Does working hard really pay off? Testing the temporal ordering between workaholism and job performance

Abstract Is workaholism an antecedent or a product of job performance? Or is there a reciprocation between workaholism and job performance? To address this issue, we collected data from 352 employees using a two‐wave panel design in Study 1, and 247 employee–supervisor dyads using a three‐wave panel design in Study 2. In Study 1, job performance had a negative effect on working compulsively but not working excessively, whereas, in Study 2, job performance had a positive effect on working compulsively and working excessively. Across the two studies, working compulsively and working excessively had no lagged effect on job performance. Collectively, these findings suggest that job performance causes workaholism rather than the other way around, challenging the traditional view. The inconsistent effects of job performance across working excessively and working compulsively underscore the importance of separating workaholism dimensions. Collectively, our findings challenge the validity of the reinforcement theory of learning and the psychological model of addiction in explaining the development of workaholism. We encourage future research to address when job performance has a positive, negative or null effect on workaholism to further improve our understanding of the causal relationship between workaholism and job performance.