Study Of Work Procrastination And Its Contributory Factors

Procrastination shows its massive existence in various aspects of individual life including academic, professional, health, social and daily routines. Anyone could have procrastinatory inclination under certain circumstances, but to some procrastination has become their stable patterns of action or even ways of living. Procrastination behaviors among workplaces and in organizations not only have direct deleterious influences upon one’s work performance and pay level, but also produce job stress, undermine both psychological well-being and body health, lead to negative interpersonal perceptions. Meanwhile, organization has to deal with the overall efficiency loss and progress delay, more production costs needed and core competency suffers. Work procrastination may be one important but commonly overlooked link among employees’career goals, work attitudes, behaviors and performances, which can be impacted by characteristics rooted in individual and job task as well as organization. It is of great necessity to conduct specific and in-depth studies on work procrastination.Based on a thorough review of extant literatures, systematically from aspect of concepts, current situations and forms to research frameworks and theories, we believe questions of below exists:A widely recognized definition relating to work procrastination has not been made due to certain major controversies towards its nature, which leaves behind some boundary issues; The psychological structure of work procrastination is not yet clear, and no pertinent well-established measure tool has emerged. Moreover, explorations of mechanisms and contributory factors especially concerning job task and organization factors are in shortage.The current study attempts a definition following discussions about its attributes and structures. We believe that work procrastination includes four basic components, which are irrational delaying, distraction, deadline rushing and intention-action gap, respectively. These components may reflect a temporal-phased character of work procrastination. We get preliminary evidences towards these assumptions in an open investigation.We use a sample of953employees to testify our theory. Employing Principle Component Analysis (PCA) in common factor abstraction and Varimax Method in factor rotation, the Work Procrastination Questionnaire (WPQ) explains55.663percent of total variance. The internal consistency reliability are0.77-0.89, coefficient of correlations among factors are0.462～0.689, among factors and the overall scale are0.735～0.844. Main model fitting indexes in the Confirmatory Factor Analysis(CFA): X2/df=2.571, RMR=0.079, GFI、AGFI、IFI、CFI are0.895～0.924, RESEA=0.048. Besides, we use General Procrastination Scale-Workplace Revision as congruent validity evidence and Employee’s Time Management Disposition Scale as discriminant validity evidence, which both responds well.We investigate the general level of wok procrastination of the current sample, and compare possible differences on variables of gender, age, education level, marital status, enterprise ownership and office rank. Furthermore, we investigate the possible contributory effects of employee characteristics including demography variables and job burnout features, as well as job characteristics including responsibility pressure, role conflict, non-work conflict and work overload.Key findings:(1)Work procrastination is a proactive, irrational and dysfunctional delaying inclination towards expected job tasks or decisions relating to organization goals and occurring among workplaces or under organizational backgrounds. Often the case, it leads to suboptimal work performances or deadline missing outcomes, having deleterious impacts both for individual and organization. Work procrastination includes four components: irrational delaying, distraction, deadline rushing and intention-action gap, which represent a temporal-phased character of work procrastination.(2)Work Procrastination Questionnaire (WPQ) includes4dimensions16items, which yields good reliability and validity and can be used as a standardized measure instrument in the future.(3)The current sample procrastinates slightly above average in their work, no differences found on variables of gender and enterprise ownership, but significant differences on variables of age, education level, marital status and office rank.(4)Among employee characteristics, age and office rank have significant negative predictive effects and all three factors of job burnout have significant positive predictive effects towards work procrastination. Among job characteristics, variables of responsibility pressure, non-work conflict and work overload have significant positive predictive effects towards work procrastination. Job burnout status plays partial or full mediating roles in these relationships.