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Illegitimate tasks as a source of work stress.

  • Semmer NK Department of Psychology, University of Bern , Bern , Switzerland.
  • Jacobshagen N Department of Psychology, University of Bern , Bern , Switzerland.
  • Meier LL Department of Psychology, University of Bern , Bern , Switzerland.
  • Elfering A Department of Psychology, University of Bern , Bern , Switzerland.
  • Beehr TA Department of Psychology, Central Michigan University , Mount Pleasant , MI , USA.
  • Kälin W Department of Psychology, University of Bern , Bern , Switzerland.
  • Tschan F Institute of Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Neuchâtel , Neuchâtel , Switzerland.
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  • 2015-04-21
Published in:
  • Work and stress. - 2015
fairness
job design
justice
role stress
self
strain
threat to self
well-being
English Illegitimate tasks represent a task-level stressor derived from role and justice theories within the framework of "Stress-as-Offense-to-Self" (SOS; Semmer, Jacobshagen, Meier, & Elfering, 2007). Tasks are illegitimate if they violate norms about what an employee can properly be expected to do, because they are perceived as unnecessary or unreasonable; they imply a threat to one's professional identity. We report three studies testing associations between illegitimate tasks and well-being/strain. In two cross-sectional studies, illegitimate tasks predicted low self-esteem, feelings of resentment towards one's organization and burnout, controlling for role conflict, distributive injustice and social stressors in Study 1, and for distributive and procedural/interactional justice in Study 2. In Study 3, illegitimate tasks predicted two strain variables (feelings of resentment towards one's organization and irritability) over a period of two months, controlling for initial values of strain. Results confirm the unique contribution of illegitimate tasks to well-being and strain, beyond the effects of other predictors. Moreover, Study 3 demonstrated that illegitimate tasks predicted strain, rather than being predicted by it. We therefore conclude that illegitimate tasks represent an aspect of job design that deserves more attention, both in research and in decisions about task assignments.
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  • English
Open access status
green
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https://sonar.ch/global/documents/278476
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