Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2018), .docx

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2018),
91, 235–260
© 2018 The British Psychological Society
www.wileyonlinelibrary.com
A qualitative investigation of the origins of
excessive work behaviour
Melrona Kirrane
1
* , Marianne Breen
2
and Cli�odhna O’Connor3
1
Dublin City University Business School, Ireland
2
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
3
University College Dublin, Ireland
Studies of workers who engage in excessive work behaviour
continue to attract the
attention of researchers. Most research in this field adheres to
quantitative methodolo-

gies aligned to the addiction or trait paradigms and largely
focuses on correlates and
consequences of such behaviour. However, within this
literature, empirically based
understandings of the factors that propel individuals to engage
in excessive work patterns
are sparse. Resting on socio-cultural theories of work, we adopt
a novel approach to this
field of enquiry and examine the genesis of excessive working
using a qualitative
methodology. We use discourse analysis to comparatively
explore data from a sample of
twenty-eight workers comprising excessive and non-excessive
workers. Our study
identified the roles of family of origin, educational experience,
and professional norms as
clear drivers of excessive work patterns. Data to support the
dominant addiction and trait
paradigms within this research domain were equivocal. Lifestyle
decision-making
differentiated the comparison group from the excessive workers.
We discuss our
findings with reference to theories of workaholism and consider
their implications for the

evolution of this field.
Practitioner points
� Organizational culture can strongly influence the emergence
of excessive work patterns among
employees. Human resource professionals and organizational
leaders are in a position to intervene in
the development and support of work cultures that are
conducive to effective work patterns
� Employee selection and assessment procedures should be
sufficiently in-depth to gather relevant
information into the personal backgrounds of applicants
� Employee development initiatives should take account of
learned work orientations to ensure the
effectiveness of interventions.
The globalized post-industrial society is characterized by a 24-
hour economy (Granter,
McCann, & Boyle, 2015) and has led to the normalization of
intensive work (Worrall,
Mather & Cooper, 2016). As research suggests figures of 10 per
cent and more of the
working population engage in these lifestyles (Andreassen et
al., 2014; Sussman, Lisha, &
Griffiths, 2011), understanding the genesis of these types of
work practices is now an
important endeavour. Intensive working is commonly captured
by the term ‘worka-

holism’ which initially arose to describe the mindset of
individuals most deeply involved in
*Correspondence should be addressed to Melrona Kirrane,
Dublin City University Business School, Collins Avenue,
Dublin 9,
Ireland (email: [email protected]).
DOI:10.1111/joop.12203
235
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4831-9411
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4831-9411
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4831-9411
work-focused lifestyles (Oates, 1971). Over the years, the
terminology used to describe
such practices has broadened to include work addiction
(Robinson, 1998) excessive
overwork (Andreassen, 2013), obsessive passion for work
(Vallerand, Paquet, Philippe, &
Charest, 2010), heavy work investment (Golden, 2014; Snir &
Harpaz, 2012), work
craving (Wojdylo, Baumann, & Karlsson, 2016), and work over-
involvement (Lehr, Koch,
& Hillert, 2010)
1
Most studies of workaholism to date are quantitative

investigations of correlates and
consequences of workaholism. One of the strongest outcomes of
such work has been the
positioningoftherootofsuchworkingpatternssquarelywithintheind
ividualworker(van
Wijhe, Schaufeli & Peeters, 2010). However, work patterns are
acknowledged to emerge
from an interactive process that occurs between the individual
and their environment
(Osipow, 1990). While theorists have signalled the important
role of socio-cultural
processes in understanding intensive work patterns (Mazzetti,
Schaufeli, & Guglielmi,
2014; Porter, 1996; Snir & Harpaz, 2006, 2012), field studies
within this domain remain
disappointingly limited (Sussman, 2012). In this study, we build
on socio-cultural theory
(SCT) which highlights dynamic and situation-specific elements
of the individual that
together lead to vocational outcomes (Bandura, 1999). Taking a
qualitative approach, we
exploretheautobiographicalaccountsofthegenesisofexcessivewor
kingpatternsamong
a sample of excessive workers. We compare their accounts with
those of a comparison

group of non-excessive workers drawn from the same context.
In this way, we provide a
solid foundation for understanding the intense career pathways
of such workers.
Theoretical background to workaholism research
Research in the field of workaholism has been dominated by the
addiction model and the
trait theory approach (Sussman, 2012). The addiction model
considers the phenomenon
to be an irresistible inner drive to work excessively hard
(Andreassen & Pallesen, 2016),
and it is described as a progressive, compulsive, potentially
fatal disease (Porter, 1996;
Robinson, 1998). Despite the absence of evidence that excessive
working shares
psychophysiological characteristics of established definitions of
addiction (McMillan, O’
Marsh, & Brady, 2001; Porter, 1996) and its exclusion from the
DSM-5 (American
Psychiatric Association, 2013), many researchers continue to
draw on the addiction
model of workaholism as a conceptual framework for their work
(Andreassen, Griffiths,
Hetland, & Pallesen, 2012; Griffiths, 2011). Such studies
typically measure work addiction

quantitatively, and although some recent promising additions
have been made
(Andreassen et al., 2012; Schaufeli, Shimazu, & Taris, 2009),
the most widely used
measure, the Work Addiction Risk Test (Robinson, Post, & J.
Khakee, 1992), is not
regarded as rigorous, rendering research based on it vulnerable
to criticisms (Andreassen
et al., 2012; Bowler, Patel, Bowler, & Methe, 2012; Flowers &
Robinson, 2002; Sussman,
2012).
A further theoretical paradigm deployed widely in this field is
the trait theory
approach. This perspective construes excessive working,
associated with traits such as
neuroticism, conscientiousness, narcissism, and perfectionism
(Andreassen et al., 2012;
Clark, Lelchook, & Taylor, 2010) as a manifestation of a ‘stable
individual difference
characteristic’ (Burke, 2004, p. 421) comprising the
psychological dimensions of high
1
For the sake of parsimony and consistency with previous
literature, the term ‘workaholism’ will be used in this article,
but should

not be taken to necessarily imply agreement with the addiction
model of these work patterns.
236 Melrona Kirrane et al.
work involvement, high drive, and low work enjoyment (Spence
& Robbins, 1992).
Although this model has been criticized for its lack of
conceptual rigour (Harpaz & Snir,
2003; Robinson, 2001; Scott, Moore, & Miceli, 1997),
considerable research continues to
rely on it as a platform for investigation (Burke, Matthiesen, &
Pallesen, 2006; Clark et al.,
2010). Unfortunately, resultant isolated correlations have not
led to the development of a
coherent theoretical framework (Harpaz & Snir, 2003; Kanai,
Wakabayashi, & Fling, 1996;
McMillan, Brady, O’Driscoll, & Marsh, 2002; Mudrack &
Naughton, 2001).
While these two theoretical perspectives have driven research
streams which have
provided information on the correlates and consequences of
intensive work practices
(Baruch, 2011; Giannini & Scabia, 2014; Ng, Sorensen, &
Feldman, 2007; Robinson, 2013;

Sussman, 2012), each shows distinct weaknesses and leaves the
question of the aetiology
of workaholism empirically unanswered (Quinones & Griffiths,
2015; Spurk, Hirschi, &
Kauffeld, 2016). Moreover, these approaches are characterized
by positioning worka-
holism entirely within the individual. Holding some promise of
greater refinement of the
genesis of excessive work patterns are studies that explore the
contribution of other
factors to this behaviour. These include unsatisfied needs
(Burke, 2004; van Beek, Taris, &
Schaufeli, 2011), cognitions (Graves, Ruderman, Ohlott &
Weber, 2012), social learning
(Burke, 2001), family dynamics (Chamberlin & Zhang, 2009;
Robinson, 2013), and
organizational culture and climate (Keller, Spurk, Baumeler, &
Hirschi, 2016; Johnstone &
Johnston, 2005; Mazzetti et al., 2014). In general, such
elements have been treated as
peripheral within the dominant research paradigms, and the
causal influence of some
have, at times, been explicitly denied (e.g., Robinson, 1998).
Although the importance of
these issues has been highlighted (McMillan, O Driscoll, &
Burke, 2003), they remain

underexplored in empirical work and their role in the
phenomenon of excessive work
patterns remains tentative (Andreassen, 2014; McMillan et al.,
2003; van Wijhe et al.,
2010).
Socio-cultural factors and the construal of workaholism
Applying a socio-cultural perspective to understanding the
origin of workaholism
represents a rich starting point in research on excessive working
patterns. The socio-
cultural approach to understanding behaviour which recognizes
the role of norms,
customs, and values of the general population has demonstrated
that work norms,
attitudes, and practices are influenced by multiple layers of
socio-cultural factors (Kanai &
Wakabayashi, 2004; Lantolf, 2000). At the broadest level is
national culture which has a
singular effect on how people construe themselves at work
(Brewer & Chen, 2007; Gahan
& Abeysekera, 2009; Triandis, 1990). This effect is perhaps
best illustrated by the
phenomenon known as ‘karoshi’, a term coined by Sugisawa and
Uehata (1998) to refer to

the particular Japanese phenomenon of death or permanent
disability caused by
cardiovascular problems, mediated by excessive work and
stress. In Japan, work is
regarded as an element of living in that one is supposed to live
in accordance with the
order of society (Ishiyama & Kitayama, 1994; Kanai &
Wakabayashi, 2004). Psycho-social
factors such as a social value system that exhorts perseverance
and the concept of
‘ganbaru’, which means to suffer in silence and to endure
difficulties, are regarded as
perpetuating the syndrome (Meek, 1999, 2004). Considering
these features of Japanese
cultural life fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation of
the phenomenon of
karoshi and underscores the impact of socio-cultural factors in
approaches to work.
A second element of the socio-cultural landscape that has a
significant impact on work
behaviours is the familial context (Lawson, Crouter, & McHale,
2015; Piotrowski &
The origins of excessive work behaviour 237

Vodanovich, 2006; Robinson, 2000). The family of origin
influences work behaviours as
values, norms, and expectations for achievement are transferred
and internalized via
parent–child relations (Schaie & Willis, 1996). This process is
well explained by the
expectancy-value theory of achievement (Wigfield & Eccles,
2000). The family an
individual creates themselves as a socio-cultural feature also
significantly influences
workplace behaviour (Janoski & Wilson, 1995). Involvement in
multiple roles causes ‘spill
over’ which effects behaviour and actions of individuals in both
contexts (Arnett, 2014;
Livingston, 2014; Wayne, Casper, Matthews, & Allen, 2013).
Educational systems are an integral feature of the socio-cultural
landscape and their
influence on workplace behaviours (Billett, 1998; Konkola,
Tuomi-Gr€ohn, Lambert, &
Ludvigsen, 2007), are emphasized in Bronfenbrenner’s (1979)
ecological model of human
development. By introducing pupils to notions of achievement
and authority, coping and
time management skills, this social system provides the
intellectual and social skills that
children will use to perform roles within the adult world

(Haycock, Hart, & Irvin, 1991;
Tomlinson, 2013). In essence, school educates students on how
to become fully
functioning and productive members of society and fosters the
development of
appropriate work attitudes and habits deemed important for the
continued development
of the social world (Goodlad, 1984; Kourilsky & Walstad,
1998).
Finally, organizational norms of behaviour are a well-
established feature of the socio-
cultural environment (Rousseau, 2005; Schein, 1985; Schneider,
Ehrhart, & Macey, 2013).
Research has established the potent effects of such norms on
workplace behaviour
(Hogan & Coote, 2014; Lee & Yu, 2004), and organizations go
to great lengths in fostering
the development of performance-enhancing workplace cultures
(O’Reilly, Caldwell,
Chatman, & Doerr, 2014). Taking all these factors together, this
literature aptly
demonstrates that to fully understand the origin of excessive
work patterns, there is
value to be gained from immersing the study of such behaviour
within its socio-cultural

context.
Researching workaholism
According to the epistemology of social constructionism, human
knowledge does not
result from individuals’ direct perception of ‘brute reality’, but
rather is co-constructed in
social interaction and always mediated by language,
interpretations, and values (Berger &
Luckmann, 1996; Potter, 1996). As such, equally important as
what does cause the
behaviour patterns termed ‘workaholism’ is what people believe
causes it, because the
latter will guide how people manage their own career-related
behaviour. To date, this
remains unchartered territory in the empirical literature.
To research workaholism as a discursive construction rather
than the predetermined,
yet controversial ‘thing’ pursued in other studies, there is
valued to be had in exploring the
insights alternative methodologies may provide. Qualitative
methods are ideally suited to
tap the naturalistic, everyday language through which this form
of behaviour is

constructed in social interaction. Thus, we pose the following
question in an attempt
to address this vacuum: How do people account for the origin of
their working patterns?
Method
We position our study within the philosophical orientation of
social constructionism
(Neimeyer, 1993), emphasizing the subjective experiences of
actors’ ‘lifeworlds’
(Husserl, 1969; Schutz, 1972). Paying close attention to the
language used, we apply
discourse analysis techniques to our data (Antaki, 1994; Billig,
1997; Harvey, Turnquist, &
Agostinelli, 1988), looking beyond the surface of the sentence
to identify the pragmatic
social functions that the utterance achieves (Silverman, 2001).
We present the data in raw
form to accommodate an expansive interpretation of the
participants’ perspectives
(Johnson & Waterfield, 2004; Wimpenny & Gass, 2000).
Sampling

Two sampling techniques were used in this study. In the first
instance, we deployed a
theory-based sampling process, targeting a sample on the basis
of their potential
manifestation of our theoretical construct. For this purpose, we
concentrated on
members of Workaholics Anonymous (WA), which is a social
network specifically
targeted at self-selected workaholics.
The global WA headquarters (based in the United States) agreed
to email details about
the study to its members, and a notice requesting participants
for the project was placed in
the WA monthly newsletter. To achieve generalizability
(Mason, 2010), we also used a
purposive sampling strategy which involves using prior research
and informed ‘hunches’
to identify the segments of the population likely to hold a
unique perspective on the
research topic and directly recruiting from these groups (Bauer
& Aarts, 2000). Certain
occupational fields, such as financial services, are known for
their demanding workloads
(European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and
Working Conditions, [EFILWC],

2015). To recruit participants for our study, 110 companies
were contacted from the
database of an International Financial Services Centre. Human
resource specialists of 72
companies (65%) agreed to disseminate to their employees an
invitation from the
researchers to participate in a study on work patterns. Due to
this recruitment strategy, it
was impossible to calculate the response rate, as the number of
people who received our
invitation was unknown. However, our aim was not to attain a
statistically representative
dataset but to provide an in-depth account of the range of ideas
present and examine what
underlies and justifies them (Gaskell, 2000; Patton, 2002).
Measure
Machlowitz’s (1980) measure of working patterns was
administered via email in the
invitation to participate in the study. The intent of this element
of the research process
was not to reify these individuals as ‘workaholics’, but to
purposively select people
who indicated that they exemplify characteristics of the
construct of ‘workaholism’.
There are 10 items in this measure; a sample item is ‘Do you

dread retirement?’
Deployed in a number of studies (Doerfler & Kammer, 1986;
Greenberg, 2002; Kilburg,
Nathan, & Thoreson, 1986), with items derived from empirical
work rather than a
priori theoretical assumptions, each behaviourally based item on
this measure has a
‘yes/no’ response option whereby ‘yes’ responses warrant one
point, and ‘no’
responses warrant zero points. A score above eight points is
deemed to represent
workaholic behaviour (Machlowitz, 1980). A total of 146 people
responded to the
questionnaire, 22 (15%) of whom were identified as
workaholics by meeting the cut-off
point established by Machlowitz (1980). This figure is within
the range of international
norms regarding the prevalence of workaholism (Doerfler &
Kammer, 1986; Freimuth,
Waddell, Stannard, Kelley, & Kipper, 2008; Sussman, 2012).
Respondents who agreed
and were available to be interviewed about their work patterns
formed this subsample

of the study. In order to fully understand the particular
conceptions of the origins of
excessive working, a comparative sample was generated by
interviewing willing
respondents who did not meet the criteria for ‘workaholism’
according to Machlowitz
(1980). This afforded the opportunity for the research question
to be richly explored
and extensively examined according to the tenets of SCT. The
sum of the research
strategies deployed ensured ontological integration of the nature
of social life was
achieved (Guarino, 1997).
Sample
The sample ultimately consisted of twelve workaholics, four of
whom were WA members,
and sixteen comparison group members. This sample size is
acceptable for discourse
analytic studies and is well within the ranges identified by
Charmaz (2006), Bertaux
(1981), Morse (2000) and Mason (2010). Of the workaholic
sample, three were female
(two members of WA and one general population workaholics
[GPW]) and the sample

was aged between 32 and 57 years with an average age of 46
years. Ten of this sample
were married/partnered and job titles included management
consultant (5), investment
banker (3), IT consultant (2), journalist (1), and medical doctor
(1). Of the comparison
group, five were female and the average age was 47 years.
Eleven of this group were
married/partnered, three were divorced, and two were single.
Job titles included
management consultant (11), financial services/banking (3), and
IT consultant (2).
Procedure
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with each
participant (See Appendix). The
interview began with appropriate ‘warm-up’ questions (Arksey
& Knight, 1999) and then
proceeded to explore participants’ conceptions on the evolution
of their working lives
with the question: ‘What do you think has influenced your work
pattern?’ The interview
schedule was employed flexibly to facilitate responsiveness to
discursive pathways
introduced by the participant (Gaskell, 2000) and to
accommodate issues pertinent to

participants (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2013).
The researcher did not use the word ‘workaholic’ at any point in
the process, and the
neutrality criterion (Guba & Lincoln, 1982) was met by the
researcher being aware of, and
critical of vocalizations in the research process. Interviews took
place either in private
offices at the participants’ workplaces or nearby convenient
spaces and lasted between 60
and 90 min. As WA members were all based in the United
States, interviews were
conducted with them by telephone. Interviews were recorded
and transcribed verbatim
(O’Connell & Kowal, 1995; Potter & Wetherell, 1987). Each
hour of interview data took
approximately ten hours to transcribe.
Data analysis
The analysis followed the discursive action model (Edwards &
Potter, 1992), and the
interpretative strategy was informed by the three major
foundations of discourse analysis,
namely construction, function, and variability (Potter &
Wetherell, 1987). A battery of
discursive features was compiled to aid analysis (Edwards &

Potter, 1992; Gee, 1999;
Wetherell, Taylor, & Yates, 2001). Following Guest, Bunce, and
Johnson (2006), two
coders separately analysed the data from five interviews.
Coding patterns were compared
and a 96% code agreement rating was established (Armstrong,
Gosling, Weinman, &
Marteau, 1997). A codebook was then developed using a
standard iterative process
(MacQueen, McLellan, Kay, & Milstein, 1998). Codes were
refined while reading the
remaining transcripts to accommodate emerging patterns and
finally inputted into the
Nvivo software program to facilitate analysis. The analysis met
the criteria of trustwor-
thiness (Bowen, 2009; Guba & Lincoln, 1982) by ensuring data
credibility, transferability,
dependability, and confirmability using the audit trail, coding
checks, and peer debriefing.
Trustworthiness was further reinforced by ensuring all
interpretations were supported by
raw data and accompanied by representative verbatim extracts

(Speer & Potter, 2000).
The criterion of soundness (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) was
satisfied by our presentation of
analysed texts and demonstration of routes to conclusions. This
documentation of
procedures enabled accountability to be examined and the
confirmability of claims to be
established (Parker, 2002). In addition, only plausible and
insightful analyses were
included (Phillips & Hardy, 2002) and it was ensured that all
arguments fitted together in
order to provide a coherent reading of the data (Wood &
Kroger, 2000). The study thereby
fulfilled the warranting criteria for discourse analysis research
(Antaki, Billig, Edwards, &
Potter, 2003; Edwards, 2005).
Results
The data are presented according to the major rift in
workaholism literature,
focussing first on the role of internal/dispositional factors,
followed by data on the
significance of socio-cultural factors. Findings are displayed
according to subgroup
membership (Workaholics [WA members and general population

workaholics
{GPW}] and comparison group members (C)). The table below
presents a summary
of the findings (Table 1).
Workaholics
a) Internal/dispositional antecedents of excessive work patterns
Overview
Uniform explanations of the internal causes of excessive
working by workaholics were
absent from the data. Instead, accounts fell into three primary
categories: addiction,
personal choice, and the influence of personal characteristics.
WA members invoked
addiction as its primary cause, whereas personal agency was the
strongest factor reported
in the data of GPW.
Detail
i Addiction: WA1 explained her working patterns as a
consequence of the hormone
adrenaline, which was defined as an addictive substance:
I am an adrenaline junkie, basically is what I am [WA1]
WA1 constructed a fundamental self-identity as an addict (or in

slang terms, ‘junkie’).
This construal of workaholism as an addiction positioned the
problem completely within
the self. The label of being an addict was applied without any
more detailed construals of
addictive behaviours, symptoms, or signs. Another WA member
spoke of his work
patterns using the register of addiction by explicitly comparing
work to drugs:
I had what in the programme we call “my stash”. Some people
have a stash of drugs, I had a
stash of projects and activities that were never-ending [WA3]
ii Choice: On the other hand, GPW constructed their working
style as an active,
volitional choice, and regarded their chosen lifestyle in positive
terms. For example,
GPW3 stated:
I like being able to get up at six o’clock in the morning and
being able to put in a Fourteen-hour
day [GPW3]

For GPW2, working long hours was positioned as a strategic
move rather than an
addictive force. It was not a reward in itself but directed at
future benefits, which were
assembled in monetary terms.
I never sacrifice things and invest myself in something unless
there’s a pay off or
compensation for it somewhere down the road [GPW2]
iii Trait/disposition: Perfectionism was constructed as a driver
of behaviour among
workaholics although the emphasis attributed to it differed
between participants from
WA and those from the GPW subgroup. For instance, WA4
stated:
There’s this whole pattern I call “the three P’s”. It’s
perfectionism, which leads to paralysis
which leads to procrastination. So perfectionism drives a lot of
things. [WA4]
Assembling this chain reaction of events as a ‘pattern’
established it as a general law of
behaviour. This interviewee positioned himself in a powerless
stance in relation to
perfectionism, which was afforded agency by installing it as the
grammatical subject (e.g.,
‘perfectionism drives’). Perfectionism was also compiled as a

behavioural factor among
GPW.
However, it was discussed in less absolute terms:
I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Other people here say that I am one
but I don’t know if it is true.
Once I’m satisfied, and once it’s good enough for me, then I’ll
move on to the next thing. But
there’s a certain point at which too much perfection gets in your
way [GPW8]
This participant stated that others classified him as a
perfectionist but that he did not
fully identify with this characterization. He equated
perfectionism with an inefficient
Table 1. Summary of findings
Explanatory
mechanisms of
work behaviour Workaholics Comparison group
Internal factors 1. Addiction (WA)
2. Perfectionism (WA)
3. Personal choice (GPW)
4. Perfection strivings (GPW)

1. Personal maturation
2. Boundary management
3. Value-driven choice
Socio-cultural
factors
5. Stressful family of origin dynamics
6. Intenseeducational norms
7. Pervasive organizational norms
8. National culture
1. Proactive adjustment
2. Supportive family of origin
3. Created family
4. Constructive educational experience
5. Alternating work norms
inability to ‘move on’. While he demanded high standards, he
claimed that his ability to

reach satisfaction with a completed task made him, at most, ‘a
bit of’ a perfectionist.
b) Socio-cultural attributions for work patterns
Overview
A rich body of socio-cultural data emerged pertaining to the
influence of family
background, educational history, organizational/work context,
and cultural context on
work behaviours. These elements speak strongly to the role of
environmental factors in
encouraging the development of certain work behaviours.
Detail
i Family background: No reference was made to the role of
created family in the
development of excessive work patterns – family of origin was
invoked instead. For
example:
So even from an early age I was working. My father was a holy
terror for work, work, work,
work. He’d kick me out of bed at seven o’clock on a Saturday
morning - that was the way I was
brought up. I would always have worked [GPW7]
This participant presented himselfas working demanding hours

from an early age. This
was positioned as not due to his own nature or personality, but
rather due to his father’s
influence. The participant presented himself as agentless in
determining the amount of
work he did as a child by employing verbs that situate him in a
passive position. Being
‘kicked out of bed’ established his father’s control over his
activity. His father’s work ethic
was couched in negative terms, and the home context was cast
as creating his lifelong
working behaviour through the extreme case formulation ‘I
would always have worked’.
An inevitability of the development of excessive behaviour
emerged in the data from WA3:
Both my parents are nicotine and coffee addicts. I just grew up
in a very disturbed home. My
mom has got a lot of issues like anxiety and my dad’s a little
more on the control side of things.
So between the two of them, it’s like I’m constitutionally wired
for addiction. [WA3]
WA3 used the ‘addict’ term to categorize his parents. This
categorization was
construed as a statement of fact through the lack of hedging.
The modifier ‘just’ was

employed to simplify the construction of his family context as
disorderly. Terms such as
‘issues’ and ‘anxiety’ established his mother as psychologically
unstable and built up this
extract as a legitimate fact.
As a result, he regarded himself as being inevitably addictive in
his behaviour thus
legitimizing his construction of his work addiction as being
created in the family home.
WA1 explained her work behaviours as developing in childhood
in response to the
low-status position she believed she held within her family unit:
Both us girls - it was perfectly clear that we were second rate. I
was called the runt of the litter,
the cowardly one, and my way out of that was that I was clever
and I did well at school. That
was the one area where I got some approval from my father.
[WA1]
This participant linked her current work orientations to her
childhood desire to escape
from paternal taunting and her humble familial status. The
clarity of her standing within
the family was built up through the use of the adjective
‘perfectly’. Thus, trying to gain

approval from the family context was positioned as causing her
to develop excessive work
patterns.
ii Education: Educational experiences were also construed as
factors that influenced
work practices. GPW1 offered:
I always worked very hard at school. I used to get just two or
three hours of sleep at night. . . so
yes I would say that my school environment has influenced my
current work pattern. [GPW1]
This participant construed herself as consistently being a hard-
working student,
through the extreme case formulation of ‘always’. The negative
effects of working hard
were constructed as leading to physiological costs of not
sleeping which were built up
through specific temporal details. These details functioned to
construe a fresh perceptual
memory. Working hard and sleeping for a fraction of the night
were established as her
typical behaviour. GPW4 described the evolution of intensive
work patterns as emerging

as a result of his time in university:
I worked very hard at university. Iwas there on a running
scholarship so Iwas getting up at five
thirty in the morning, training with the team, going to an eight
thirty class, coming back and
studying for a couple of hours, training until six then going to a
job. So I’d been working very
hard for a number of years. [GPW4]
iii Professional norms: Performance expectations were also
invoked as leading to
excessive work patterns. WA2 said:
My experience in the corporate world is that workaholism is
extremely insidious within it. It is
a disease that is rewarded in this culture. [WA2]
This participant positioned workaholism as an illness that was
incentivized in her work
experience. The global term (‘corporate world’) was employed
to construct the effect of
the broader context which suggested that these challenges
transcended any one
individual. This perspective received further endorsement from
WA4:
This is an incredibly workaholic place to work. 9 a.m. to 1 a.m.

the following morning is not
unusual. You’re expected to put your private life second to your
work so I don’t suppose that
has helped in my pattern of workaholism. [WA4]
The prominence of the ‘you’ personal pronoun externalized
workaholism from the
participant and situated it within the work context. Prioritizing
work over one’s private
life was assembled as being a requirement of the job. The role-
talk of GPW6 also
normalized and externalized this behaviour to the work
environment:
I work in an investment bank and it is an intense regime.
Everybody else, your peer group, is
doing the same number of hours so you don’t really see it as a
problem [GPW6]
iv Culture: Differences in cultural context were also positioned
as leading to different
work patterns. For example:
In America they want people to succeed and excel - it’s a great
system and so I’ve sort of
adopted that mentality [GPW5]
GPW5 described himself as flexibly aligning himself with this

ethos, although he
hedged this statement with the modifier ‘sort of’. National
culture was thus depicted as an
issue of the mind, affecting work behaviour by instilling a
worldview or ‘mentality’.
Comparison group
a) Internal/dispositional antecedents of excessive work patterns
Overview
The most notable feature in this data was the role of personal
agency with respect to work
behaviours. Further elements identified as explanatory features
of work practices
included commitment to retaining work–nonwork boundaries
and significant life
incidents which led to a re-ordering of priorities.
Detail
i Personal decision-making: The issue of proactive choice
regarding work patterns
emerged in the data from this subgroup. The manner in which
this was done included
implementing time boundaries as described by C12:

I do my work from nine until six and then get out and do
something else with my life. [C12]
Another strategy involved acting on the basis of valued goals.
For example:
I decided to come off the seniority treadmill because they really
do expect your heart and your
soul and your life to get anywhere. [C5]
Evident in the prominence of first-person phrases such as ‘I
decided’, this participant
was constructed as having a strong sense of agency in relation
to her work pattern. The
intolerance of below-par performance was established through
extreme case formula-
tions such as ‘heart, soul, life’. The prominence of the ‘you’
personal pronoun further
established this as a law external to this particular context
(Potter, 1996). Members of this
subgroup also construed their work pattern as emerging from
rational decision-making.
For example:
I’m inclined to overwork by nature but I took a decision that I
wasn’t going to do it. [C4]
This participant constructed altering work patterns as overriding
natural tendencies.

This was worked up through the verb ‘took’ which positioned
her as being in control of
her work pattern. The prominence of the ‘I’ personal pronoun
constructed a strong sense
of agency. The absence of hedging assembled this extract as a
statement of fact (Edwards
& Potter, 1992). Adjusting habitualized work patterns was
construed as requiring some
achievable effort:
You have to be determined, to stick to and once you do that,
you get back into it. It’s all about
habit, really. I didn’t find it too difficult. [C6]
ii Perseverance: This latter quote from C6 also demonstrates
how being committed to
the new work behaviour was worked up as a necessary
requirement, given the
habitual nature of work patterns. The prominence of the general
‘you’ pronoun
distanced this construal from his situation and thus positioned it
as a universal law
(Edwards & Potter, 1992).
iii Proactive adjustment: Personal tragedy was also worked up
to explain work
behaviours. C1 said:

I have a sister who died about eleven years ago and almost the
last thing she said to me was to
‘stop doing what I have done’, which was work too hard. That
had a big impact on me, a big
impact. [C1]
The effect of this event on C1 was constructed as a physical
impression through
the repetition of the phrase ‘a big impact’. The authenticity of
this account
was assembled through the temporal details and the direct
speech quote from her
sister.
iv Maturation: Timely personal development was invoked to
explain work behaviours
in a number of ways. Some participants referred to age-related
changes in personality
and preferences:
I’m just not as ambitious as I was when I was younger. [C4]
The manner in which ambition manifested itself was constructed
as subject to

variation, and dependent on age rather than it being a central
feature of her personhood.
Similarly, C3 described her approach to work as having changed
over time:
I used to get hooked on the adrenaline of crisis management like
lots of people but I prefer a
more planned approach. [C3]
This behavioural dynamic was generalized to the majority of
people which
constructed her argument as less extreme. However, she
established herself as getting
tired of this approach and a sense of agency was worked up
through the prominence of
the ‘I’ personal pronoun.
v Available resources: Approaches to work were also attributed
to energy resources
rather than personality characteristics:
My dog had puppies - they’d be fast asleep for hours and then
they go mad and then their
energy levels drop - so I think I’m a bit like that. I like the
excitement or the buzz of a deadline
so I don’t get bored but I get exhausted from it. [C9]
The movement from the analogy of the puppies to this

participant’s work pattern was
established through the switch from ‘they’ to the ‘I’ personal
pronoun. The excitement of
working against the clock was positioned as a way of working
that this participant found
enjoyable but tiring.
b) Socio-cultural attributions for work patterns
Overview
A broad range of socio-cultural factors were supplied to further
explain work practices,
including family environment, educational experience, and
organizational norms.
Detail
i Family background: Both family of origin and created family
were worked up as
influencing work patterns. With reference to the former, C2
said:
There was never any pressure put on us at home to go to third
level, but there was this kind of
unwritten understanding between myself and my parents that
you work to the best of your
ability. [C2]

In this extract, performance expectations were positioned as an
implicit agreement
between C2 and her parents. There was a switch from the ‘I’
personal pronoun to the
‘you’ pronoun which distanced her working behaviour from this
agreement and
established it as an external law (Potter, 1996). Features of the
created family were also
identified as effecting work patterns:
I think it is easier to put in more hours when you don’t have a
family. I don’t ever see myself
working any longer than nine to five or half five. [C5]
Working long hours and having a family were construed as
difficult and
problematic to combine. C5 switched from the ‘I’ personal
pronoun to the ‘you’
pronoun which functioned to distance this statement from her
personal philosophy
and constructed these contextual conditions as fact (Edwards &
Potter, 1992).
Another participant described how features of their created
family led to an alteration

in work patterns:
I just have better things to be doing just now with my son - he
is twenty months now and I just
want to spend time with him and spend time with just the family
at home. [C7]
In this extract, engagement in family activities was positioned
as more desirable than
work. The modifier ‘just’ was repeated four times which
functioned to attribute the
change in the work style to a single aspect of his life, namely
fatherhood. A further family
feature cited as influencing work patterns was marital
disharmony. C10 said:
I used to work long hours to escape my relationship with my
wife. I think that was a symptom
of a marriage breaking down, more than anything else. [C10]
C10 positioned his excessive work patterns as a relief from an
unsatisfactory home life.
The extreme case formulation, ‘more than anything else’,
positioned this as an accurate
interpretation of his behaviour. Medical terminology (‘a
symptom of’) was used to
construct excessive working as being a reaction to and
indicative of a failing marriage.

ii Educational experiences: Participants construed lessons
learned in the school
environment as core to their approach to work:
My school environment taught me to be fairly disciplined and
taught me how to work hard. I
suppose you could say discipline and hard work - that’s what
school taught me to bring to the
job. [C11]
Working hard was positioned as an activity that was learned,
through the repetition of
the verb ‘taught’. Discipline and hard work were construed as
being learnt prior to
entering the workplace.
iii Organizational norms: Respondents reported on the role of
different norms across
diverse work environments and their corresponding adaptation
to them. For example,
C13 said:
I always change the way I work depending on the job I’m in. I
think that’s just the way you
evolve through your jobs. [C13]
This approach to work was expanded beyond his personal
circumstances through the

use of the generic terms ‘you’ and ‘your’. These terms
externalized this construal from her
specific case and constructed it as a universal tendency (Potter,
1996). Particular work
roles and departments within organizations were also construed
as leading to specific
work patterns. C14 proffered:
Oh I worked very long hours there. It was eight o’clock in the
morning to eleven o’clock at
night, five days a week. It was very heavy going . . .but I was
trying to get my feet under the
table properly and trying to understand what was going on.
[C14]
The length of working hours was emphasized and tied into a
particular workplace.
The reason for working a 75-hr week was clearly constructed as
a necessary
requirement for becoming familiar with a new job. This was
built up through the verbs
‘struggling’ and ‘trying’, as well as the idiomatic phrases ‘to
get on top of things’ and
‘get my feet under the table properly’. However, he was

construed as being in control
of his work behaviour through the personal pronouns ‘I’
(Edwards & Potter, 1992).
Geographic location and national culture were also construed as
relevant in relation to
work patterns:
Some of the American companies expect their employees to
work crazy hours, but that’s not
for me. My company is British-based and it’s not expected.
Japanese and American firms have
such a different work ethic. [C8]
National culture was positioned as leading to an obligation to
work long hours
which was departicularized from individuals to pervasive
expectations about work
practices.
Epilogue
In presenting this analysis, it is important not to establish a
false dichotomy between
internal and external modes of explanation, as the two
frequently interacted in
participants’ discourses to form complex, multifaceted
accounts. For instance, while

speaking about the societal factors assembled to explain
excessive working practices,
WA4 stipulated that acknowledging these influences did not
amount to a renunciation of
personal responsibility:
Actually I think the problem is in me. I don’t blame society -
it’s up to me to regulate my
behaviour. It’s not them outside. Why should anybody outside
help me regulate my own
behaviour? I’m the one that has to do it. I don’t blame society
for my workaholism, I take full
responsibility for it. I’m not a victim [WA4]
Another example of the interweaving of social context and
individual causality lay in
the commentary of WA3:
My dad’s a work addict. I think he has that going on back in his
ancestral realm. I think there’s
like an inter-generational heritage of addiction in my family. I
would consider one of my sisters
to be work-addicted. So for me, I feel like it’s a mixture. I was
probably both genetically and
psychologically predisposed for the disease and then I was
around people who also had that

behaviour. [WA3]
WA3 unambiguously categorized his parents as addicts and a
long-standing history of
family addiction was clearly constructed. By classifying his
sister as a work addict, he
emphasized the causality of the common family environment.
Genetic and social
explanations for his addictive tendencies were not mutually
exclusive, but they co-existed
in one coherent account.
Discussion
This paper makes an original contribution to the workaholism
literature, expanding it
theoretically, conceptually, methodologically and practically.
The novel employment of a
qualitative social constructionist approach allowed the research
to move beyond a reified
view of workaholism to empirically explore its genesis as a
socio-cultural construct. Our
inclusion of a comparison group of workers provided a further
opportunity to identify the
role of socio-cultural factors in development of excessive work

patterns. Together these
approaches allowed the study identify rich and novel insights
into how those who work
excessively explain, justify, and account for their behaviour
Data from the workaholic group revealed that they understood
the origin of their work
patterns to include many socio-cultural features such as family
background, educational
experience, and professional norms. While the role of family
systems (Robinson, 2001;
Stevens-Smith, 1994) and professional norms (Mazzetti et al.,
2014) have been identified
in the workaholism literature, our findings elaborate the
complex influential pathways of
these factors. Notably, our identification of the impact of the
educational environment on
the development of work patterns is a new addition to this
domain of enquiry and signals a
new trajectory for research in this domain. We encourage
researchers to consider Wigfield
and Eccles’ (2000) expectancy-value theory of achievement as a
vehicle to further explore
the role of educational experiences in the development of work
behaviours. The related
theoretical frameworks of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1999), and

locus of control (Rotter,
1966), along with theories focused on reasons for engaging with
certain activities such as
flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014), self-determination theory
(Deci & Ryan, 2010), and
self-worth theory (Covington, 1998) may also be helpful
frameworks to guide future
research in this area.
The personality trait of perfectionism was also referenced in the
data of workaholics.
While this is consistent with certain findings from the trait
theory literature (e.g., Clark
et al., 2010; Liang & Chu, 2009), other documented personality
links (e.g., the ‘Big Five’
[Andreassen, Hetland, & Pallesen, 2010; Burke et al., 2006; ])
were not intuited by this
sample. This suggests that there is value to be had in taking an
expansive consideration of
the role of traits in the emergence of workaholism. The role of
addiction also appeared in
the findings and the addiction framework has long been invoked
to explain workaholism
(Andreassen et al., 2012; Griffiths, 2011). However, only those
who were members of WA

referenced addiction, all of whom had previously attended other
addiction programmes.
As such, their identity as addicts extended beyond the work
environment to capture a
pervasive mode of relating to the world (Cain, 1991; Carnes,
Murray, & Charpentier,
2005). It is interesting to note that these individuals did not
mention related facets of
addiction such as withdrawal symptoms, increased tolerance,
brownouts, or blackouts
(Walters, & Gilbert, 2000). In these data, perhaps the status of
‘work addiction’ may have
been more rhetorical than ontological.
Addiction was not referenced by any other workaholic in the
study despite all meeting
the same criteria for categorization as a workaholic. Instead,
GPW evinced personal
choice, the antithesis of addiction, as an explanation for their
excessive work patterns.
This choice led to need satisfaction in terms of a sense of
accomplishment and achieving
valued rewards, outcomes aligned with Vallerand et al.’s (2010)
concept of harmonious
passion. While van Beek et al. (2011) identified ‘engaged
workaholics’ among random

users of an Internet site, our study confirms that controlled and
autonomous motivation
indeed drives behaviour of excessive workers (Van den Broeck
et al., 2011). Given the
differences in explanations of excessive work patterns from
workaholics, diverging
according to membership and non-membership of WA, our data
query the explanation of
workaholism provided by the addiction paradigms.
While the comparison group name-checked many of the same
factors as explanations
for their work patterns, certain differences were notable in their
accounts such as their
inclusion of created family as an influencing feature of their
work patterns. Most
interesting was the broad articulation of personal agency in
conforming to or rejecting
socio-cultural features of work environments such as
professional norms (Bandura, 1999;
Savickas, 2008). Explicit in their descriptions were decisions to
abandon previous
excessive work patterns, begging the question whether the

research had uncovered
‘former workaholics’. While studies have identified routes to
recovery from workaholic
behaviours (Bakker, Demerouti, Oerlemans, & Sonnentag,
2013), our findings suggest
that supporting personal agency in this regard may be a
productive avenue of future
research.
An important finding of this research is the identification of the
multidimensional
nature of lay explanations of workaholism. Traditionally,
attribution theory positions
internal and external attributions as oppositional: Heider (1958)
proposed a ‘hydraulic’
relation between internal and external attribution, such that the
more there is of one, the
less of the other. However, research examining explanations
offered spontaneously in
natural conversation suggests that people understand the world
in terms of ‘intuitive
interactionism’: single-cause explanations in terms of either
internal or external factors
are rare (Antaki, 1994). This is borne out in the current data.
For instance, accounts of
workaholism were at one point attributed to the internal trait of

perfectionism, but were
then also attributed to the influence of parenting and schooling.
Similarly, research on lay
understandings of substance addiction confirms that people
invoke multiple explanatory
factors (including biology, character, emotion, the social
environment, learning, and drug
properties) and explicitly site the cause of addiction in the
interactions between them
(Folkman, 2013; Meurk, Carter, Hall, & Lucke, 2014). This
study, where WA participants
identified external intervening factors in their ‘addiction’,
indicates that lay understand-
ings of workaholism are similarly multifactorial.
Taken together, our findings reveal a rich tapestry of factors
beyond the boundaries of
the trait and addiction paradigms that illuminate the genesis of
workaholism. The results
expand our understanding of the manner in which socio-cultural
processes affect
workaholism (Kanai & Wakabayashi, 2004) and support family
systems theory (Stevens-
Smith, 1994), socio-cultural theory (Lantolf, 2000) and theories
of personal agency

(Bandura, 1999) as vehicles for understanding the origins of
workaholism. Moreover, our
findings endorse the work of Mazzetti, Schaufeli, Guglielmi,
and Depolo (2016) and
Johnstone & Johnston (2005) who identified the important role
of the work environment
in encouraging excessive work patterns.
Our findings are directly related to the methodological approach
adopted which was
formative in revealing the complex, layered understandings that
characterize natural
thinking. The productive outcomes of this study suggest that
studies of workaholism
should revisit its early roots in qualitative research
(Machlowitz, 1980). Analysis of other
cultural material, such as popular psychology texts, mass media,
or Internet chatrooms,
would shed further light on social constructions of
workaholism. Another avenue to
pursue is an analysis of attitudes to excessive work in company
reports, mission
statements and other corporate literature (e.g., Craig &
Amernic, 2011), and an
ethnographic account of the informal processes through which
these attitudes are

transmitted to employees.
Limitations
While acceptable sample sizes in qualitative research vary
according to the method-
ology deployed (Bertaux, 1981; Charmaz, 2006; Mason, 2010;
Morse, 2000), a larger
sample size in future studies would be desirable. Stronger
response rates could be
encouraged by direct organizational endorsement of the research
(Anseel, Lievens,
Schollaert, & Choragwicka, 2010), site visits by researchers
(Couper, Traugott, &
Lamias, 2001; Fricker & Schonlau, 2002), and completion
incentives (Rose, Sidle, &
Griffith, 2007; Yu & Cooper, 1983). While qualitative research
does not aim to be
statistically representative, diversifying the sample by people
who have different
‘stakes’ in the issue would provide for a more holistic overview
of the topic.
Researchers could consider using strategies to enhance response
rates such as

emphasizing the value of the research, consent pre-screening,
and social network
approaches as suggested by Cycyota and Harrison (2006). In
this study, participants
were mostly drawn from the corporate sphere. It would be
interesting to explore how
excessive investment in work is construed in occupational
groups where roles are
characterized by more manual or emotional labour. It is also
important to note that this
study attracted a disproportionate number of male participants.
This meant that the
study afforded limited insight into the gendered nature of
working lives (Majeed,
Forder, Kendig, & Byles, 2015; Sabelis & Schilling, 2013). This
matter should be
addressed by future research, with an acknowledgement that
‘work’ is not restricted to
remunerated employment outside the home. Future longitudinal
research would also
be useful in disentangling the trajectory through which people’s
self-understanding
moves from hard worker to work addict. Finally, while our
study explored current
work patterns, our question regarding the derivation of work

behaviours necessarily
required participants to engage in recall. Evidence indicates that
error and bias are not
unusual in memory retrieval (Shiffman et al., 1997). Future
research should use
‘cognitive interviewing’ methods that are sensitive to the
workings of autobiographical
memory in order to improve recall accuracy (Means, Habina,
Swan, & Jack, 1992)
2
.
Nevertheless, in accordance with the principles of social
constructionism (Burr, 2015),
the factual accuracy of these memories may be of secondary
importance to their
narrative significance: the causal attributions revealed in our
research are those that
individuals recruit in actively constructing their personal
biography. It is these personal
constructions that guide individuals’ understandings of,
emotional responses to and
attempts to change their work practices. As a result, for
researchers and practitioners
interested in excessive working, understanding lay beliefs about
the origins of work

practices, irrespective of their factual accuracy, is equally (or
even more) critical than
understanding the empirically substantiated causal processes.
Conclusion
Lay accounts of a social phenomenon are of great empirical
value, not only for their
detail but also for the validity conferred by accounts of first-
hand experience of a
phenomenon. As the first study to directly explore lay
constructions of workaholism,
this research offers an important contribution to the literature.
People’s accounts of the
many external forces that influenced their working lives
challenge the dominant
individualistic approaches to workaholism. Correspondingly,
the retention of a sense of
2
We are grateful to one anonymous reviewer for pointing out this
issue.
agency challenges a totalistic view of work patterns as entirely
dictated by economic and
political powers. The academic literature on workaholism

should heed the wisdom of
‘workaholics’ themselves and seek to forge theoretical
frameworks that acknowledge
the diversity of factors involved and enlighten how they
interconnect in the genesis of
excessive work habits.
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Appendix : Interview schedule
Introduction
This study is investigating work patterns. We will be asking you
questions about your
approach to work. There are no right or wrong answers so
please feel free to answer at
length.
Questions
1. Could you please tell me what a typical day at work is like
for you?
Probes
� What hours do you typically work? Start/finish?
� Week-end / holiday work?
2. What do you think drives you or motivates you to work the
way you do?
Probes
� What aspects, if any, of your character do you think influence
your work pattern?
� What aspects, if any, of your personal circumstances do you
think may have influenced
your work pattern?
� home environment
� school or college attended

� work environment
� society
Extra question for Workaholics Anonymous members
� Why did you join Workaholics Anonymous?
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