About this Research Topic
The concept of Heavy Work Investment (HWI) has recently gained attention in scholarly work, namely due to the evolution of the world of work in developed countries where an increasing number of employees put in more hours into work than they wish. HWI is broadly defined as the intensity of investment of time and effort into work. A large body of research has identified two dimensions within HWI: workaholism, reflecting the addictive relation to work, itself comprising a behavioral (i.e., working excessively) and a cognitive (i.e., working compulsively) dimension, and work engagement, referring to a positive relationship to and absorption into one’s work. Another tradition of research has approached HWI under the lens of time commitment and work intensity as separate dimensions of the construct. The latter notions share similarities with the construct of job engagement or job involvement. Although it is still missing at this point, one may also wonder whether these various operationalizations share variance with employee commitment, which has developed along a separate stream of research.
We believe it’s time to advance research on HWI by clarifying what the different measures bring to our understanding of the HWI construct and its implications. The primary goal of this Research Topic is to publish articles that offer insights into the following topics:
• What is the construct domain of HWI? Is this an attitude comprising affective (e.g., “I love working”), behavioral (e.g., “I put in many hours”), and/or cognitive (e.g., “I am obsessed by my work”) components? How do the dimensions complement each other?
• If HWI is considered a higher-order multidimensional construct, is it a superordinate construct or an aggregate construct? If it is an aggregate construct, what relevant dimensions (e.g., workaholism, job engagement, effort, etc.) should be retained as reflections of the construct? What specific inclusion criteria should be used to retain particular dimensions as first-order factors of HWI?
• If HWI is defined as a higher-order multidimensional construct, does it explain variance in work outcomes above and beyond the variance explained by the first-order factors?
• Do the antecedents of HWI as a higher-order construct exert a parallel and similar influence across the HWI dimensions?
• How do personality traits versus situations influence the development of HWI and its dimensions?
This Research Topic aims at encouraging discussion regarding these important questions as related to the nature of HWI and its dimensions, antecedents, and consequences.
Keywords: Heavy-Work Investment, Workaholism, Work Engagement, Commitment, Work Centrality
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.