which might vary according to the circumstances (Guest, 2002). Thus, we were able to account for the interindividually different ways of living, different circumstances, and different values attributed to the areas of life. Time pressure threatens the perceived balance, as deploying more effort to meet work demands likely hinders available time to meet important commitments at home (Guest, 2002). Thompson et al. (1999) show that time demands, defined as the extent to which employees experience organizational norms that might interfere with nonwork responsibilities, have an impact on employees’ work–family conflict. Moreover, with regard to the Effort Recovery Model (Meijman & Mulder, 1998) and Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 1998), the experience of time pressure at work also consumes employees’ energy and therefore leads to a greater need to restore these resources during their leisure time. Employees’ private life activities are consequently focused on recovery, which goes along with less time for the fulfillment of home demands and may result in less satisfaction with their work–life balance. While Widmer et al. (2012) show that time pressure is positively related to employees’ positive attitude toward life, we expect in line with Demerouti et al. (2004); Guest (2002), and Thompson et al. (1999) that time pressure hinders employees to balance their life domains and is therefore related to less satisfaction with their work–life balance.

Transformational Leadership as a Moderator In contrast to job demands, job resources refer according to the JD-R model to physical, psychological, social, and organizational aspects of the job that are functional for achieving work goals, reducing job demands and the associated costs, and also for stimulating personal growth and development (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). This motivational process implies the assumption that adequate job resources promote work engagement and commitment (Demerouti, Bakker, De Jonge, Janssen, & Schaufeli, 2001; Salanova et al., 2002). One of the most important propositions of the JD-R model is that resources can moderate the impact of job demands on stress reactions (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). This moderator variable can impact the tendency of the organization to generate the stressor, influence perceptions of the stressor, alter responses to the stressor, and reduce health-impairing consequences of the response (Kahn & Byosiere, 1992). Most research has analyzed social support as a moderator variable (Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). Within the broader concept of supportive leadership and in accordance with Wang and Walumbwa (2007) we see transformational leadership acting as a moderator variable. However, going beyond social support, transformational leadership is characterized by Bass (1985) as providing meaning and challenges to the employees. Essential transformational leadership behaviors are communicating an attractive vision, acting as a role-model and responding to individual employee’s values, needs, and goals to empower their employees, thereby fostering a climate of trust (Bass, 1985; Bass & Riggio, 2006). The primary factors of the transformational leadership model conceptualized by Bass (1985) include idealized influence attributed and idealized influence behavior (employees identify with the leader, admire, and trust him or her), inspirational motivation (leaders communicate an attractive vision, provide meaning, and challenge to employees’ work), intellectual stimulation (employees are encouraged to reframe problems and creatively find new solutions), and individualized consideration (leader– employee interactions are personalized as the leader pays attention to employee’s needs, goals, and values, and acts as a mentor). Building on Brown’s (1994) statement that transformational leadership is increasingly required in an evolving, technological society, Crawford (2005) points out that “we are moving from controlled change to accelerated change nearly beyond control. Both attitude and behavior must be the target of transformational leaders” (p. 5). Particularly in the IT sector, transformational leadership practices are essential to motivate employees as they “offer challenging tasks concerning learning about new technology features, inspire subordinates’ commitment for proposing technology enhancements, attend to individual concerns about IT-related changes, and . . . exhibit personal attractiveness when communicating about potential technology changes” (Yurov & Potter, 2006, p. 436). The reasons why particularly transformational leadership can act as a moderator of the relationship between time pressure and both work–life balance and exhaustion are multifarious. First, Bakker and Demerouti (2007) argue that leaders’ recognition and support may put demands in a new perspective. In addition, McCauly (1987) points out that transformational leaders reframe stressful situations into problems to be solved. Thus, transformational leadership might temper the negative influence of time

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pressure by encouraging employees to see the demand as a challenge that can be accomplished and task completion seems achievable once more. Second, transformational leaders instill confidence in the employee to be able to finish their tasks and attain the objectives (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Research shows that transformational leadership is especially effective in situations of high uncertainty and unstructured context (Felfe, 2006). Transformational leaders continuously develop and empower their employees by working on their strengths and weaknesses (Bass, 1985). Hence, employees learn new behaviors and develop skills to cope with time pressure, which therefore becomes more controllable for the employee and should lead to less exhaustion and more satisfaction with the balance between work and home demands. Transformational leaders give constructive feedback instead of passing on their concerns or worries about unfulfilled tasks (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Thus, the leader helps employees to further improve their coping behavior and deploy fewer resources to ineffective coping behavior. Third, transformational leaders are attentive to employees’ needs for recognition, which encourages employees to continue in the chosen direction and helps to maintain motivation (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Fourth, Bakker and Demerouti (2007) point out that the negative effect of a stressor is reduced when employees understand the reasons for the presence of the stressor. Transformational leaders communicate a sense of purpose, which helps employees to comprehend the development of the stressful situation (Rowold & Schlotz, 2009). Thus, speaking in terms of LePine et al. (2005) who use expectancy theory concepts (Vroom, 1964) to explain how stressors can influence work motivation, we suggest that with the support of transformational leadership, employees are more likely to expect that increased effort and goal orientation will enable them to cope with time pressure (expectancy) and to have confidence that successful coping with time pressure will lead to goal achievement or task completion (desired outcome; instrumentality), which will be appreciated by the leader (valence). Therefore, we expect that transformational leadership acts as a moderator of the relationship between time pressure and both work–life balance and exhaustion. The direct but not interactive effect of general leadership support and time demands as components of organizational culture on work–family conflict has already been acknowledged in the literature. Several studies on work–family conflict indicate the importance of leaders taking employees’ family situation into account and providing family friendly benefits. Thompson et al. (1999) contribute by showing that supervisors being perceived as supportive and sensitive to employees’ family responsibilities is related to employees’ work–family conflict. In addition, the work of Allen (2001) and Hammer, Kossek, Yragi, Bodner, and Hanson (2009) indicate the importance of family supportive supervisor behavior for employees’ work–family conflict. Major and Morganson (2011) highlight the role of leader–member exchange in supporting work–family coping. The concept of transformational leadership is not the same as supportive leadership and adds a different facet to work–life balance. While transformational leadership incorporates taking employees’ private life, their values and goals into account, and thus supports employees, this leadership behavior moreover includes setting high-performance expectations and challenging employees. Employees are encouraged to do more than they originally expected to do (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Transformational leaders motivate employees to develop their compe-

tencies, to think creative and critical, and empower them to handle challenges and build on their strengths, which will affect not only work related outcomes, but also aspects of their private life (e.g., their self-efficacy beliefs; Felfe & Schyns, 2002). Thompson et al. (1999) contributed by incorporating managerial support and time demands as well as career consequences into a framework of organizational culture variables, which both have an impact on employees’ work–family conflict. However, in their regression analysis, time demands and career consequences significantly predict work–family conflict while managerial support is not significant when analyzed simultaneously. Our study specifically analyzes the interaction between transformational leadership and time pressure, as we believe that transformational leadership is a potential moderator of the relationship between time pressure and work–life balance as well as exhaustion. In summary, under high transformational leadership, time pressure should lead to less exhaustion, as employees deploy their effort more considerately, see the demand as accomplishable, work more motivated toward an agreed-upon goal, and receive support and recognition from their leader. Moreover, this moderator function is also expected to impact the relationship between time pressure and employees’ satisfaction with their work–life balance, as transformational leaders take employees’ personal situation into account, build on their strengths, and appreciate employees’ efforts so that they may be better able to fulfill their work demands, and therefore have more energy left to engage in private life activities and duties, which results in a better work–life balance. Hypothesis 1: Transformational leadership will moderate the positive association between time pressure and exhaustion such that this relationship will be weaker when transformational leadership is higher. Hypothesis 2: Transformational leadership will moderate the negative association between time pressure and work–life balance such that this relationship will be weaker when transformational leadership is higher.

Method Sample and Procedure Seven German organizations in the IT sector, which offer softand/or hardware solutions, participated in an online study. Data were obtained in a project focusing on employees’ work–learn–life balance. Four organizations were medium-sized, neither had a work council and in all of the organizations, the management board was formed by the owners. The three bigger companies had a work council and had agreed to participate with their core IT departments. In total, 262 out of 347 employees (76%), who were invited to the online survey, answered the questionnaire. Among the employees were software developer, sales, and field representatives, as well as marketing professionals; 58% of the employees were men. Employees were between 15 and 66 years old (M ! 37.1 years, SD ! 10.1 years). The minimum number of years they had spent within the organization was 1 year; the maximum was 26 years (M ! 7.4 years, SD ! 5.6 years). Most respondents had a permanent contract (91%) and worked full time (87%). Slightly less than half (49%) were married, 28% of those not married had

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a partner, and 23% were single. In the sample, 46% had between one and six children.


Measures All questionnaires were administered in German using scales well-validated in German. As the original leadership scale was in English, two experts translated and retranslated the items to achieve the greatest possible correspondence. All scales had an acceptable internal consistency. As for demands, time pressure was measured with a 5-item scale derived from the Instrument for Stress Oriented Task Analysis (ISTA; Semmer, Zapf, & Dunckel, 1999), a well-established instrument in German-speaking countries (cf. Sonnentag, Binnewies, & Mojza, 2010). Items measuring time pressure, such as “How often do you have to work faster than normal in order to complete your work?” and “How often does it happen that you go home late because of too much work?,” were answered on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always); Cronbach’s " was .86. Transformational leadership was assessed using 18 items from the scale by Rafferty and Griffin (2004, 2006) such as “My leader challenges me to think about old problems in new ways” “My leader behaves in a manner, which is thoughtful of my personal needs” (Cronbach’s " for the overall scale ! .95). Responses could be given on a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Although Rafferty and Griffin (2004, 2006) provide evidence for differentiation of the facets, the dimensionality of transformational leadership is controversially discussed in the literature (Bono & Judge, 2003; Judge & Piccolo, 2004; Wang & Walumbwa, 2007). The dimensions in our study were highly interrelated (r ! .68 to .92), consistent with other studies on transformational leadership (Avolio, Bass, Walumbwa, & Zhu, 2004). In accordance with many prior studies (Bass, Avolio, Jung, & Berson, 2003; Judge & Bono, 2000; Judge & Piccolo, 2004; Wang & Walumbwa, 2007) we therefore combined the factors to a global scale of transformational leadership. Our hypotheses and tests reflect this perspective. Exhaustion was measured with a 7-item scale of Demerouti and Nachreiner (1998) on a 4-point scale from 1 (fully disagree) to 4 (fully agree) with items such as “After my work I usually feel worn out and weary” and “After my work I usually feel totally fit for my leisure activities” (Cronbach’s " was .83). To assess work–life balance we used a scale by Syrek et al. (2011), which consists of five items reflecting employees’ satisfaction with their achieved balance between work and private life, answered on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Sample items asked scale-checked questions such as “I am satisfied with the balance between my work and private life” and “It is difficult for me to balance my work and private life” and “I am meeting the requirements of both my work and my private life” (Cronbach’s " ! .90). To examine if the multi-item measures represent distinct constructs, we analyzed a four-factor model (time pressure, transformational leadership, exhaustion, and work–life balance) with all items loading only on their intended factors. The latent factors were allowed to correlate. The model fit was #2 ! 418.866, df ! 224, p $ .000, RMSEA ! .057 (CI ! .049 –.066), CFI ! .940, NNFI ! .932, SRMR ! .057). For the NNFI (nonnormed fit index) and CFI (confirmatory fit index) values above .90 indicate

acceptable fit values (Schermelleh–Engel, Moosbrugger, & Mueller, 2003), an RMSEA (root mean square error of approximation) of $ .05 indicates a good, between .05 and .08 an acceptable model fit (Schermelleh–Engel et al., 2003). For the SRMR (standardized root-mean-square residual) a value $ .08 is considered a good fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Regarding all fit indicators, the fit can be considered as between good and acceptable. All items of the predictor, moderator, and dependent variable loaded significantly on their respective latent factors (factor loadings ranged from .62 to .86, with critical ratios ranging from .55 to .91.). The fit is better compared with a one-factor model, %#2 ! 1254.511, %df ! 6, p $ .000, and all alternative models. Thus, even though exhaustion and work–life balance were highly correlated, these findings indicate that all variables could indeed be differentiated at the construct level.

Results In line with the JD-R model and our hypothesis, we proposed that transformational leadership moderates the impact of time pressure on exhaustion and work–life balance. To test our hypothesis, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted for each of the two dependent variables (exhaustion, work–life balance). The analyses revealed whether transformational leadership moderates the relationship between time pressure and both exhaustion and work–life balance. In line with Sonnentag et al. (2010) we controlled for age, sex, tenure, full time or part time, and living with a partner, as they might influence our predictor or outcome variable, and entered these variables in the first step of the regression. Time pressure and transformational leadership was centered in accordance with the procedure outlined by Aiken and West (1991). In the second step, we included time pressure and transformational leadership, in the third step, the interaction term was added (Aiken & West, 1991). We then tested two-way interaction effects in a series of hierarchical regression analyses for each of the two dependent variables. In other words, we analyzed the extent to which the interaction between time pressure and transformational leadership explained a unique proportion of the variance in exhaustion and work–life balance, after controlling for the main effects. Interactions were analyzed by plotting the regression equations at 1 SD below and above the mean of the moderator. After plotting, we used t tests to determine the significance of the simple regression lines (simple slope analysis, cf. Aiken & West, 1991). Descriptive statistics for the predictor, moderator, and dependent variable as well as the correlations between them are shown in Table 1. Table 2 displays the results for exhaustion as an outcome variable. There was a significant main effect of time pressure, indicating that employees feel more exhaustion under high time pressure (& ! .56, p $ .001). We also found a significant main effect of transformational leadership, revealing that employees experience less exhaustion under high transformational leadership (& ! '.22, p $ .001). Most importantly, the interaction term between time pressure and transformational leadership (& ! '.13, p $ .05) entered in the final step was significant (%R2 ! .02, p $ .05). We examined the pattern of this interaction effect with simple slope tests (Aiken & West, 1991). At high levels of transformational leadership (1 SD above the mean), time pressure was positively linked with exhaustion (& ! .24, t ! 5.43, p $ .001); at low

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Table 1 Descriptive Statistics, Inter-Correlations, and Reliabilities


1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Age Sexa Tenure Full time or part timeb Living with a partnerc Time pressure Transformational leadership Exhaustion Work–life balance

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

37.43 0.39 7.60 .865 .800 4.37 4.89 4.65 3.76

9.88 0.49 5.63 0.34 0.40 0.89 0.80 1.06 0.83

'.08 .62!!! '.20!! .30!!! '.13! .06 '.14! .19!!

'.05 '.35!! .00 '.13! '.03 '.06 .00

'.13! .14! '.03 .06 '.08 .12

'.13! .23!! '.06 .19!! '.11

'.01 .11 '.11 .19!!

(.86) '.01 .53!!! '.44!!!

(.95) '.26!!! .32!!!

(.83) '.72!!!

(.90)

Note. N ! 262. Sex (0 ! men, 1 ! women). b full time or part time (0 ! part time, 1 ! full time). p $ .05. !! p $ .01. !!! p $ .001.

a

c

living with a partner (0 ! no, 1 ! yes).

!

levels of transformational leadership (1 SD below the mean), time pressure (& ! .41, t ! 9.20, p $ .001) was even more strongly related to exhaustion. This interaction effect illustrated in Figure 1 indicates that transformational leadership moderates the positive effect of time pressure on exhaustion. Considering work–life balance as an outcome variable (see Table 2) results show that of the control variables, living with a partner was positively related to work–life balance. Again, both main effects were significant: time pressure was negatively associated with work–life balance (& ! '.43, p $ .001), while transformational leadership was positively related (& ! .27, p $ .001). Thus, persons experiencing low time pressure and high levels of transformational leadership reported a significant increase in work–life balance. The interaction term between time pressure and transformational leadership added to the prediction of work–life balance (%R2 ! .01, p $ .05). Simple slope tests (Aiken & West, 1991) indicated that at high levels of transformational leadership (1 SD above the mean), time pressure was negatively related to work–life balance (& ! '.39, t ! '3.94, p $ .001); at low levels of transformational leadership (1 SD below the mean), time pressure (& ! '.63, t ! '8.19, p $ .001) was even more strongly associated with work–life balance. Thus, transformational

leadership moderates the negative effect of time pressure on work– life balance (see Figure 2). Taken together, Hypothesis 1 and 2 were supported. Transformational leadership moderated the negative impact of time pressure on employees’ experience of exhaustion and work–life balance.

Discussion Theoretical Implications Our study contributes to research on stress by offering support for the assumption that the negative impact of time pressure on employees’ well-being (i.e., exhaustion and work–life balance) can be moderated by transformational leadership. This finding is important, given that time pressure is not only a stressor exhibiting negative effects on employees’ well-being, but a challenge stressor that is associated with high motivation and performance (LePine et al., 2005), and it therefore seems essential to identify variables that moderate the negative impact on exhaustion and work–life balance. With regard to previous research on social support summarized by Bakker and Demerouti (2007), transformational leader-

Table 2 Results From Hierarchical Regression Analysis Predicting Exhaustion and Work–Life Balance Exhaustion

Step 1 Age Sexa Tenure Full time or part timeb Living with a partnerc Step 2 Time pressure Transf. leadership Step 3 Time pressure ( transf. leadership a !

Sex (0 ! men, 1 ! women). p $ .05. !!! p $ .001.

b

B

SE B

.00 .03 '.00 .09 '.13

.00 .07 .01 .10 .08

'.01 '.03 '.01 .06 '.09

.34 '.12

.04 .03

.56!!! '.22!!!

&

Work–life balance 2

R

.05

'.08

.39

2

%R

SE B

.01 '.06 '.01 .12 .39

.01 .13 .01 .20 .16

.09 '.03 '.03 .04 .15!

'.53 .29

.08 .06

'.43!!! .27!!!

&

.05

.35!!!

.41 .02! .03 '.13! Total F(8, 249) ! 17.55, p $ .001

full time or part time (0 ! part time, 1 ! full time).

B

c

.14

R2

%R2

.05

.05

.33

.28!!!

.34 .01! .07 .12! Total F(8, 249) ! 13.373, p $ .001

living with a partner (0 ! no, 1 ! yes).

258


Practical Implications


Figure 1. Interaction effect between time pressure and transformational leadership on exhaustion.

ship—with its respective behaviors that attend to employees’ needs, empower them to develop new skills and motivate them to reframe problems as challenges—appears to be an effective moderator variable. LePine et al.’s (2005) application of Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory on the understanding of stressors leads us to contend that employees who experience their leader as transformational are more likely to perceive themselves as able to cope with a (challenge) stressor, have more confidence that their coping behavior will lead to desired outcomes, and receive support and appreciation by the leader, thus influencing employees’ beliefs on expectancy, instrumentality, and perception of valence. Our results show that transformational leadership buffers the impact of time pressure on employees’ exhaustion and work–life balance. When employees are confronted with the challenge of solving problems and finishing tasks in a short amount of time, transformational leadership reduces the strain (i.e., exhaustion) associated with the stressor. Moreover, the study reveals that leadership is not only able to moderate the impact of time pressure on exhaustion, a negative outcome variable, but also on satisfaction with work– life balance; a positive outcome variable. Bakker and Demerouti point out that most research focuses on negative outcomes, yet the assumptions of the JD-R model go further and include effects on positive outcomes. In our research we propose that feeling pressured at work is related to less satisfaction with work–life balance. The Effort Recovery Model (Meijman & Mulder, 1998) and Conservation of Resources Model (Hobfoll, 1998) assume that employees deploy resources at work when dealing with a stressor, which leads to a greater need to recover and restore resources during leisure time. We propose that employees who feel stressed at work are less satisfied with their work–life balance, particularly in the absence of transformational leadership, as their leisure time activities are required to focus on the restoration of these resources rather than fulfilling their home demands. Transformational leadership behaviors such as considering employees’ needs and personal situation, supporting them, and developing their skills, strengthen employees’ beliefs and abilities to be able to handle time pressure and to anticipate positive outcomes after successfully coping with the stressor. Time pressure is therefore less threatening to employees’ resources. Thus, employees are more satisfied with how they fulfill work and private life demands, and able to balance the two domains more effectively and satisfactorily. With this dual focus on how transformational leadership can affect both sides of an employee’s life, we not only addressed work-related variables, but also the interplay between work and private life.

Bakker and Demerouti (2007) argue that from a practical perspective it is essential to answer the question of whether resources are able to buffer the effect of job demands. If the buffer effect finds support, some authors even advice organizations to enhance the resources instead of altering the level of the challenge stressor (Van Vegchel, de Jonge, Bosma, & Schaufeli, 2005, cf. Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). As time pressure is associated with an increase of motivation and performance (LePine et al., 2005), and organizations are often not able or willing to reduce this job demand, finding moderator variables is pivotal to improving employees’ well-being in today’s forecast of more rather than less time demands. This holds true, particularly for the IT sector where the speed in which information flows continues to increase, new technical developments overtake each other, employees are under immense pressure to be up-to date, and time pressure therefore threatens employees’ well-being. LePine et al. (2005) characterize time pressure as a challenge stressor—a demanding obstacle that can be overcome even though it requires energy to cope with and causes strain. To overcome the stressor it is important that employees expect to be able to cope with the demand—supported by transformational leaders who instill confidence in their employees, motivate and appreciate them, and empower them to develop new skills. To gain effective coping mechanisms to deal successfully with the stressors typical of today’s IT sector, transformational leaders support employees to work on their strengths, develop their employees, and give constructive feedback. Lastly, transformational leaders are able to articulate an inspiring goal, which is worth accomplishing even with much effort, and recognize employees’ behavior, which enhances the task’s valence. Our research shows the consequent, practical importance of leaders who frame demands in the perspective of accomplishable challenges by supporting and enabling employees to deal with time pressure, and who motivate them by recognizing good performance. Avolio, Reichard, Hannah, Walumbwa, and Chan (2009) recently demonstrated that transformational leadership training interventions can be a potent investment with important returns for the organization. Thus, organizations should consider incorporating elements of transformational leadership training in their leader development. Although transformational leadership moderates the impact of time pressure on employee well-being, time pressure is a serious stressor, exhibiting a strong negative relationship to employee strain. Organizations are therefore well-advised to reduce this

Figure 2. Interaction effect between time pressure and transformational leadership on work–life balance.

259


stressor to the extent possible rather than count exclusively on transformational leadership to monitor this stressor.


Limitations and Additional Suggestions for Future Research Our analyses were conducted on cross-sectional data. Thus, no conclusions on the direction of causality can be drawn. Future research could bring a better understanding of causality between time pressure, leadership, and well-being by using longitudinal data. Further, while controversially discussed in the literature (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003; Spector, 2006), we regard it as important to react to the potential of common method variance, which is connected to the use of self-report measures. The occurrence of common method variance was tested by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis with all variables loading on one factor to examine the fit of the model (Korsgaard & Roberson, 1995; Podsakoff et al., 2003), which did not improve the fit. Results from these analyses indicate that common method variance is not a pervasive problem in this study. Another limitation comprises the generalizability of the findings to companies outside of Germany and in different sectors. Even though the perceptual nature of the topic suggests that the idea of transformational leadership influencing the relationship between time pressure and both work–life balance and exhaustion should hold across settings, future research should examine the interrelationships with additional samples and in other organizational contexts. Moreover, other challenge stressors such as task complexity and buffer variables such as support from colleagues may also play an important role for employees’ well-being. Further research should take into account other work demands and include hindrance stressors to shed more light on the moderator effect of leadership. In addition, it would be interesting to examine whether the combination of time pressure and transformational leadership can predict performance and motivational variables. With regard to the dependent variables, exhaustion and work–life balance were highly correlated. While confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the variables could be differentiated, it might be fruitful for future research to further analyze their relationship (i.e., if low work–life balance causes more exhaustion or if a reciprocal relation is more appropriate). To further analyze the challengehindrance framework future research might explore different dimensions of outcomes of challenge stressors. Widmer et al. (2012) suggest considering general and work-related, negative and positive well-being indicators as outcomes, as well as to integrate performance measures.

Conclusion All in all, this study contributes further insight into moderators of the stressor-strain relationship. We analyzed the effect of time pressure on employee exhaustion and work–life balance and contributed to existing research by examining not only main effects, but also the interaction effect of transformational leadership and time pressure. Under high transformational leadership the impact of time pressure on exhaustion and work–life balance was less strong. Thus, our study provides evidence that transformational leadership works as a moderator and suggests that time pressure is

less harmful when employees perceive their leader as transformational. Transformational leadership can therefore be seen as a protective factor in the relationship between stressor and strain.

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Received September 20, 2012 Revision received April 5, 2013 Accepted April 23, 2013 !