Excess and Defect: How Job-Family Responsibilities Congruence Effect the Employee Procrastination Behavior

PURPOSE: Prior work suggests that responsibility is negatively associated with employee procrastination behavior. Based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we suggest this view is oversimplified and propose that procrastination can be induced when employees have congruent job and family responsibilities via the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion. METHODS: This is a quantitative study of the configurational approach. Survey data were collected from 323 employees at two stages in southern Chinese internet enterprises in September 2020. A randomized cluster sample was used and an anonymous self-assessment questionnaire was distributed to all selected respondents (employees). Samples involved different departments, and the procrastination phenomenon is more significant among them. SPSS20.2 and MPLUS 8.3 software and Response Surface Analysis Strategy were used to test the hypotheses. RESULTS: The data analysis results indicated that: a) employee procrastination behavior is higher when employees’ job responsibility and family responsibility are congruent than the incongruent configurations. b) Procrastination is lower when job-family dyads are congruent at high levels of responsibility compared the low levels. c) Procrastination decreases as employees’ job and family responsibilities become more discrepant (ie, incongruent); employees with low job-high family responsibilities procrastinate more than those with high job-low family responsibilities. d) Additionally, employee-experienced emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship in four configurations between job-family responsibilities congruence and procrastination behavior. CONCLUSION: Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we proposed a model clarifying how varying combinations of job and family responsibilities affect employee procrastination behavior. The results showed that there are significant differences in the impact of different job-family responsibility combinations on employee procrastination behavior. Employee procrastination behavior is higher when employees’ job-family responsibility are congruent than the incongruent configurations. Additionally, employee-experienced emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship in four configurations between job-family responsibilities congruence and procrastination behavior.