The Interactive Effect of Stressor Appraisals and Personal Traits on Employees' Procrastination Behavior: The Conservation of Resources Perspective

Qiufeng Huang; Kaili Zhang; Yafang Huang; Ali Ahmad Bodla; Xia Zou

doi:10.2147/PRBM.S399406

The Interactive Effect of Stressor Appraisals and Personal Traits on Employees' Procrastination Behavior: The Conservation of Resources Perspective

Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2023 Mar 14:16:781-800. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S399406. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Qiufeng Huang¹, Kaili Zhang², Yafang Huang¹, Ali Ahmad Bodla³, Xia Zou⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Political Science and Public Administration, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou, People's Republic of China.
² School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
³ Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
⁴ School of Journalism and New Media, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Purpose: Procrastination has become a pervasive phenomenon in the workplace, yet knowledge of its antecedents remains limited. Therefore, this study explains when and why employees procrastinate. As procrastination is an individual intentional behavior to escape potential resource loss by taking actions to relax; this study regards procrastination as resource-protection behavior. Building on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, the purpose of the current study is to explore the direct impact of external situational factors (ie, stressor appraisals) and individual traits (ie, personality) and their interactive effect on workplace procrastination behavior.

Participants and methods: The study adopts a quantitative approach and uses two-wave data. Data was collected through the randomized cluster sampling technique and a structured questionnaire survey. The sample consisted of civil servants in an organization located in the Shandong province of China. Received 347 valid questionnaires representing an overall response rate of 87%. The theoretical model was tested through confirmatory factor analysis and regression analyses using Mplus 7.2.

Results: The results show that hindrance stressor appraisal is positively related to procrastination, whereas challenge stressor appraisal is negatively related to procrastination. Neuroticism had a positive relationship with procrastination, while conscientiousness had a negative relationship with procrastination. Conscientiousness moderates the relationship between challenge stressor appraisal and procrastination such that the relationship is salient under high conscientiousness.

Conclusion: Overall, our study suggests that procrastination is affected by personal traits and workplace stressor appraisals. This study makes potential contributions to employees' procrastination literature by and its understanding within the job procrastination knowledge base. Also, this study confirms the comprehensive reach and applicability of the COR theory developed by scholars such as Hobfoll (1989). In practically, the research benefits organizations by providing suggestions for managing employees' procrastination behavior.

Keywords: conscientiousness; conservation of resources; hindrance and challenge stressor appraisal; neuroticism; procrastination.

Grants and funding

This research was only supported by grants from the National Social Science Fund of China (19CGL055).