Developing a French version of the Overwork Climate Scale (OWCS): Psychometric properties and relationships with working hard

• Autor(a) principal: Giani, Silvia Carbonera
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/19062
• topic: Workaholism; Work engagement; Overwork; France; Excesso de trabalho; França; Gestão de recursos humanos; Ambiente de trabalho; Trabalho intensivo; Incentivo salarial

This research presents the validation of a French version of Mazzetti, Schaufeli, Guglielmi and Depolo’s Overwork Climate Scale (OWCS) – 2016, which consists of two specific subscales, namely overwork endorsement and lacking overwork rewards. After undergoing a process of translation and back-translation, the questionnaire was evaluated by a bilingual and bicultural committee and tested with a pilot trial on five employees. The final version of the survey was answered by 198 volunteers. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were used to evaluate the structure of the French version of the OWCS, while its reliability was estimated by computing Cronbach’s α. Differently from our expectations, results from the Confirmatory Factor Analysis showed that a one-factor model (i.e. overwork endorsement, 6 items) adequately represents the data and has a substantially better fit than the two-factor model proposed in the literature. The second part of this study used Correlation and Hierarchical Regression Analysis to investigate the relationship between overwork climate and two different forms of working hard, namely work engagement and workaholism. No significant association could be evidenced between overwork climate and work engagement. Conversely, workaholism and overwork climate showed a positive association, which remained significant even after controlling for psychological job demands. This study represents one of the first attempts to investigate in the French context the impact of a work environment which promotes overwork, and its consequences in terms of fostered workaholism and lowered work engagement.