Getting connected: an opportunity or threat? – a study on the effects of work-related smartphone use on depletion and the moderating role of self-control capacity and stress
mindsets.
Naomi Zeldenrust (11416718) Dhr. Dr. M. Venus
MSc. in Business Administration – Leadership & Management track University of Amsterdam
23/06/2017 – Final version 10.427 words
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Statement of originality
This document is written by student Naomi Zeldenrust, who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
3 Abstract
Work-related smartphone use has mainly been seen as an opportunity that has developed over
the years that could offer more freedom and less restrictions to certain working hours and
specific workplaces. Nevertheless, more recently, research also shed light on the more
negative sides of getting more connected and using a smartphone for work-related purposes,
like making it harder to balance working and family life together. Consequently, more
knowledge about the topic is needed in order to understand the effects it could have in a
better way. Through a diary study of 81 employees whom all have a smartphone for their
work, the current paper explores what the effects of this specific smartphone use could be on
depletion experienced by the employees the following day and the role self-control capacity
and stress mindsets play within this relationship. The aim of the study is two-folded: to
examine a direct effect on work-related smartphone use on depletion the following workday,
and to explore the moderating role of the personal characteristics: self-control capacity and
stress mindsets on the relationship between this smartphone use and the experienced
depletion. Results showed that indeed, there is a significant effect between work-related smartphone use and depletion experienced in the afternoon. However, there wasn’t shown
any significant effect of the moderating role of self-control capacity as well as stress
mindsets. Even though, not all expected results were found, the findings of the current study
still add to the already existing literature on the effects of smartphone usage for work-related
purposes and represents a basis for further theory development and future research
directions.
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Table of content
Index of figures and tables 5
Index of appendices 5
1. Introduction 6
2. Literature review 10
2.1 Ego Depletion 10
2.2 Smartphone use & depletion 13
2.3 Self-control 17
2.4 Stress mind sets 18
3. Research methods 20
3.1 Sample and Procedure 20
3.2 Measures 21
4. Data analysis and results 23
4.1 Analytic strategy 23
4.2 Hypothesis testing 24
4.3 Additional analyses 26
5. Discussion 30
5.1 Theoretical implications 31
5.2 Limitations and future directions 34
5.3 Practical implications 37
6. Conclusion 38
7. References 41
5 Index of figures and tables
Figure 1.1 Research model Table 4.1 Cronbach’s alpha
Table 4.2 Means, standard deviations and correlations
Table 4.3 Multilevel analysis testing the effects regarding depletion in the afternoon Table 4.4 Multilevel analysis testing the effects regarding depletion in the morning
Index of appendices Appendix A Survey items
6 1. Introduction
“Employees physically leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain
attached by a kind of electronic leash – like a dog. The texts, the messages, the emails – they
colonize the life of the individual to the point where he or she eventually breaks down.” –
Benoit Hamon of the French National Assembly (Mosbergen, 2016).
In today’s world, technological devices like smartphones, laptops and Ipad’s, take on a great role, not only in our personal lives, but also increasingly in our business lives. More often than ever, employees are expected to be reachable all the time and to be connected with their work, even when they aren’t physically there. As a survey of CareerBuilder has shown, more than 8 in 10 workers have a smartphone, of which 82 percent keeps them within eye contact at work (Farber, 2016).
Although earlier research has mainly focused around personal smartphone use (e.g. social networking sites) and how this could offer some great advantages like, lower the levels of depression, increase the amount of flexibility (Collins, Cox & Wootton, 2014), and strengthen social relations which positively affects the well-being (Park & Lee, 2012), the rise of technological devices isn’t all positive, especially not when focusing at work-related smartphone usage. Work-related smartphone use is mostly focused around employees for instance, checking their work e-mail or making work-related calls. Because they can check their e-mail by using their phone, they aren’t restricted to certain spaces and time anymore. They can do it where they want and whenever they want. Although at first glance, this flexibility offered by using their smartphone might be seen as a positive development, there are definitely some disadvantages to it.
One of the negative outcomes of the flexibility offered, is that it makes it harder to balance work and family life due to the boundaries becoming less clear (Derks, Bakker, Peters & van Wingerden, 2016; Derks & Bakker, 2014). Besides that, it has been proven that
work-7 related smartphone use could lead to a lower quality of sleep and even employees experiencing feelings of depletion, because they keep on using the same resources repeatedly, without recovering. Depletion in its turn, could lead to a lot of other negative consequences, like depression and an overall lower well-being, decreased motivation among employees and less job satisfaction (Job, Dweck & Walton, 2010; Lee, Chang, Lin & Cheng, 2014; Lanaj, Johnson & Barnes, 2014; Ohly & Latour, 2014).
A shortcoming of the already existing literature about work-related smartphone use however, is the fact that it doesn’t consider if the negative effects as discussed, are the same for every employee. It has been shown that smartphone use for work-related purposes will lead to a lower quality of sleep, interference in work-life balance and depletion or emotional exhaustion. Yet, the research doesn’t focus at if this is the case for every single employee. Does every employee feel depleted the next day after extensive use of their smartphones the night before? Or could it be that certain characteristics of the employee play a role within this relationship? This research will look at the relationship between work-related smartphone use in the evening and the depletion employees experience the day after, and how this relationship could be moderated through the level of self-control capacity an employee has and his or her stress mind set (see figure 1.1). This will be done by using a diary study and the following research question: “How does work-related smartphone use in the evening affect depletion the following workday? And what is the influence of stress mind sets and self-control capacity on this relationship?”.
Stress has been an important concept within already existing literature. However, stress mind sets are relatively new. Crum, Salovey and Achor (2013) stated in their research paper that not only stress in itself is important, but also the way you look at it plays a big role. Individuals can see stress in two different ways according to them, namely: the is-enhancing mindset, where people believe that stress has is-enhancing consequences for
stress-8 related outcomes, like performance and well-being, and the stress-is-debilitating mindset, where people think it has debilitating consequences for stress-related outcomes (Crum, Salovey & Achor, 2013).
Although earlier research found that work-related smartphone use leads to depletion felt by the employee, this research expects, based on the statements made by Crum et al., (2013) that the negative effects of work-related smartphone use on depletion experienced by the employee could become less when employees have a positive stress mindset and thus, see stress as something enhancing for their outcomes. For employees who think of stress as debilitating, this will be the other way around. Expected is that the negative consequences of work-related smartphone use on depletion will be stronger, instead of weaker, when employees think of stress in a negative way.
Furthermore, the research will also look at self-control capacity, which can be defined by the capacity to regulate the self, and overcome impulses and drives that, for example, tempt us to overeat or procastinate when you should be working (Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis, 2010). Because people high on self-control capacity tend to regulate their behaviour in a better way than people low on self-control capacity, it is expected that the negative consequences of work-related smartphone use on depletion experienced by the employee will be less for employees who are high on self-control capacity and for employees with low self-control capacity this will be the exact opposite. So, the negative consequences of work-related smartphone usage on depletion will be stronger when self-control capacity is low.
9 Figure 1.1
In the end this research will contribute to expanding the knowledge about work-related smartphone use and depletion that employees experience the following day, and the concepts of self-control capacity and stress mind sets within this relationship. In that way, it should become more clear what could be of influence on the relationship between depletion and work-related smartphone use and if smartphone use for work leads to depletion for every employee or if this could differ between them. The already existing literature about work-related smartphone use and depletion would be expanded and the gap about specific personality characteristics that could be of influence becomes more narrow. Furthermore, this research could also have specific contributions in practice. If these personality characteristics are of influence on the depletion employees experience, employers of different organizations could decide to take certain steps, for example no e-mails after eight o’clock in the evening and six o’clock in the morning, and in that way, reduce depletion, which in turn could overcome the negative consequences of it, like the loss of productivity or decreased motivation.
To come to an answer of the research question stated within the current study, this paper first will discuss the literature and what is already known about the different variables.
10 The paper will then discuss the research methods, followed by the results of the different analyses performed. In the end, the results of the study will be discussed and different theoretical as well as practical implications will be given. After discussing the limitations and future directions, the paper will end with a concluding remark.
2. Literature review 2.1 Ego Depletion
In the past couple of years, among other things, globalization and technological developments changed the way people used to work. Everything is becoming more digital, and employees aren’t working regular nine to five shifts anymore. This new way of working creates a lot of opportunities but could also result into some negative outcomes like for example, the flexibility given to employees makes it harder to balance work and family with each other (Demerouti, Derks, ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2014). Besides that, businesses are expecting a lot more of their employees nowadays. On top of increased productivity and flexibility, the use of technological devices, under which smartphones, made connectivity and engagement of the employee also very important. The expectation that employees should be reachable all the time, could however also result into increased workload, job strain and in extreme cases even a burn-out (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Burn-outs are an important phenomenon to look at within organizations, since it could have negative consequences for the organizations as well as for the employees who experience one (Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004). It could for instance, result in lower profitability for the firm through decreased employee productivity and could lead to decreased employee commitment (de Hoogh & den Hartog, 2009). Because of the importance, burn-out has been researched a lot. One important contribution of this research has been that burn-out compasses three different concepts: emotional exhaustion, which refers to the depletion of emotional resources, depersonalization, whereby employees detach from their job and start to develop
11 uncaring attitudes towards their jobs and reduced personal accomplishment, which means that employees believe they can’t perform as well at their job as they once could (Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004; Leiter & Maslach, 2008). This research will focus at the concept of emotional exhaustion, which can be defined as ego depletion.
Ego depletion occurs when people try to regulate their own behaviour by using their emotional resources. People should exert self-control in these situations to overcome certain impulses, like for example, eating unhealthy things. Because the resources people use are finite, regulating your own behaviour too much or too intense, could lead to depletion of the specific resources used. When this occurs, employees are left to feel as if they lack adaptive resources to do their work and can’t perform in the way they were used to (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven & Tice, 1998; Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004; Tyler & Burns, 2008; Hagger et al., 2010; Lin & Johnson, 2015). A lot of research from previous years has looked at depletion. In the beginning, depletion research was mainly focused around psychology; what really happens within people who experience depletion and the health related consequences it could have, like overeating, drinking too much alcohol or behaving aggressively (Baumeister et al., 1998; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000; Stucke & Baumeister, 2006; Hofmann, Rauch & Gawronski, 2007), whereas the last couple of years depletion was put in a more organizational context (Lanaj et al., 2014; Lin & Johnson, 2015; Uy, Lin & Ilies, 2016). An important contribution of these different research papers has been the effect that depletion could have on the overall performance of an individual. It has been shown that people who perform a task that requires a specific amount of self-regulatory processes, which then become depleted, will show reduced performance when being asked to perform another task which also uses these self-regulatory processes. So, for example, someone who had to think about white bears (thought suppression), showed reduced ability to supress his or her
12 laughter at the second task while watching funny videos, simply because their self-control capacity became depleted by the first task (Baumeister et al., 1998; Webb & Sheeran, 2003).
Depletion could happen in a lot of situations and could therefore have different outcomes, it doesn’t only stay limited to overeating or drinking too much alcohol. For instance, Mead, Baumeister, Gino, Schweitzer and Ariely (2009), showed that depletion could also lead to dishonesty and people trying to cheat when using too much of their self-regulatory resources. Govorun & Payne (2006) showed that depletion could even play a role regarding racial stereotypes and prejudices. Besides that, depletion has been linked to different variables that could have an influence on the amount of ego depletion people experience. It has been shown that self-regulatory processes, positive affect, sleep and implementation intentions could counteract the ego-depletion process (Moller, Deci & Ryan, 2006). Furthermore, the way in which individuals are giving a choice is also of influence on how depleted they feel after making one, because whereas autonomous choice hasn’t shown to result in depletion, controlled choice certainly did (Moller et al., 2006; Pocheptsova, Amir, Dhar & Baumeister, 2009).
Also within the organizational context, there has been some research regarding what could be of influence on the ego depletion process. Lin & Johnson (2015) found that promotive voice behaviour within organizations (which communicates suggestions to improve company processes and policies to achieve an ideal state) is less depleting than showing prohibitive voice behaviour (which is mainly focused at expressing concerns about potentially troublesome practices and work behaviour). So, in that way, employees who still engage in prohibitive voice behaviour will be left more exhausted mentally than the ones who engage in the promotive behaviour. Moreover, Uy et al., (2016) also showed that giving help to your colleagues will lead to less depletion felt by the individual who is offering his or her help. On top of that, it has been shown that ego depletion could have detrimental effects for
13 organizations. For instance, ego depletion could lead to leaders showing unethical or even abusive behaviour (Barnes, Schaubroeck, Huth & Ghumman, 2011; Barnes, Lucianetti, Bhave & Christian, 2015) or a decrease in productivity and motivation (de Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2009). Although a lot is known about the causes and consequences of depletion, there are still some opportunities to extend the already existing literature. Within this new area we are living, there could be a new source which plays a role regarding ego-depletion within employees, something which everyone owns nowadays and everybody uses, namely the smartphone.
2.2 Smartphone use & depletion
Although smartphones are a development of the latest years, there are already some things known about the topic. For instance, research has shown that personal smartphone use (which is mainly focused around the use of social networking sites) could lead to lower levels of loneliness and depression and could enhance self-esteem. Furthermore, it could strengthen social relations and could have a positive effect on well-being (Park & Lee, 2012). On top of that, it has been shown that work-related smartphone use could also have positive effects for employers as well as employees, like increasing the amount of flexibility (Collins et al., 2014), giving employees the opportunity to directly access work-related information (Lanaj et al., 2014), providing better collaboration between co-workers and increased productivity (Derks, ten Brummelhuis, Zecic & Bakker, 2014). However, the extensive use of smartphones for personal as well as work-related reasons, doesn’t only results in positive consequences. Recent research has shifted the focus to the so-called dark side of smartphone use. Overall, the total smartphone use of individuals is becoming more habitual during the years, with more people using it compulsively, resulting into sleep disturbance or lower quality of sleep, depression and increased psychological distress (Lee et al., 2014; Lanaj et al., 2014). In fact, research has shown that especially use of smartphones after working hours could result in a
14 lower overall well-being (Ohly & Latour, 2014). Furthermore, it has been shown that work-related smartphone use could lead to feelings of psychological detachment (Derks, van Mierlo & Schmitz, 2014) and that always being available by using a smartphone could result in an increase in non-standard work schedules. This in turn could blur the boundaries between work and family domains and therefore interfere in the work-life balance of employees (Derks et al., 2016; Derks & Bakker, 2014). On top of that, it has been shown within research of Lanaj et al., (2014) that extensive use of your smartphone for work-related purposes in the evening could lead to a lower quality of sleep and in that way, could result into employees feeling depleted the following morning at work.
However, the relationship between work-related smartphone use in general and depletion has still been under researched and is therefore the central focus of this paper. It is expected that work-related smartphone use in the evening leads to ego-depletion within employees the following workday because of several reasons.
First, as already mentioned, the flexibility that comes with using your smartphone for work leads to less clear boundaries between work- and family life. It is hard to find a good balance between these and with trying to find one, people use a lot of their self-regulatory processes to keep functioning the way that is expected of them, which makes them feel more emotionally exhausted (Derks et al., 2016).
Secondly, when people are using their smartphone for work at home, it doesn’t give them the chance to recover from their work in the right way, they don’t recover and replenish their resources (Derks & Bakker, 2014). With the increased demands at cognitive and emotional level and the high levels of workload and job insecurity, it has become very important that employees recover from their work. Recovery could be defined as the process of reducing or eliminating psychological and psychical strain symptoms that have been caused by different job demands (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015) and can be done in different sort
15 of ways. The most powerful one is psychological detachment from work, during nonwork time, which means that they refrain from job-related activities and mentally disengage from their work during off time (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015). However, by using a smartphone in the evening for work-related purposes, individuals don’t get the chance to psychologically detach from their work. Through checking for instance, their e-mail for work, people are still occupied with it and are using the same self-regulatory processes as they do when they are physically there. In that way, they don’t recover which could lead to a lot of negative outcomes when the following day at work, they have to use these exact same self-regulatory processes. For instance, this could result into low levels of energy, focus and engagement and in the most extreme case, depletion of the self (Derks & Bakker, 2014; Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015).
Third, it has been shown that smartphone usage will lead to a decrease in sleep quality. This is due to the blue light it shines, which decreases the production of melatonin, also known as the sleep hormone. Because people use their smartphone more often for work-related purposes and more often late at night, their sleep quality decreases due to less production of melatonin, which leads to less replenishment of the resources used that day, because they sleep less, and therefore will result into depletion the following workday (Lanaj et al., 2014). Based on these reasons provided within the literature, the first hypothesis that will be tested within this study is:
H1. Work-related smartphone use is positively related to depletion experienced by the
employee the following workday.
Focusing at the relationship between work-related smartphone use and ego-depletion doesn’t provide us with an extensive view of the topic. Although literature showed that work-related smartphone use leads to ego-depletion within individuals, this doesn’t necessarily have to mean that it would do so in the same amount for every single person. Different factors can be
16 of influence on the negative effects work-related smartphone usage can have on the amount of depletion an employee experiences the following workday.
Earlier research has already looked at different sort of moderators which can influence the amount of ego-depletion. For instance, Moller et al., (2006) looked at the moderating role autonomy could have on the amount of depletion and found that an autonomous choice could decrease the amount of depletion felt. Lanaj et al., (2014) did some similar research when looking at the amount of job control as a moderator. They stated that late night smartphone use could lead to a lower sleep quality, which will lead to depletion experienced by the employee, whom because of that, will show less work engagement. They concluded that job control influenced the relationship between depletion and work engagement in such a way, that by increasing the amount of job control, organizations can weaken the relationship between depletion and work engagement and maybe more importantly also the other way around. So, a high amount of job control will lead to less negative effects of depletion on work engagement, whereas a low amount of job control was shown to increase the negative effects of depletion on work engagement. On top of that, research has also looked at the moderating role of giving and receiving help (Uy et al., 2016).
Yet, there are other interesting variables that could also play a moderating role within this specific relationship namely, self-control capacity and stress mindsets. Self-control capacity is an important variable when looking at depletion. It could be the case that the relationship between work-related smartphone use and the amount of depletion experienced by the employees is being influenced by the amount of self-control capacity an individual has. The same goes for stress mindsets. The relationship that is expected between work-related smartphone use and depletion could for instance, be influenced by stress mindsets in such a way, that the negative effects of work-related smartphone use will be less on the amount of depletion experienced by the employees if employees think of stress as a positive thing.
17 Because of the expected effects these variables can have on the amount of depletion, it is interesting to look at these further than already has been done within existing literature. 2.3 Self-control capacity
Self-control capacity is mostly defined as the capacity an individual has for altering one’s own responses, especially to bring them in line with standards such as ideals, values, morals and social expectations, and to support the pursuit of long-term goals (Baumeister, Vohs & Tice, 2007). Different research has looked at the concept of self-control capacity, also in relation to similar concepts like willpower and self-regulation (Baumeister et al., 2007; Henden, 2008). Self-control capacity, however, distinguishes itself from the other concepts by that it is deliberate and conscious. For example, choosing consciously to not eat fat food is self-control capacity whereas, maintaining a constant body temperature is self-regulatory, it already happens automatically (Baumeister et al., 2007).
Although self-control has been mentioned and linked to ego-depletion in different research papers as an important factor of the depletion process itself, self-control capacity is a different concept (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven & Tice, 1998; Webb & Sheeran, 2003; Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004; Tyler & Burns, 2008; Hagger et al., 2010; Lin & Johnson, 2015). The self-control aspect mentioned in different ego-depletion research is mainly focused around self-regulatory processes, so the more automatic responses of an individual, rather than the more deliberate ones who play a role within control capacity. So, self-regulatory processes can have an influence on depletion, but self-control capacity can influence the whole relationship between work-related smartphone use and experienced ego-depletion of the employees.
Expected is that someone who is high on self-control capacity, so someone who is good at consciously and deliberately making choices regarding their own behaviour, will be less affected by the effects smartphone use can have on the felt depletion within the
18 employee. When individuals can control their own behaviour, the negative effects that work-related smartphone use can have on depletion can be controlled in a better way by the individual due to the high self-control capacity, which will lead to a weaker overall effect of smartphone use for work on depletion felt by the employee. Contrary to that, someone who is low on self-control capacity will maybe experience an overall stronger effect of work-related smartphone use on depletion experienced by the employee, because they can’t control their own resources in a good way.
Take for instance someone who is low on self-control capacity. Expected is that work-related smartphone in the evening will lead to depletion felt by the employee the following workday. For someone with low self-control capacity these effects are expected to be stronger than when someone is high on self-control capacity. So, the person is using his or her smartphone for work-related purposes in the evening, which makes him/her feel depleted the following day at work. Because they can’t control their resources in the right manner (e.g. knowing when to stop using their phone for checking work e-mails), their resources aren’t getting enough time to recover, which will only increase the negative effects of the smartphone use on depletion, thus, the employee feeling even more depleted than when he would be high on self-control capacity. And therefore, the following is expected:
H2. The relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion experienced the
following workday, will be moderated by self-control capacity of an individual such that
work-related smartphone use will be stronger related to depletion experienced the following
workday, when one’s self-control capacity is low.
2.4 Stress mind sets
Another factor that could influence the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion experienced by the employee the following workday are stress mind sets. Stress has been an important concept within the research literature and is mostly displayed as something
19 negative, which for instance can be linked to different causes of death, absenteeism from work, depression and loss of productivity (Crum et al., 2013). Past research has mainly stated that depending on the amount (intensity, duration and frequency) of external stressors, stress could have debilitating or enhancing effects on individuals (Holmes & Rahe, cited in Crum et al., 2013, p. 717). However, recent research has shown that one’s mindset when thinking about stress could influence the actual consequences of experiencing stress. According to Dweck (cited in Crum et al., 2013, p. 717) mindset could be defined as: “a mental lense or frame that selectively organizes and encodes information, thereby orienting an individual toward an unique way of understanding an experience and guiding one toward corresponding actions and responses”.
As Crum et al. (2013) stated in their research, there are two ways in which an individual can think of stress. One could see it as something positive, the stress-is-enhancing mindset, or people could see it as something negative, the stress-is-debiliating mindset. Which
kind of stress mindsets people hold, could influence how people behave regarding stress, how they physically experience it and to what extent they think it could have an effect on their motivation, health and performance outcomes. Individuals with a positive mindset regarding stress, believe that it has enhacing consequences for performance and productivity, health and well-being and learning and growth, whereas individuals who hold a more negative mindset think stress has debilitating consequences on these outcomes.
Literature already showed that work-related smartphone use leads to depletion within individuals because of several reasons. But how can stress mindsets interact with those concepts? It could be that the use of a smartphone for work in the evening, prevents an employee from recovering the used recources over night. This will lead to lower energy levels in the morning and an increase in the amount of stress. Yet, this stress will not harm the employees who have a positive mindset, because they accept the stress and see it as
20 something productive. The ones with the negative mindset however, tend to experience the negative effects of it which will lead to even more stress and on top of that, they will try to avoid it which could work depleting in the end. This in its turn could lead to them experiencing higher levels of depletion than the ones who think of stress as a positive thing.
Furthermore, it has been shown that overall people with a stress-is-enhancing mindset tend to actually produce lower objective stress levels than the ones with a stress-is-debilitating mindset (Crum & Langer, 2007). So, this will mean that people already more positive regarding stress even experience less stress in the end than the people who have negative mindsets. On top of that, it could be the case that stress mindsets directly influence the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion experienced by the employee in such a way that when employees have a stress is enhancing mindset, they experience less negative effects of smartphone use for work on depletion experienced the next day. When employees have a stress is debilitating mindset, it is possible that the effects of smartphone use for work on depletion could become stronger. All in all, these findings will lead to the final hypothesis of this paper:
H3. The relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion experienced the
following workday, will be moderated by stress mindsets such that work-related smartphone
use will be stronger related to depletion experienced the following workday, when one’s
stress mindset is negative.
3. Research methods 3.1 Sample and Procedure
To give an answer to the research question, a quantitative study has been performed. This has been done by using a survey. With a survey, results can be standardized more easily, and it is a good way to test hypotheses and generalize the findings in the end (Bryman, 2015). In this
21 specific study a diary study has been performed. Respondents had to fill in a one-shot survey which was mainly focused around their personal characteristics, followed by a ten-day-period of a morning- (around 11 am) and an afternoon survey (around 15 pm) which had to measure the effects of the smartphone use on depletion and the moderators which could be of influence. The benefit of using a diary study is that you get an effect over time, instead of just measuring specific variables one day.
The respondents were all employees within the Dutch workforce, with many Dutch speaking respondents and just a few whom spoke English. The only requirements the respondents had to have were that they had to work more than a certain number of hours per week (more than 36 hours) and that they had to do this job as their main occupation (so no side-jobs or students who work full-time besides their studies). On top of that, it was important that all the respondents had a smartphone which they used for work-related purposes. The surveys were emailed to all the respondents (N = 92), of which eventually 81 filled out at least a complete one-shot survey and one daily survey. There were 53,1% males and 46,9% females in the sample. The number of observations (N), if everyone filled out all the surveys was 810. Yet, overall on a daily level N was 552, which resulted into a response rate of 68,1%.
3.2 Measures
The questionnaires asked the employees about their gender (nominal variable), their age (ratio variable), and their tenure. Besides that, in the daily surveys the question was asked where they filled out the survey (e.g. at home, at work or on their way home like, for example in the train). Because the surveys were partly being spread among the Dutch workforce, the questions and the 5-point Likert scales (strongly disagree – strongly agree) were translated to Dutch and checked by our supervisors to ensure better understanding among the respondents.
22 Smartphone use has been assessed by using an open survey question from Lanaj et al
(2014). We only wanted to know how many minutes they used their phone for work-related purposes in the evening, so this question suits this in the best way (“How many minutes did you use your smartphone for work after 9 PM last night?”). The question was asked during the morning sessions of the daily surveys and has been named SmartWc within the tables.
Depletion has been measured using 5 items from the 5-point Likert scale of Twenge et
al (2004), with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.951 across days. It asks employees to which extent they experienced exhaustion or depletion symptoms throughout the day (which is being referred to in tables as Depl_T2_Tot), by using the daily surveys sent out during the afternoon (e.g. I feel mentally exhausted, if I were given a difficult task right now, I would give up easily, I feel drained, 1= strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).
Self-control capacity has been measured using 4 items of the 5-point Likert scale of
Smit & Barber (2015), with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.712. This measurement was focused at looking how much self-control capacity the respondents had and mainly focused on the personal characteristics of respondents, therefore the one-shot survey was used (e.g. I am good at resisting temptation, I wish I had more self-discipline, people would say that I have iron self-discipline, 1= strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). This variable is being referred to as SC_Tot in tables listed below.
Stress mindsets in the end has been measured with 8 items of the 5-point Likert scale
of Crum et al (2013), with a reported Cronbach’s alpha of 0.845. This variable was also part of the personal characteristics of respondents and therefore the one-shot survey was also used to measure this concept. Respondents were being asked about how they experience and see stress (e.g. Experiencing stress facilitates my learning and growth, experiencing stress depletes my health and vitality, 1= strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). Stress mindsets are being named SM_Tot within the tables.
23 4. Data analysis and results
4.1 Analytic strategy
To begin, a frequency test was run to check for any errors within the data and to see if there were any missing values. There were some errors found within the different items that measured stress mindsets. Three respondents didn’t answer all the questions, which led to missing values within this variable. Those three persons were deleted and not used in further analysis, which resulted in N = 81 instead of N = 84. Besides this, the data was checked for any counter-indicative items (agreement on these items means a low level of the construct being measured) which has led to recoding of two items that measured self-control and four items that measured stress mindsets.
All the items were then checked on reliability, which shows how well the internal consistency of your scale is. It checks if all the items within your scale measure the same, or that for instance, one item shouldn’t be used within the further analysis. As shown in table 4.1, all the items have a Cronbach’s Alpha (α) > 0.7, which indicates a high level of internal consistency and that all the items should be used in further analysis.
Table 4.1: Cronbach’s Alpha
Variable Cronbach’s Alpha
Depletion 0.951
Self-control 0.712
Stress mindset 0.845
Furthermore, total variables of the already existing ones were created in order to make hypothesis testing possible. Scale means have been computed for self-control, depletion and stress mindsets. Also for work-related smartphone use a mean has been computed. However, to make analysis possible, the outcomes of work-related smartphone use had to be centered at respondents’ means of the variable. Centering the item around respondents’ means removes
24 the effects of between-person confounds, and allows for a better understanding of relations regarding this variable (Lanaj et al., 2014). A correlation table has been made using the computed means for all four variables, as shown in table 4.2. The strongest correlation found is between self-control capacity and stress mindsets (r = 0.237, p = .00), which indicates that the relationship between those two variables is positive. When self-control capacity goes up, the values for stress mindsets do too. Besides, this correlation is significant at a 0.01 level. Another relevant correlation is the one between stress mindsets and depletion (r = -0.211, p = .00), which indicates a negative relationship, and therefore means that when the values for
stress mindsets go up, the values for depletion will go down. This relationship is also proven to be significant at a 0.01 level. The same goes for the correlation between self-control capacity and depletion (r = -0.138, p = .00), yet this overall correlation is a bit weaker than the one between depletion and stress mindsets.
Table 4.2: Means, standard deviations and correlations.
Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4
1. Depl_T2_Tot 10.03 4.86 - (0.951)
2. SC_Tot 12.62 2.70 -0.138** - (0.712)
3. SM_Tot 23.51 5.00 -0.211** 0.237** - (0.845)
4. SmartWc 0.00 15.94 0.064 0.000 0.000 -
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) 4.2 Hypothesis testing
To test hypothesis 1, a multilevel analysis with work-related smartphone use as independent variable and depletion as dependent variable was performed. Results revealed that there was a significant effect of work-related smartphone use on depletion experienced in the afternoon, t = 1.93, p = .05 with γ = 0.019 which indicates that when you are using your smartphone for work-related purposes for 1 extra minute, depletion will go up by 0.019. This means that
25 hypothesis 1 is supported and that smartphone usage for work in the evening does lead to an increase into depletion experienced the following workday.
Furthermore, a second analysis has been performed to look at the more direct effects of self-control capacity and stress mindset on depletion. By adding self-control capacity and stress mindset to the analysis, the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion wasn’t significant anymore at a 0.05-level. Yet, when using a significance level of 0.1, the relationship was still shown significant, t = 1.92, p = .06. Besides, the relationship of stress mindsets on depletion in the afternoon was also shown significant at a level of 0.1, t = -1.88 p = .07, γ = -0.162. The relationship between self-control capacity and depletion however, wasn’t shown to be significant at both 0.05-level and 0.1-level, t = -1.13, p = .26, γ = -0.178.
To eventually test hypothesis 2 and 3, the interaction terms of stress mindsets and self-control capacity were added within the multilevel analysis. By including those within the analysis, the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion doesn’t show any significance anymore on both a 0.05-level and 0.1-level, t = 0.09, p = .93, γ = 0.008. The direct relationship between self-control capacity and depletion stays not significant at both levels, t = -1.13, p = .26, γ = -0.178 and the one between stress mindsets and depletion still is significant at 0.1-level, t = -1.86, p = .07, γ = -0.162. The moderating role of self-control capacity, t = -0.67, p = .52, γ = -0.004 and stress mindsets, t = 0.68, p = .51, γ = 0.002, have both shown no significance at the different significance levels. Therefore, it can be concluded that, both hypothesis 2 and 3 are being rejected, which means that neither a high value for self-control capacity or a positive stress mindset leads to a weaker relationship between work-related smartphone usage and depletion, or the other way around. The results of the analysis are also listed in table 4.3.
26 4.3 Additional analyses
Within this research, depletion has been measured at two different times. The focus of the original analysis was on the depletion experienced by the employees at the end of the day, for which the daily afternoon survey was used. For these additional analyses, the focus is on the depletion experienced in the morning by the different employees, for which the daily morning surveys were used.
To test hypothesis 1, again multilevel analysis was performed. However, this time the dependent variable was depletion experienced in the morning (referred to in the tables as Depl_T1_Tot). The first analysis showed that there wasn’t a significant effect of work-related smartphone use on depletion experienced in the morning, t = 1.16, p = .25, γ = 0.011. This means that hypothesis 1 is being rejected and that work-related smartphone use doesn’t lead to an increase in the amount of depletion felt by the employees the following morning.
Next, a second analysis was performed to look at the direct effects of self-control capacity and stress mindset on the depletion experienced in the morning. After adding the variables, the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion in the morning was still not significant, t = 0.92, p = .37, γ = 0.015. Besides that, results showed that self-control capacity, t = -1.49, p = .14, γ = -0.155, as well as stress mindsets, t = -1.13, p = .26, γ = -0.064, weren’t significant when looking at depletion in the morning as dependent variable.
In the end, a final analysis added the interaction terms of self-control capacity and stress mindsets to look at the moderating role of both variables and to test hypothesis 2 and 3. Results showed that self-control capacity, t = -1.10, p = .28, γ = -0.007, as well as stress mindsets, t = -0.49, p = .63, γ = -0.002, didn’t play a moderating role on the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion experienced in the morning. Besides that, all the other relationships between work-related smartphone use and depletion, t = 1.44, p = .16, γ = 0.149, self-control capacity and depletion, t = -1.47, p = .15, γ = -0.153, and stress
27 mindsets and depletion, t = -1.12, p = .27, γ = -0.063, were still shown not to be significant. Therefore, hypothesis 2 and 3 also were rejected in the additional analyses which meant that both high amounts of self-control capacity or positive stress mindsets didn’t decrease the negative effects of work-related smartphone use on depletion experienced in the morning or exactly the other way around. Results of the additional analyses were also listed in table 4.4 below.
Table 4.3: Gamma, t-values and p-values.
Variables γ T-value P-value
Model 1 Intercept 10.137 23.19 0.00 SmartWc 0.019 1.93 0.05 Model 2 Intercept 16.224 6.40 0.00 SmartWc 0.019 1.92 0.06 SC_Tot -0.178 -1.13 0.26 SM_Tot -0.162 -1.88 0.07 Model 3 Intercept 16.205 6.39 0.00 SmartWc 0.008 0.09 0.93 SC_Tot -0.178 -1.13 0.26 SM_Tot -0.162 -1.86 0.07 SmartWc * SC_Tot -0.004 -0.67 0.52 SmartWc * SM_Tot 0.002 0.68 0.51
Table 4.4: Gamma, t-values and p-values.
Variables γ T-value P-value
Model 1 Intercept 7.712 27.00 0.00 SmartWc 0.011 1.16 0.25 Model 2 Intercept 11.143 6.66 0.00 SmartWc 0.015 0.92 0.37 SC_Tot -0.155 -1.49 0.14 SM_Tot -0.064 -1.13 0.26 Model 3 Intercept 11.110 6.63 0.00 SmartWc 0.149 1.44 0.16 SC_Tot -0.153 -1.47 0.15 SM_Tot -0.063 -1.12 0.27 SmartWc * SC_Tot -0.007 -1.10 0.28 SmartWc * SM_Tot -0.002 -0.49 0.63
5. Discussion
The study performed was based on the premise that in this time of globalization and the world becoming more interconnected than ever, partly due to the use of technological devices, the role of smartphones will become much greater in the coming years than it already is nowadays. The paper showed that the use of smartphones for work-related purposes could certainly bring advantages like, interconnectivity, being less restricted to boundaries and therefore time and space and an increase in productivity due to better collaboration between co-workers (Derks, ten Brummelhuis, Zecic & Bakker, 2012; Collins et al., 2014; Lanaj et al., 2014). However, there are also some serious downsides to using your smartphone for work that should be taken into consideration. The boundaries that become less clear could lead to work-family conflicts, and the pressure of being online all the time could lead to employees using the same personal resources too much without recovering, which could result into depletion of the self. This in its turn could lead to a decrease in motivation, productivity and job satisfaction (De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2009; Derks et al., 2016; Derks & Bakker, 2014).
Yet, within the already existing literature, there wasn’t much attention paid to the fact that work-related smartphone use doesn’t necessarily has to lead to depletion for all employees. It could be that personal characteristics play a role and therefore, the effects of work-related smartphone use aren’t always the same for every individual. Within this research the focus was on the characteristics of self-control capacity and stress mindsets, which both weren’t researched a lot or weren’t researched in this specific combination with other variables. With the research question: “How does work-related smartphone use in the evening affect depletion the following workday? And what is the influence of stress mindsets and
self-control capacity on this relationship?”, this study wanted to look further into the role
work-related smartphone use could play on depletion and wanted to shed light on the possible moderating role self-control capacity and stress mindsets could play within this.
31 In doing so, a multilevel analysis was performed of which the results showed that indeed work-related smartphone usage influenced depletion experienced by the employee the following workday. On the contrary, it wasn’t shown that neither employees who had a high level of self-control capacity or the ones that had a positive stress mindset encountered less negative consequences of work-related smartphone use on their depletion level. Although not all expected relationships were confirmed, the research still has some theoretical as well as practical implications that will be discussed. These will be followed up by limitations and some directions for future research.
5.1 Theoretical implications
One of the most important contributions of the current research to the existing literature has been the empirical support found for the direct relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion. Although earlier research noted that especially the rise of smartphone use for personal usage (as social networking sites and apps like WhatsApp) could have positive effects for individuals like, lower levels of loneliness and depression and enhance self-esteem, and the overall well-being (Park & Lee, 2012), this research contributes especially to findings of the existing research focused around work-related smartphone use. In particular, it adds to the findings of the study performed by Lanaj et al. (2014), who found in their research that when using your smartphone for work-related purposes late at night, this could lead to a lower level of sleep quality, which in turn could lead to depletion. Nevertheless, a thing that should be considered when looking at this effect is that this also could be the case for personal smartphone usage, because their research mainly focused at the effect of the blue light, something every smartphone has, on the production of melatonin, a sleep hormone. The current study adds to this by looking at a direct effect of smartphone use for work on depletion, rather than a mediated effect, which also makes the cause of the eventual depletion experienced much more clear.
32 Furthermore, this study adds to already existing literature by also looking at depletion at different times during the day. As in the study of Lanaj et al. (2014) depletion is measured in the morning after people used their smartphone for their work the evening before. With this study, however, depletion in the morning and afternoon was taken into account which showed some interesting outcomes. Results showed that work-related smartphone use did lead to depletion in the afternoon, but this effect wasn’t found when looking at depletion in the morning. A possible explanation for this could lie in the literature about depletion and recovery. When employees are done at their job, come home and continue to use their smartphone for work-related purposes, they still make use of the same personal resources as when they were still physically there. When they eventually go to bed, and start to work the following day, they again, use those same resources. In that way, these resources don’t get a lot of time to recover and replenish which could lead to depletion of those in the end (Derks & Bakker, 2014; Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015). However, when looking at the morning depletion which was measured around 11:00, people were just getting started and weren’t using the same resources they used yesterday for very long. Yet, at the end of the day, around 16:00, the employees used the same resources again for a whole full day, without very much time during the day to recover, which will lead to a higher amount of depletion of those resources than in the morning when employees just had their night rest and weren’t performing work-related tasks for a certain time-period.
Even though it was found within the literature that self-control plays an important part within the concept of depletion, there wasn’t any support found within this study for the characteristic of control capacity. Important distinction to make is that the notion of self-control that is a part of the depletion concept focuses around the more self-regulatory processes and self-control capacity really is about making a deliberate well-thought decision. So, whereas with self-control within depletion it goes more automatically, self-control
33 capacity is a conscious decision (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven & Tice, 1998; Webb & Sheeran, 2003; Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004; Tyler & Burns, 2008; Hagger et al., 2010; Lin & Johnson, 2015). Neither the results regarding the morning depletion as the results regarding the afternoon depletion showed that when employees had a high level of self-control capacity, the negative effects of work-related smartphone use on depletion will be less, as was expected. On top of that, there wasn’t even a direct effect of self-control capacity found on the amount of depletion experienced by the employees.
Contrary to self-control capacity, stress mindsets were shown to have a direct effect on depletion experienced by the employees in the afternoon. So, just the concept of stress mindsets alone, could have influence on the level of depletion of an employee. This adds to the small amount of existing literature on the concept of stress mindsets (Crum & Langer, 2007; Crum et al., 2013) by showing that the way people think of and experience stress could influence their level of depletion. When employees thus see stress as a positive, enhancing phenomenon, this will lead to less depletion experienced in the afternoon. However, when employees see it as something debilitating this could go the other way around and increase the level of depletion experienced by the employees. This effect wasn’t found when looking at depletion experienced in de morning, which could be explained by the fact that depletion at this stage overall was lower than depletion in the afternoon and therefore also the direct effects were less strong. In line with the findings of self-control capacity, stress mindsets also weren’t found to play a moderating role when looking at the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion. Although these findings weren’t expected, they still contribute to the existing literature on the topics, by showing that there isn’t any moderating role found when combined into this specific model.
These findings however, don’t mean that self-control capacity and stress mindsets don’t affect the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion at all and
34 that the negative effects of the smartphone usage on the level of depletion experienced should just be accepted by the employees. It could for instance be that the two variables play a more mediating role rather than a moderating role, e.g. by using your smartphone for work, your self-control capacity could become lower and therefore your level of depletion could increase. Besides that, it could also be the case that other variables affect the moderating role of self-control capacity or stress mindsets. For example, certain job characteristics could be of influence like taking breaks. Earlier research showed that taking a break could lead to an increase in self-control capacity and therefore the amount of depletion will be less (Tyler & Burns, 2008). Thus, it could be that breaks during the day are also an important variable, when taken into account, and affect the moderating role of self-control capacity on the relationship between work-related smartphone use on depletion experienced by the employees. All in all, these findings and conclusion can all be important and interesting when wanting to do further research on this topic, which will be discussed in the next section. 5.2 Limitations and future directions
Within every study there are some limitations that prevent from drawing too strong conclusions about the results found, as is also the case within this research. The first limitation lies in the few restrictions that were given to the sample of this study. The only restrictions that were made had to do with how many hours the people worked and that they simply had to have a smartphone for their work. However, there wasn’t any restriction to which function people performed or within which branch they worked. Therefore, it could be that when performing the same study for instance, with employees who are known to being online all the time within their job (e.g. marketing or sales people), the results show a much greater effect on depletion experienced within the employees, which is interesting to check within future research. Besides that, this study was only looking at the work-related smartphone usage of employees on the amount of depletion. Yet, this may also be a limitation
35 as some research states that overall extensive use of smartphones, personal or work-related, could lead to exhaustion and depletion in the end (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015). Therefore, future research should certainly take overall smartphone use into account.
Furthermore, there are a few limitations when it comes to the concept of work-related smartphone use as it has been used within this study. There was only one question used to measure the amount of time (in minutes) spent using their smartphones for work-related purposes, however it wasn’t clearly defined what sort of work-related smartphone use respondents should think of. It could for instance be the case, that one respondent sees a call from a colleague about something small that is work-related as something that falls within those minutes they used their smartphone for work, whether another doesn’t include this when considering how many minutes they used it. Future research could for instance ask more questions to assess the use of the smartphone like, how many messages they got during the evening in total, how many they responded to and what sort of messages employees sent during the evening hours. On top of that, the concept of work-related smartphone use doesn’t take other sorts of occupancies into account. It could for instance also be the case that employees start with reading e-mails on their smartphone but eventually work further on this issues by using a laptop from work or something like that. Therefore, future research should, besides the total amount of time spent on working on your smartphone, also look at the total amount of time employees spent overall with doing work while being at home (Derks, van Mierlo & Schmitz, 2014).
Besides, it could also be that the length of this study (10 working days) was too short to measure the amount of depletion felt within the employees, as they may have a diverse job and use diverse personal resources to perform their job, it may take time for these different resources to become depleted. Future research should consider performing a diary study that measures the effects of smartphone usage on depletion over a longer period of time.
36 Another limitation of this study could lie in the choice of moderators. In this specific research the focus has been on moderators that showed the personal characteristics of employees, so it mainly looked at between person differences. However, there wasn’t any significant effect found which could mean that other variables may be a better choice. Future research should look more at job characteristics that could be of influence on the relationship. For example, research could look at the influence of taking breaks during workdays on the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion. Earlier research already showed that when the number of breaks during the workday increases, the level of depletion decreases and when the number of breaks decreases, the level of depletion increases (Tyler & Burns, 2008; Trougakos, Beal, Green and Weiss, 2008; Trougakos & Hideg, 2009; Demerouti, Bakker, Sonnentag & Fullagar, 2012; Trougakos, Hideg, Cheng & Beal, 2014). Therefore, it is a logical step to look in future research if breaks could operate as a moderator on the relationship between smartphone usage and depletion, rather than just a direct effect on depletion alone. Besides that, it could also be that job control influences the relationship between smartphone usage and depletion is such a way that when job control is high, the negative effects of smartphone usage on depletion will be less than when job control is low. Earlier studies already showed a quite similar effect in a direct way between job control and depletion (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner & Schaufeli, 2001; Fernet, Guay & Senécal, 2004) and some used it already in a moderating way (Lanaj et al., 2014). In the end, it could also be interesting for future research to look at the moderating role of work motivation, as it already has been shown to have a direct effect on self-control and depletion (Wegge, van Dick, Fisher, Wecking and Moltzen, 2006; Vohs, Baumeister & Schmeichel, 2012). Research could look at what exactly is motivating the employee to work in a specific place, do they want to reach a greater goal and get a good career? Or are they just there to earn money and in that way, simply are able to live their lives? It could for instance, be the case that someone who
37 has to use their smartphone for work a lot outside of the working hours, doesn’t bother it that much when he or she wants to have a good career and wants to climb up the ladder, which will lead to less negative effects of the work-related smartphone usage on their depletion level. However, when someone is just there to earn their money, the extensive smartphone use for work-related purposes outside work could strengthen the negative effects of that smartphone use on their depletion level.
On top of that, the current research could also fall short on the point that it hasn’t considered recovery as a variable. Although it has been acknowledged by the research that it is an important part of depletion, the actual analyses and study didn’t incorporate it. This could also explain why there isn’t any effect found for the personal characteristics to be of influence. It could be the case that employees who have a low self-control capacity actually do experience more negative effects of the work-related smartphone use on their level of depletion, but by recovering a specific amount of times during the day, or recovering in a specific kind of way, will make the depletion less in the end. It could also be the case that employees see e.g. watching TV as a part of recovery, but that they actually still use some of the same personal resources, which will make the feelings of depletion in the end become more, instead of less. Here, the notion of taking breaks during a workday could also play a role, or for instance employees working out as a kind of recovery from their workday. Therefore, future research should also incorporate recovery when looking at the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion. Specifically, they could ask if employees recover from their work, and if so, in what sort of way and how many times a day. 5.3 Practical implications
The study currently performed certainly also has some practical implications besides the theoretical ones that have been discussed above. To begin, the research found that work-related smartphone use influences the level of depletion of employees within an organization.
38 As has been discussed within this research, depletion in itself could have detrimental effects like, a decrease in motivation, satisfaction and productivity (de Hoogh & den Hartog, 2009). By showing that it certainly does have effect on the level of depletion, organizations could think of some restrictions to their smartphone usage outside work to decrease the amount of depletion and therefore prevent the negative consequences of it within their organization. For instance, organizations could decide to put a restriction on the time between which e-mails etc. should be sent, like already has been done within France (e.g. not after 9 in the evening and 6 in the morning).
Besides that, although this research hasn’t shown that self-control capacity and stress mindsets do perform a moderating role on the relationship between work-related smartphone use and depletion, this doesn’t necessarily have to mean that they don’t do it at all. It could be that they do influence the relationship in a more mediating way or only in combination with other variables that haven’t been researched in the current study. Therefore, when organizations decide to take actions and implement certain rules around work-related smartphone use in order to decrease the depletion, they should keep in mind that this doesn’t have to be the case for all the employees within the whole organizations. It could be, for instance, that breaks decrease the negative effects of smartphone usage on depletion for one employee, but that this doesn’t work for another one. Because of that reason, future studies should certainly do more research about this topic to give organizations the right tools and knowledge about how to handle using smartphones for work-related purposes in the best way as possible.
6. Conclusion
This study aimed to add to the already existing literature on work-related smartphone usage and depletion. It also took into consideration if self-control capacity and stress mindsets could play a moderating role on this specific relationship. Results showed that work-related
