IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i6p2983-d516768.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Do Instant Messages Reduce Psychological Withdrawal Behaviors?—Mediation of Engagement and Moderation of Self-Control

Author

Listed:
  • Xia Jiang

    (School of Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China)

  • Jing Du

    (School of Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China)

  • Tianfei Yang

    (School of Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China)

  • Yujing Liu

    (School of Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China)

Abstract

Enabling people to send and receive short text-based messages in real-time, instant messaging (IM) is a communication technology that allows instantaneous information exchanges. The development of technology makes IM communication widely adopted in the workplace, which brings a series of changes for modern contemporary working life. Based on the conservation of resource theory (COR), this paper explores the mechanism of workplace IM communication on employees’ psychological withdrawal, and investigates the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship and the moderating role of self-control. Using the experience sampling method (ESM), a 10-consecutive workdays daily study was conducted among 66 employees. By data analysis of 632 observations using SPSS and HLM, results found that: (1) IM demands had a positive relation with emotion and cognitive engagement. (2) Emotion and cognitive engagement were negatively correlated with psychological withdrawal. (3) Emotion and cognitive engagement mediated the relations of IM demands and psychological withdrawal. (4) Self-control moderated the relationship between emotional engagement and psychological withdrawal.

Suggested Citation

  • Xia Jiang & Jing Du & Tianfei Yang & Yujing Liu, 2021. "How Do Instant Messages Reduce Psychological Withdrawal Behaviors?—Mediation of Engagement and Moderation of Self-Control," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(6), pages 1-13, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:6:p:2983-:d:516768
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/2983/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/2983/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert M. Davison & Carol X.J. Ou & Maris G. Martinsons & Angela Y. Zhao & Rong Du, 2014. "The communicative ecology of Web 2.0 at work: Social networking in the workspace," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(10), pages 2035-2047, October.
    2. Carol X. J. Ou & Robert M. Davison, 2016. "Shaping guanxi networks at work through instant messaging," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(5), pages 1153-1168, May.
    3. Stephen R. Barley & Debra E. Meyerson & Stine Grodal, 2011. "E-mail as a Source and Symbol of Stress," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 887-906, August.
    4. Melissa Mazmanian & Wanda J. Orlikowski & JoAnne Yates, 2013. "The Autonomy Paradox: The Implications of Mobile Email Devices for Knowledge Professionals," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(5), pages 1337-1357, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gabriele Giorgi & Antonio Ariza-Montes & Nicola Mucci & Antonio L. Leal-Rodríguez, 2022. "The Dark Side and the Light Side of Technology-Related Stress and Stress Related to Workplace Innovations: From Artificial Intelligence to Business Transformations," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-5, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xia Jiang & Jing Du & Tianfei Yang & Jinfan Zhou, 2021. "Sustainable Interpersonal Interaction: Research on Instant Message and Helping from the Perspective of Sender," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, January.
    2. Ruthanne Huising, 2014. "The Erosion of Expert Control Through Censure Episodes," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 1633-1661, December.
    3. Giurge, Laura M. & Bohns, Vanessa K., 2021. "You don’t need to answer right away! Receivers overestimate how quickly senders expect responses to non-urgent work emails," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 114-128.
    4. Christensen, Peter Holdt & Foss, Nicolai J., 2021. "Present-but-online: How mobile devices may harm purposeful co-presence in organizations (and what can be done about it)," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 84-94.
    5. Szennay, Áron & Radácsi, László & Timár, Gigi, 2021. "Szabadúszók Magyarországon. Egy új kutatási program elméleti háttere és első empirikus eredményei [Freelancers in Hungary: the theoretical background and initial empirical results of a new research," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(S11), pages 78-106.
    6. Nathalie Greenan & Jean-Claude Sardas & Pascal Ughetto, 2020. "Organising the disconnection? Intense work and articulation of times and spaces in the design activities of an automotive company [Organiser la déconnexion ? Travail intense et articulation des tem," Post-Print halshs-03145158, HAL.
    7. Gajendran, Ravi S. & Loewenstein, Jeffrey & Choi, Hyeran & Ozgen, Sibel, 2022. "Hidden costs of text-based electronic communication on complex reasoning tasks: Motivation maintenance and impaired downstream performance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    8. Killian Mullan & Judy Wajcman, 2019. "Have Mobile Devices Changed Working Patterns in the 21st Century? A Time-diary Analysis of Work Extension in the UK," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(1), pages 3-20, February.
    9. Haixia Wang & Pei Liu & Xiaoying Zhao & Aimei Li & Chenjie Xiao, 2022. "Work-Related Use of Information and Communication Technologies After Hours (W_ICTs) and Work-Family Conflict: A Moderated Mediation Model," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, August.
    10. Wanda J. Orlikowski & Susan V. Scott, 2014. "What Happens When Evaluation Goes Online? Exploring Apparatuses of Valuation in the Travel Sector," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 868-891, June.
    11. Jeffrey, Stephen & Diller, Heike & Fiedler, Marina, 2016. "How does intensification and mobile rearrangement affect employee commitment," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Betriebswirtschaftliche Reihe B-23-16, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    12. Jean-François Stich & Samuel Farley & Cary Cooper & Monideepa Tarafdar, 2015. "Information and Communication Technology Demands: Outcomes and Interventions," Post-Print hal-01507888, HAL.
    13. Anthony Silard & Mary Beth Watson-Manheim & Nuno Jose Lopes, 2023. "The influence of text-based technology-mediated communication on the connection quality of workplace relationships: the mediating role of emotional labor," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(6), pages 2035-2053, August.
    14. Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2019. "Is Employee Technological “Ill-Being” Missing from Corporate Responsibility? The Foucauldian Ethics of Ubiquitous IT Uses in Organizations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 339-361, December.
    15. Chen, Xiayu & Ou, Carol & Davison, Robert, 2022. "Internal or external social media? The effects of work-related and social-related use of social media on improving employee performance," Other publications TiSEM 429334bc-b257-4012-b0a9-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Viktoria Maria Baumeister & Leonie Petra Kuen & Maike Bruckes & Gerhard Schewe, 2021. "The Relationship of Work-Related ICT Use With Well-being, Incorporating the Role of Resources and Demands: A Meta-Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(4), pages 21582440211, November.
    17. Angela Garcia Calvo & Martin Kenney & John Zysman, 2023. "Understanding work in the online platform economy: the narrow, the broad, and the systemic perspectives," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 32(4), pages 795-814.
    18. Yi Sun & Shihui Li & Lingling Yu, 2022. "The dark sides of AI personal assistant: effects of service failure on user continuance intention," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 32(1), pages 17-39, March.
    19. Nurmi, Niina & Koroma, Johanna, 2020. "The emotional benefits and performance costs of building a psychologically safe language climate in MNCs," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 55(4).
    20. Anya Johnson & Shanta Dey & Helena Nguyen & Markus Groth & Sadhbh Joyce & Leona Tan & Nicholas Glozier & Samuel B Harvey, 2020. "A review and agenda for examining how technology-driven changes at work will impact workplace mental health and employee well-being," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 45(3), pages 402-424, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:6:p:2983-:d:516768. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.