All work intensity is not created equal: Effort motives, job satisfaction and quit intentions at a grocery chain
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| Author | Argyro Avgoustaki,Hans T. W. Frankort |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12724 |
Received: 19 January 2022 Accepted: 9 December 2022
DOI: 10.1111/bj ir.12724
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
All work intensity is not created equal: Effort
motives, job satisfaction and quit intentions at a
grocery chain
Argyro Avgoustaki1Hans T. W. Frankort2
1ESCP Business School, London, UK
2Bayes Business School, City,University
of London, London, UK
Correspondence
Hans T. W. Frankort, Bayes Business
School, City, University of London, 106
Bunhill Row,London EC1Y 8TZ, UK.
Email: hans.frankort.1@city.ac.uk
Prior research has shown that the well-being of employ-
ees engaged in intensive work can vary with the discre-
tion their jobs afford regarding how and when to carry
out the work. This article explores a different avenue.
It argues that well-being also varies with employees’
individual motives for working intensively. The arti-
cle introduces self-determination theory to the domain
of work intensity and focuses on two hypotheses. The
first is whether intensive work driven by explicit or
implicit incentives is more positively associated with an
employee’s job satisfaction than intensive work driven
by job demands. The second is whether intensive work
driven by intrinsic motives is more positively associ-
ated with job satisfaction than that driven by explicit
or implicit incentives. In both these cases, the arti-
cle also examines whether equivalent effects exist on
(reduced) quit intentions. Original data from a major
Greek grocery chain provide corroborative evidence that
is robust to a rich set of covariates, including increas-
ingly demanding adjustments for job discretion. The
findings contribute to a more complete understanding
of why differences in well-being exist among employees
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits
use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or
adaptations are made.
© 2022 The Authors. British Journalof Industrial Relations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Br J Ind Relat. 2023;61:869–894. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/bjir 869
870 BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
performing intensive work, with implications for work-
ers and employers.
JEL CLASSIFICATION
I31, J28, J81
1 INTRODUCTION
There is continuing interest in understanding how the nature of work effort relates to employee
well-being. Some research has focused on work duration as one dimension of work effort, suggest-
ing that well-being is lower on average wherelong hours and overtime are prevalent (Sparks et al.,
1997). Yet, workeffort also encompasses work intensity—the amount of effort per unit of working
time (Green, 2001). Work intensity has continued to increase over time (Adăscăliței et al., 2022;
Green et al., 2022; Kalleberg, 2011), even though evidence implies it may be particularly problem-
atic for employee well-being. In representative European data, for example, work intensity is one
of the strongest predictors of reduced job satisfaction and of higher scores on a flurry of correlates
of poor physical and mental health, including anxiety,fatigue, irritability and stress (Avgoustaki &
Frankort, 2019; Cottini & Lucifora, 2013).Meta-analytic estimates by Goh et al. (2015, 2016)firmly
support such results. They also reveal that work intensity might have well-being ramifications as
severe as those of second-hand smoke exposure or unemployment.
Nevertheless, spurred by Karasek’s (1979) influential job-strain model, available research also
argues that employees performing intensive work can differ in their ability to cope. A large empir-
ical literature links such differences to whether a job affords discretion on how and when to
carry out the work (e.g., Green, 2004a; Green et al., 2016; Lopes et al., 2014; Van Yperen & Hage-
doorn, 2003). Yet, while job discretion—a characteristic of the work environment—may buffer
some of the adverse effects of work intensity, it only partially accounts for the observed vari-
ance in employee well-being attributable to intensive work (e.g., Avgoustaki & Frankort, 2019;
Green, 2004a; Lopes et al., 2014). Toachieve a more comprehensive explanation of the well-being
differences among employees performing intensive work, it may thus be necessary to broaden
attention from job characteristics to individual characteristics (Kain & Jex, 2010; Van der Doef
&Maes,1999). For example, a focus on job discretion naturally bypasses individual differences
in employees’ motivations for working intensively. Yet, individual motivations are potent predic-
tors of well-being (Vallerand, 1997) and can exist separately from job discretion (Avgoustaki &
Cañibano, 2020). Thus, a focus on individual motivations for working intensively has the cred-
ible potential to improve our understanding of how resistant or vulnerable the well-being is of
employees performing intensive work.
In this article, we ask whether the motives that drive employees to work intensively predict job
satisfaction and quit intentions. We introduce the theory of self-determination to the domain of
work intensity (Gagné & Deci, 2005; Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2017). This theory distinguishes extrin-
sic and intrinsic motivations for individual behaviour. We propose that employees may work
intensively driven by external job demands (a controlled form of extrinsic motivation), explicit
or implicit incentives (a more autonomous form of extrinsic motivation) and intrinsic motives.
Based on these distinctions, we focus on two hypotheses. The first is whether intensive work
driven by explicit or implicit incentives is more positively associated with an employee’s job
satisfaction than intensive work driven by job demands. The second is whether intensive work
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