Betriebliches Gesundheitsmanagement: Gesundheit und Wohlbefinden am Arbeitsplatz (German Edition)

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Volume 5 Issue 4 Dec , pp. This as well as the constant need to reapply for jobs because of non-permanent contracts results in very high quantitative and qualitative job demands and consequently in time pressure Semmer et al. However, the exclusive description of the status quo is not sufficient. High job demands like temporary employment have the potential to negatively influence employees' health e.

At the same time, health-related behavior is a mediator between working conditions and health e. Thus, it is necessary to analyze the relationship between working conditions and health-related behavior; in this case the health-related behavior of academic employees, to further investigate and quantify this negative effects on health in a specific field.

Presenteeism a health-related behavior is a serious issue in the workplace. A representative study in Germany showed that fifty percent of the employees worked at least two times within the past 12 months while being ill. Moreover, presenteeism has negative correlations with monetary and health outcomes like productivity and decreased future health and therefore future absence from work; Taloyan et al. At the same time, the pressure to be present at the workplace induced by supervisors is positively related to presenteeism in employees even if absence would be legitimate, for example, because of serious illness.

This pressure is primarily high in organizations with low replaceability e. Also, time pressure and accumulation of work are probable in the context of low replaceability and are positively correlated with presenteeism Aronsson and Gustafsson, ; Demerouti et al. These direct links seem to point out to mediating mechanisms explaining the relationship between job demands triggering attendance pressure e. However, the understanding of these mediating mechanisms Miraglia and Johns, and of the interactions between different job demands van Woerkom et al.

Therefore, the first aim of this study is to examine the relationships between specific job demands supervisorial pressure, time pressure, and accumulation of work and the health behavior of academic staff in case of illness, specifically in the form of presenteeism. A second aim is to contribute to the literature by clarifying how these different job demands interact and how these interactions may be related to presenteeism in the scientific field.

The results may contribute to both, future presenteeism research as well as the development of guidelines for practitioners. We will first introduce a behavior based concept of presenteeism. Subsequently, antecedents of presenteeism within the context of the job demands-resources framework JD-R; Bakker et al.

Finally, we will develop our conceptual model Figure 1 as well as our hypotheses. Our conceptual model states a positive direct and indirect relationship via time pressure between supervisorial pressure and presenteeism as well as a moderation of the relationship between supervisorial pressure and time pressure through accumulation of work.

The conceptual model for presenteeism, including the respective hypotheses. Many different definitions of presenteeism are used in the literature. For example, presenteeism is defined as excellent attendance, working with productivity loss, or as the opposite of absenteeism, which is the absence from work for an overview see Johns, The first advantage is that it is a completely behavior based concept that does neither include any antecedents e. Thus, antecedents and consequences can be analyzed empirically and independently from presenteeism, which is important for the scientific utility Johns, This is important because presenteeism can have positive or negative consequences.

On the other hand, research found an increasing effect of presenteeism on future suboptimal health and sickness absences Gustafsson and Marklund, ; Taloyan et al. A case of illness can be seen as a loss of resources and therefore as a stressful situation Hobfoll, requiring action coping strategy to avoid further loss e.

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A possible coping strategy may be presenteeism as an attempt to maintain performance and limit detrimental effects due to illness at work. Health status and performance also vary because of present demands stressors and available resources. If the employee is not fully recovered from recent demands, job demands can turn into job stressors Meijman and Mulder, Within the JD-R Bakker et al. According to the COR theory Hobfoll, people draw on other resources like their health, wellbeing, or social capital in stressful situations, in order to avoid a net loss of resources coping.

Because coping is always associated with the use of appreciated resources, coping can initiate a vicious circle of loss and negative net investments for persons with already small repertoires of resources. They therefore try to avoid the loss until all resources are used up Hobfoll, In fact, job demands may be related to organizational outcomes like presenteeism through strain Bakker and Demerouti, ; Demerouti et al. Presenteeism may have negative consequences for the health of employees Taloyan et al.

Thus, it is important to analyze under which conditions employees are more inclined to show presenteeism as a coping strategy. For this purpose, the relationships between presenteeism and important job demands in the scientific field, namely supervisorial pressure, accumulation of work, and time pressure, were analyzed conceptual model in Figure 1. Thus, PhD students and postdocs may take into account the behavior of their leader when deciding to come to work or stay at home in case of illness.

These decisions could be specific for the scientific field, because of the supervisory mentoring relationship between the leader e. Leaders in science may be not only supervisors but mentors to the PhD students and postdocs. Relationships of mentors and mentees can be close personal relationships providing vocational and psycho-social support Scandura, and thus, are positively correlated with personal and career-related outcomes for both parties like reduced psychological strain and increased scholarly performance Green and Bauer, ; Eby et al.

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However, if the immediate supervisor is also the mentor e. The decision to work while being ill, for example, has an impact on both, the PhD students and on their professors. The PhD students may have non-permanent jobs and for this reason deadlines to do their doctoral theses. Also, nobody else can write the doctoral theses. Thus, work would accumulate if the PhD students stay at home while being ill and time pressure would increase.

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Moreover, the professors may have an interest in successful joint publications with the PhD students to enhance their standing. Such dysfunctional relationships including supervisorial pressure can result in higher levels of stress Feldman, and increased presenteeism in employees of a medical insurance business even if absence was legitimate, for example, because of a serious disease Ashby and Mahdon, Therefore, we assume that supervisorial pressure is positively related to presenteeism.

Also, time pressure is a serious job demand in the scientific field Semmer et al. High quantitative job demands time pressure, among others are related to health indicators like fatigue and headache Nixon et al. In addition, we assume that time pressure can explain the link between leadership and employees' health behavior. This is theoretically supported by the JD-R model Bakker and Demerouti, , which states that employees' health is affected by provided job resources e.

Job demands can trigger a health impairing and therefore presenteeism provoking process via job strain Demerouti et al. Indeed, positive supervision can positively influence employees' well-being and task performance as well as negatively influence employees' depression via enhanced perceived work characteristics like role clarity, autonomy partial mediations; Picocolo and Colquitt, ; Nielsen et al.

Negative supervision may be positively related to stress and negative affectivity as well as negatively with well-being Schyns and Schilling, , which can be explained by increased emotional demands partial mediation; Holstad, and decreased autonomy partial mediation; Rooney et al. Thus, the link between supervision and employees' health can be partially explained by perceived work characteristics, which could include time pressure.

Although Rigotti et al. In addition, we expect a remaining positive relationship between supervisorial pressure and presenteeism because leadership can be directly related to employees' health Schyns and Schilling, even if mediators are considered Rigotti et al. In summary, supervisorial pressure may be partially associated with presenteeism of PhD students and postdocs via time pressure Figure 1. Time pressure partially mediates the positive relationship between supervisorial pressure and presenteeism.

As described above, the accumulation of work is an important issue in the scientific field and can be seen as a job demand which may be positively related to presenteeism. The work of PhD students and postdocs e. For this reason, the academic field has a lack of replaceability and a high risk of accumulation of work while being absent e. For example, Johns stated that replaceability is a decisive factor for the accumulation of work and thus an important resource within the context of a high workload.

Aronsson and Gustafsson showed that employees have low presenteeism scores if the proportion they must take up again on return is small. Primarily organizations with lean structures and difficulties to find agency at short notice e. The inconsistent results may be further explained by additional circumstances like time pressure or workload.

In the context of a lack of replaceability or staff shortage, accumulation of work may relate to time pressure. The more work is left undone e. To our knowledge there are no studies showing this relationship in the academic field, however, there are studies with nurses. Also, Castner et al. This is in line with Al-Kandari and Thomas , who found a positive correlation between increased workload frequency of tasks and incompletion of activities during the shift. Elements of care rationing were, for example, patient ambulation, turning, hygiene, mobility, and development and updating of nursing care plans resulting in, for instance, patient falls, pressure ulcers, and nosocomial infections Papastavrou et al.

One could argue that these results of rationing lead to even more workload and time pressure as the above mentioned incidents go along with even more caring needs and consequently work accumulation. The findings for medical staff may be transferable to academic staff because of similarities in the working conditions, that is, lack of replaceability and time pressure.

In summary, a reciprocal relationship between accumulation of work and time pressure seems to be probable. It may be possible that job demands interact with each other. The consideration of concurrent demands, which increase the probability for negative outcomes through one specific stressor, is well established in the broader stress literature Lavee et al. However, according to van Woerkom et al.

This would imply an underlying assumption that job demands have additive effects, but an intensified effect is plausible within the context of COR Hobfoll, , because it states that resource loss resulting from dealing with a job demand weakens the resource pool and therefore the capacity to deal with another job demand vicious circle. Support is provided by psychophysiological research which shows that accumulating demands strain the capacity to cope with these demands and therefore increase the risk for serious disorders through changes in, for instance, health-related behavior e.

Moreover, the relationship between emotional demands and absenteeism strengthened with increasing perceived workload van Woerkom et al. In summary, supervisorial pressure, time pressure, and accumulation of work may be related to higher presenteeism scores. Leadership and accumulation of work seem to be related to time pressure. The job demands supervisorial pressure and accumulation of work may relate to time pressure not additively but multiplicatively Figure 1.

Therefore, the strength of the predicted mediation Hypothesis 1 of the relationship between supervisorial pressure and presenteeism through time pressure should be conditionally influenced by accumulation of work first stage moderated mediation. We propose that the indirect effect Hypothesis 1 is stronger if accumulation of work is high compared to if accumulation of work is low. Accumulation of work moderates the positive relationship between supervisorial pressure and time pressure such that the relationship is stronger if accumulation of work is high compared to if accumulation of work is low.

Representatives of 30 German universities and research institutions agreed to invite all their PhD students and postdocs via mailing lists to our study. Unfortunately, the exact number of contacted persons was not available. However, PhD students and postdocs followed the invitation and completed the online questionnaire. Further, participants with missing values within the mediator time pressure and moderator accumulation of work variables as well as independent supervisorial pressure and control variables were removed list wise.

The 33 participants who indicated that they had not been sick within the last 6 months were excluded. We used t -tests to compare the analyzed sample with the excluded participants. This could be explained by the exclusion of 33 participants, who indicated that they had not been sick within the last 6 months. The online questionnaire was created with the software EFS Survey It comprised a total of items and was completed on average within 30 min.

For all translated items the translation model recommended by Brislin was used, that is, the source was translated to the target language by a bilingual person and another bilingual person blindly translated back to the source. This process was repeated until there was no difference between the original source and the back translated version anymore. The participants received the following instruction: Participants also had the possibility to indicate that they had not been sick within the last 6 months.

Factor analysis supported one component. Perceived supervisorial pressure to attend in the case of illness was measured with a German translation of the following statement: Participants responded on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 7 strongly agree. The 5-item subscale comprises questions concerning the pace of work and the workload. Accumulation of work was measured with a translated version of an item used by Aronsson and Gustafsson Some occupational groups, for instance in the education and in the care and welfare sector Aronsson et al.

Therefore, the type of the institution, subject, academic degree, and the duration of employment in the current occupation as well as at the current institution were included as control variables. Moreover, there is evidence for a positive correlation between presenteeism and financial and family responsibilities and conflicts Hansen and Andersen, ; Johns, ; Bierla et al.

Thus, health status, chronical disease, health status compared to other people, and irritation Mohr et al. Finally, irritation was measured with the 8-item irritation scale by Mohr et al. Although factor analysis supported the two components i. Only control variables with a significant correlation with the dependent variable i. Prior to the regression analysis, all variables except for the dependent variable were standardized as the scales do not have a natural zero point and do have different units of measurement Cohen et al.

Indirect effects and conditional indirect effects based on bootstrapped confidence intervals were used. Descriptives, reliabilities, and correlations between the variables are presented in Table 1. Four control variables were significantly related to presenteeism i.

Descriptives, reliabilities and correlations between the study variables. Sex, difficulties to pay bills, and health status were not significantly related to time pressure nor presenteeism. Indirect and conditional indirect effects on presenteeism through time pressure. The model explained Therefore, Hypothesis 1 was supported. Hypothesis 2 postulated that accumulation of work moderates the positive relationship between supervisorial pressure and time pressure such that the relationship is stronger if accumulation of work is high compared to if accumulation of work is low first stage moderated mediation.

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The effect of supervisorial pressure on time pressure is weaker if accumulation of work is high Figure 2. Plot of the two-way interaction effect of Accumulation of Work and Supervisorial Pressure on Time Pressure for three different levels of Accumulation of Work, that is, for the mean, for one SD below the mean and for the maximum obtained value as one SD above the mean was outside the range of data.

In summary, the data do not support Hypothesis 2, that is, accumulation of work moderates the positive relationship between supervisorial pressure and time pressure such that the relationship is weaker not stronger if accumulation of work is high compared to if accumulation of work is low first stage moderated mediation.

The results of the hypotheses' tests by regression analyses are essentially the same when tested without control variables respective tables upon request from the authors.

With this study, we contribute to the understanding of psychological risk factors at work in order to help secure and protect employees' health. Job demands can be risk factors because they can lead to negative outcomes, such as increasing health problems Schaufeli and Taris, Thus, the first aim of this study was to examine the relationships between specific job demands and the behavior of academic staff in case of illness, that is, presenteeism. The results of this study support that both, supervisorial pressure and time pressure have a positive relationship with presenteeism in the scientific field.

This is in line with the findings by Ashby and Mahdon and Demerouti et al. Moreover, the data provide evidence for an indirect relationship between supervisorial pressure and presenteeism via time pressure Hypothesis 1. High levels of supervisorial pressure are related to higher time pressure, which in turn is related to higher levels of presenteeism.

These findings are in line with previous findings, which found that supervisors have an influence on employees' perceived work characteristics Picocolo and Colquitt, ; Nielsen et al. Thus, this study may support the application of findings about negative supervision, time pressure, and presenteeism from occupations like facility management, banking, auditing, education, and social services to the scientific field. The second aim of this study was to contribute to the clarification of how different job demands interact and how these interactions may be related to presenteeism in the scientific field.

Although well established in the broader stress literature Lavee et al. Our data provide support for a multiplicative rather than additive interaction of supervisorial pressure and accumulation of work for time pressure. This interplay between the three job demands is related to presenteeism, but in an unexpected way.

We argued for a strengthened conditional indirect relationship between supervisorial pressure and presenteeism via time pressure if accumulation of work is high. An intensification is plausible within the context of COR Hobfoll, , because it states that resource loss resulting from dealing with a job demand weakens the resource pool and therefore the capacity to deal with another job demand.

Also, van Woerkom et al. However, our results show that the conditional indirect effect of supervisorial pressure on presenteeism is actually weakened if accumulation of work is high. In other words, in case of high accumulation of work the supervisorial pressure had only a minor association with presenteeism compared to in a situation with low accumulation of work in our study.

It seems possible that job demands do not accumulate but substitute each other in the scientific field. Thus, future research is necessary to clarify which findings of interacting job demands in other occupations can be applied to scientific staff. Comparative studies between different occupations may give interesting insights into the complex processes of presenteeism. Within the leadership substitutes theory Kerr and Jermier, , situational e.

Thus, if the task itself requires frequent attendance, a strict controlling supervisor may be unnecessary. Therefore, accumulation of work may substitute supervisorial pressure and reduce its relationship with time pressure among scientific staff. Also, individual characteristics of PhD students and postdocs, like intrinsic interest in the task, may have an impact. If the task itself is satisfying, supervisorial pressure may be unnecessary to foster the attendance. Taking into account the motivational potential of the tasks is a very interesting avenue for future research.

Another interesting issue is the concept of presenteeism for scientific staff itself: Supervisors may expect their staff to work from home in case of illness, thus presenting a challenge for the notion and measurement of presenteeism in the scientific field but also to the many other kinds of jobs where people may work from home. Accounting for this issue is central to the future research of antecedents and consequences of presenteeism. Overall, our study contributes to a better understanding of the interplay of leadership, job demands and the behavior in case of illness among scientific staff by considering interactions between different types of job demands and leadership.

Although highly speculative, threshold models following social exchange theories, such as Adams's equity theory, may explain the results. Adams postulates that people strive for equity, that is, a balanced relationship between their efforts e. This evaluation includes the comparison of the experienced ratio of efforts and benefits either with a desired reference or with the ratio of significant others.

Thereby, equity theory implies the existence of a threshold for reactions toward changes of the ratios. A threshold is passed if the own ratio is significantly different from the ratio of a significant other e. This concept is also known in the literature about psychological contract breach. Thus, contract breaches are perceptions by persons that obligations in this exchange process have not been met Rousseau, If the change is important enough, that is, if the breach is outside the zone of acceptance, people may respond to it, for instance, with quitting their jobs.

Although first signs of psychological contract breach do not seem to affect the attitudes of the employees, responses suddenly take place when a threshold is reached Rigotti, It is possible that academic staff evaluates its efforts and benefits ratio in a case of illness. Thus, specific levels of a job demand e.

Our data may show that high levels of supervisorial pressure are related to highest levels of time pressure, such that a threshold is reached. Thus, if another job demand is increased additionally e. Therefore, the relational pattern between job demands and perceived time pressure might change, namely, the positive relationship between a single job demand and time pressure is weakened. The main limitation is the cross-sectional design of this study, which does not allow us to deduce causal relationships between the examined variables. For this purpose, longitudinal research designs would be necessary.

However, the theoretical model COR and empirical studies support the expected causal direction of the examined relationships. The estimates for the relationships between the variables in this study should be interpreted with caution because of common method bias. However, self-reports may be appropriate to measure the work characteristics in this study as they are operationalized as perceived working conditions.

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