Abstract

The influence of workaholism is one of the major impact factors on work-family imbalance and wellbeing. This paper presents the findings of recent empirical studies regarding the link of work-family balance and workaholism and how it shows a negative relationship between them, the link between work-family balance and employee wellbeing and how it shows a positive relationship between them, and finally the link between workaholism and employee wellbeing and how it shows a negative relationship between them. The researcher examines studies which were published over the past decade to investigate the relationship between workaholism and employee wellbeing while taking the mediating role of work-family balance (WFB). A conceptual framework was offered which may help and guide future research regarding this area.

1. Introduction

There are several challenges in today’s world that have to be meet. It becomes more and more difficult with each passing day for an individual to be able to survive, persist and overcome these competitive challenges, mainly the ones which is arisen in the working domain (Tahir, Aziz, 2019) ¹. To persist in being competitive, additional hours should be worked. Over-dedicated employees are being workaholics. As both internal & external forces are considered forces to work excessively & compulsively, workaholism may have conflicting psychological, physical, & social outcomes for the person & those who are closest to that person. Workaholism is a sort of addiction involving uncontrollable need to work continuously.

It was revealed that employees with work obsession are having more health complaints with more depressive feelings compared to those who worked merely long hours but did not have workaholic tendencies. Wellbeing is expected to have an adverse effect due to workaholism; there is no sufficient opportunity given to the person to recover & feel good. As for HR professionals & counselors, they must help in the existence of the career counseling; helping employees to strive for a healthy balance between both their work and their private time (Burke et al, 2006) ²

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between the Workaholism and Employee wellbeing and the existence of the Work-Family Balance (WFB) as being a mediating variable in Education Industry taking the private universities in Egypt to study on.

At the present days, there is no formulation of a perfect research system from the research on workaholism. Foreign research gives a focus on Workaholism’s outcome variables and mechanism, however the domestic research remains at the initial phase in this field (Hu, 2018) ³. So, based on foreign literature’s systematic review, this research paper shows the importance of studying each variable.

Several research had been conducted showing the relation between workaholism and its effect on the Employee wellbeing taking into consideration the Work-Family Balance (WFB) as a mediating variable. But the gap that exists, is that this relation between the Independent variable which is the workaholism and the dependent variable which is Employee Wellbeing and the mediating variable which is the Work-Family Balance (WFB) not tackled in the previous several research. Therefore, primary data will be used in this research to be able to address the gap that exist in this industry in Egypt especially in Cairo as the previous research paper tackling the Education Industry was in Turkey and the paper showing workaholism is for Public universities not the private ones.And for the papers who tackled workaholism in Egypt ;as mentioned by a paper with a title of “A Survey On Workaholism In Education Field: City Of Kırklareli Case InTurkey” showing the level of workaholism in the Education field especially in a city named Kirklareli in Tukey (Çiçek, Poyraz, & Canbaz. 2018) ⁴.

The focus in Egypt for Workaholism is also for the workers who work on the Egyptian Healthcare; as there is a paper with the title of “Prevalence of Workaholism Among Egyptian Healthcare Workers With Assessment of Its Relation to Quality of Life, Mental Health and Burnout”showing that there is an importance association existing among workaholism and psychologically poor health and poor quality of life between Health Care workers,illustrating that critical specialty healthcare workers showed association among workaholism, burnout & pro-inflammatory markers, in addition to addressing of personal characteristics and supporting factors that exist in the work environment and periodic examination of the workers working on the healthcare sector with a required respond accordingly ( El Dalatony.et al 2020) ⁵.

1. Examine the relationship between Workaholism and Work-Family Balance (WFB).

2. Examine the relationship between Work-Family Balance(WFB) and Employee Wellbeing.

3. Examine the relationship between the Workaholism concept and the Employee Wellbeing.

4. Investigate the mediating role of Work-Family Balance (WFB) in the relation between Workaholism and Employee Wellbeing.

1. What is the relationship between Workaholism and Work-Family Balance (WFB)?

2. What is the relationship between Work-Family Balance(WFB) and Employee Wellbeing?

3. What is the relationship between the Workaholism concept and the Employee Wellbeing?

4. What is the mediating role of Work-Family Balance (WFB) in the relation between Workaholism and Employee Wellbeing?

2. Workaholism Variable

Workaholics are those who spent much of their time in work activities even at the cost of their sacrificing time for other non-work activities) with persistent thinking regarding work when they are not working in addition to work that is beyond the requirements of the organization or the economic needs (Scot et al.1997) ⁶ through Ng, 2007) ⁷.

Perfectionism has been nominated as the workaholism main predictor. Perfectionism’s facets expose two higher order fundamental factors given the names of perfectionistic strivings (PS) and perfectionistic concerns (PC). Perfectionistic strivings which include perfectionism’s aspects associated with setting extremely performance’s high standards with striving for perfection, are having association with clear and positive individual characteristics and outcomes, for example: positive affect, work engagement, conscientiousness, academic achievement, and satisfaction with life. Perfectionistic concerns which capture the perfectionism’s facets associated with concerns over the creation of mistakes in addition to the concerns that exists over the one’s performance evaluation made by significant others and the perceived inconsistency among one’s raised standards and actual performance, are having associations with negative individual characteristics and outcomes for example: negative affect, job burnout, neuroticism, anxiety, and depression. Perfectionist workaholics are characterized by both rigidity and inflexibility, obsession with details and desire for control (Scott, Moore, and Miceli, 1997) ⁶.

Workaholism is an addiction to work & a pattern of behavior that perseveres across several organizational settings (Scott, Moore & Miceli, 1997) ⁶ through Ng, 2007) ⁷. Greater interference with social and close relationships was reported by the people who self-reported high work addiction than those who do not report high work addiction (Robinson & Post, 1995) ⁸. Smith and Seymour (2004) ⁹ propose that the addiction with all its kind including drinking, gambling, drug usage, buying and working often contains compulsion and self-control loss (Cognition) and continued engagement (Behavior) despite the adverse and opposing consequences.

Oppositely, addiction has been conceptualized by (Orford, 1985) ¹⁰ through Ng, 2007) ⁷ as an excessive appetite, the satisfaction that gets pleasure and gratification (affect). Workaholics have an addiction that let them cannot control themselves; on the other hand, they are workers who considered to be diligent and dedicated ones(Oates.1971, p. 1) ¹¹ through Mazzetti et al, 2014) ¹². Like other addictions, workaholism may develop over time from excessive work and work life imbalance along with high work satisfaction and an average level of work internal pressure to lack of control over working in addition to strong negative feelings when deprived and away from work.

It was found that workaholism and the aggressive behavior were having significant association. As the ambitious workaholics is using the controlling behavior to achieve the power and influence that bring the much-desired recognition, wealth, and prestige that they so passionately desire (Killinger, 2013) ¹³. The two main negative emotions commonly experienced by workaholics are guilt and anxiety especially when they are deprived of work (Spence and Robbins, 1992) ¹⁴ Accordingly, workaholism could get irritated often with others and described to be an aggressive person. There is a study done for 1,012 Japanese workers who reported themselves having workaholics behaviors and also reported noteworthy rates of anxiety, anger, depression, health related absenteeism, and irritability. Having exhaustion and physical complaints as being other negative health consequence were associated with the inability to be separated and detach from work.

The idea that the workaholic employees are unable to disengage from their work and think about it even when they are out of work, let the opportunity for recovering from their work becomes hard such as the inability to relax; this also let them have a higher tendency to lessen and deplete their resources (Van Wijhe et al., 2014) ¹⁵ through (Karapinar, Camgoz, Ekmekci, 2020) ¹⁶. Feeling obligated to work because of internal pressures, having persistent thoughts about work when not working, & working away from what is reasonably expected of the worker as recognized by the job requirements or basic economic needs even though the potential for consequences that are considered negative ones (Clark, Michel, Zhdanova, Pui & Baltes, 2016) ¹⁷.

Workaholics tend to work excessively with an intense drive to be able to achieve the goals they have established for themselves (Patel, Bowler, Bowler, & Methe, 2012) ¹⁸. Working excessively contains the “The allocation of the amount of the time to work that is an exceptional one and about working in excess of the expectations to meet both the requirements related to the organization and economy which are the organizational and economic requirements. It was suggested by Naughton (1987) ¹⁹ and (Spence and Robbins, 1992) ¹⁴ that workaholism encompasses an inner desire or drive to work excessively. So, all these writers agree and settle that workaholism is marked by an obsession with the fact of working itself, even with the knowledge that working excessively is not essential or needed. Workaholism’s behavioral dimension is related to working excessively. As behavioral dimension itself is about the actual excessive work involvement (Spence and Robbins, 1992) ¹⁴.

As for the other dimension which is working compulsively, it contains the work obsession which indicates that the person is obsessed with work and insistently and thinking frequently about his or her work even when this person is out of work and not working. (Schaufeli, Taris, & Bakker, 2008, p.204) ²⁰. Working Compulsively indicates that workaholics are having obsession with their work with constant thinking about their work also in their after-work hours’ period (Schaufeli, Taris, & Bakker, 2008) ²⁰. Workaholism’s cognitive dimension is related to working compulsively. As cognitive dimension is about those intellectual processes that gives a push for workaholics to work excessively. Workaholics often have obsession with the work activities, a strong concern that they cannot control and suppress (Smith & Seymour, 2004) ⁹. It was suggested by (Scott et al, 1997) ⁶ that workaholism comprises thinking persistently about the work even when not working. In addition, it was suggested by (Oates, 1971) ¹¹ through (Mazzetti et al, 2014) ²¹ that workaholism is considered a need which is uncontrollable one to work. Also, both Cherrington (1980) ²² and Porter (1996) ²³ suggested that it is an irrational and illogical over commitment to work.

3. Work-Family Balance (WFB)

The existing and present research was assuming that the Work-life Balance (WLB) is a concern mainly in the minds of parents who are working, where taking care of dependent children is considered the relevant load in the Work-Life Balance (WLB)’s life part.This considered to be clear when realizing that the studies majority regarding the Work-Life Balance (WLB) essentially only considering the family in the “life part” of the steadiness; that is, they are taking into consideration the Work-Family Balance (WFB).(Greenhaus and colleagues, 2003) ²⁴. It was defined by Greenhaus and colleagues (2003) ²⁴ that work family balance is about “the extent to which an individual is equally engaged in and equally satisfied with his or her work role and family role” (p.513).

The Work Family Conflict occurs as a result when imbalance or interference take place between individual’s both work and family (or non-work) roles. It was stated by work family conflict’s widely cited definition that it is “an inter-role’s conflict form in which pressures exist in the role coming from the work and family domains are equally incompatible in some respect. Consistent with this definition, the occurrence of work family conflict can be in two directions: the first one can be that family can interfere with work (consider to be family to work conflict) or it can be that work can interfere with family (consider to be work to family conflict) (Stare et.al, 2014) ²⁵.

There are two different views regarding workaholism’s impact on the work-family balance. Th first view shows that there is a positive relation between being workaholic and having work-family balance. As shown by some researchers that workaholism concept is best viewed from a perspective which is a family perspective (Robinson, 2013) ²⁶ where family dynamics’ certain types; such as over responsibility have an influence on individuals within the system (Hayes, 1991 ²⁷; Robinson, 2013 ²⁶). In some of cases, a desire to take care of one’s family can motivate to long work hours which in return reflect the idea of the over responsibility. In one study conducted, it was found that students that have high scores on workaholism perceived their parents as more hard working than what the students with lower scores on workaholism did (Chamberlin & Zhang, 2009) ²⁸.

In addition, there is other evidence provides suggestion showing that workaholism may not be harmful and destructive to marital relationships. For instance, it was stated by Burke (2000) ²⁹ that there was no relationship among both workaholism and actual divorce. Moreover, it was found by McMillan, O’Driscoll, and Brady (2004) ⁴¹ that workaholics and their partners’ or spouses ‘have self-reported satisfaction regarding their personal relationships; there is a replication regarding these findings 6 months after the first data collection, and the workaholics were having awareness regarding their problems (not denying them as expected), and used their close relationships as a form of coping mechanism or stress buffer or barrier (McMillan, O’Driscoll, and Brady, 2004) ⁴¹.

But the other view showing that there is a negative relation between being workaholic and having work-family balance was supported by most of the research. As previous research has proposed that there is an existence of high levels of distress in the workaholics ‘families (Fassel, 2000) ³⁰ with an effect which is a “spillover-crossover” one comes from the stress experienced at work and home interacting with one another; this often contributes to produce negative outcomes, mainly strained marital relationships (Bakker, Demerouti, & Burke, 2009 ³¹; Oates, 1971 ¹¹; Robinson, 1998a ³², 1998b ³³).

There are many links made among both workaholism and eventual family dysfunction in the family counseling literature (Robinson, 1998a ³², 1998b ³³) such as: workaholics’ spouses and children have the feeling of being lonely, unloved, isolated and emotionally abandoned, the workaholics’ spouses feeling forced and offended about doing child-care and parenting alone, and families with poor and deprived communication, struggle in solving family problems, and indistinct family roles (Fassel, 2000) ³⁰. Greater interference with social and close relationships was reported by the people who self-reported high work addiction than those who do not report high work addiction (Robinson & Post, 1995) ⁸. The association existing between work stress and workaholism was also found to expect weak marital cohesion and unity (Robinson, Carroll, & Flowers, 2001) ³⁴, marital disaffection, and lower positive feelings to reach the workaholic spouses (Robinson, Flowers, & Ng, 2006) ³⁵. The children’s emotional well-being may be negatively affected with having one or more workaholic parent; it includes some of the harmful effects shaped in greater anxiety and depression score of workaholics’ children (Carroll & Robinson, 2000) ³⁶ with augmented feelings of both loneliness and abandonment (Robinson, 1998b) ³³. Because of the nature that the workaholics have which is a compulsive one, they must face conflict regarding their work & family in a frequent base; and this work-family conflict not only affects their psychological well-being but also their physical health.

4. Employee Wellbeing

As for the concept of wellbeing, it is regarded as “the individuals” subjective and global judgment whether the individual is facing the relative positive emotions occurrence, the relative negative emotions nonexistence, and having the life which is satisfactory for them (Diener 1984) ³⁷. As for the work, the wellbeing is represented by several proxies such as “job satisfaction, work engagement, subjective wellbeing, and work stress” (Orsila et al. 2011) ³⁸. So, the definition of the employee wellbeing refers to the state of the mental, social, and physical health of employees resulting from dynamics within (and sometimes outside) the workplace.

The three types of wellbeing are physical, mental, or emotional, and social wellbeing. The physical well-being is including the choices of the lifestyle behavior to ensure health, avoid preventable diseases and conditions and to live in a balanced state of all body, mind, and spirit (American Association of Nurse Anesthetists ).

The definition of mental well-being ,as being the second type of the wellbeing and a key component of the World Health Organization(WHO), is about the notion of the capacity to contribute to the community life rather than taking the view of health as the absence of disease that is considered to be traditional and narrow view. Accordingly, this health definition refers to “ a well-being state in which the individual has the ability to work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to the community in which he or she exists”. (Dogra & Leighton, 2009) ³⁹.

Then as for the third type which is the social well-being, the social well-being generally is an end state in which human basic needs are met and people can peacefully coexist in communities with opportunities for advancement. The social wellbeing is measure of the interpersonal relationships of an employee both in and outside of work; the interpersonal relationships outside of work is about the time spent with both friends and family and the ability commit to social engagements with no fear of it clashing with work (Shenton 2020) ⁴⁰.

There is a relationship between both the Workaholism concept and the Wellbeing. As the researchers claimed the workaholism concept should be treated as a “negative construct” rather than a positive one with two dimensions classified in both working excessively and working compulsively. It was shown that there are previous research findings relating to the workaholism concept expose that it has detrimental and unfavorable consequence on the employee wellbeing (Vodanovich & Piotrowski, 2007) ⁴¹. People who are described as workaholics are more prone for burnout in addition to the chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease (McMillan & O’ Driscoll, 2004) ⁶⁹. Workaholics are reporting other physical and psychological health issues in a frequent basis (Spence & Robbins, 1992) ¹⁴. It was shown that the wellbeing is expected to have an adverse effect due to the workaholism because of the excessive amount of time spent at work and consequently there is no sufficient opportunity given to the person to recover and feel good (Ryan and Deci 2001) ⁴³.

The researchers reported consistently the no matter how the workaholism is measured and conceptualized, the workaholics have lower levels regarding their psychological wellbeing and higher levels regarding the stress than the individuals who are non-workaholic. (Brummelhuis and Rothbard 2018 ⁴³; Caesens et al. 2014 ⁴⁴; Shimazu et al. 2015 ⁴⁵; Taris et al. 2005 ⁴⁷). Taking the data from Japan as an example that suggests that workaholism has positive link with the psychological distress and has negative link with the life and family satisfaction (Shimazu and Schaufeli 2009) ⁴⁷.

Both the life satisfaction and purpose in life were treated as psychological wellbeing’s proxies, where those who are having low life satisfaction and purpose in life were supposed to considered psychologically unwell. Therefore, the researchers found that the nonworkaholics have more life satisfaction and purpose in life when compared to those who are workaholics (Bonebright et al. 2000) ⁴⁸. But there is an existing research literature illustrates findings that are mixed and varied for the relationship that exists between workaholism and psychological wellbeing changing from sample to sample and from culture to culture. (Spence & Robbins, 1992) ¹⁴.

5. Workaholism, Work-Family Balance, and Employee Wellbeing

It was reported by Grant-Vallone and Donaldson (2001) ⁵⁰ that Work-Family Imbalance’s higher levels are a longitudinal predictor of lower levels of positive wellbeing. Also, there is a study done with US employees by Cho and Tay’s (2016) ⁵⁰ indicated that there is a negative association between Work Family Conflict and Wellbeing, mainly with life satisfaction. According to one of the leading stress theories, which is the conservation of resources (COR); it may help in explaining the Work-Family Imbalance effects; there are 3 conditions posited by the COR theory helping in the occurrence of the stress. First of them is when major or central resources are threatened with loss, second one is when major or key resources are lost, and third one is when: after exerting significant effort, there is a failure in gaining major or key resources effort (Hobfoll et al.2018) ⁵¹.

By the existence of threatening values resources such as time and energy, Work-Family Imbalance might help in accelerating of perceived individuals’ stress and strain and leading to diminished levels of wellbeing. So, it was perceived that work is a threat harming family life, increase Work-Family Imbalance and decreases the individuals’ wellbeing (Cho and Tray 2016 ⁵⁰; Tayfur and Arslan 2013) ⁵³. There are some studies considered and treated workaholism as being an outcome (Schaufeli et al. 2008) ⁵³; similarly, others considered and treated workaholism as being an antecedent of Work-Family Imbalance (Buelens and Poelmans 2004 ⁵⁴; Russo and Waters 2006 ⁵⁵; Bonebright et al. 2000 ⁴⁸; Molino et al. 2016 ⁵⁶).

Furthermore, it was argued by both (Spence and Robbins) that people who are workaholics spent more of their time on work than non-workaholics, which accordingly results in lacking significant family activities (Snir and Harpaz 2004) ⁵⁷. As discussed by Bonebright et al. (2000) ⁴⁸, the time devoted to the work role of the individual might make it tough to spend vital time to fulfill the individual’s family role requirements.

It was found by Burke (2002) ⁵⁸ that people who are workaholics recognized their work environment as being more stressful and demanding. Based on these given assumptions, it appears to be reasonable expecting that there is a negative association among workaholism and Work-Family Balance.

6. Research Hypothesis

It was shown that the wellbeing is expected to have an adverse effect due to the workaholsim because of the excessive amount of time spent at work and consequently there is no sufficient opportunity given to the person to recover and feel good (Ryan and Deci 2001) ⁴². The researchers reported consistently the no matter how the workaholism is measured and conceptualized, the workaholics have lower levels regarding their psychological wellbeing and higher levels regarding the stress than the individuals who are non-workaholic. (Brummelhuis and Rothbard 2018 ⁴³; Caesens et al. 2014 ⁴⁴; Shimazu et al. 2015 ⁴⁵; Taris et al. 2005 ⁴⁶). Taking the data from Japan as an example that suggests that workaholism has positive link with the psychological distress and has negative link with the life and family satisfaction (Shimazu and Schaufeli 2009 ⁴⁷).

• There is a significant relation between Workaholism & Employee Wellbeing.

Hypothesis1 (H1): There is a significant relation between Workaholism & Work-Family Balance (WFB)

Hypothesis2 (H2): There is a significant relation between Work-Family Balance (WFB) & Employee Wellbeing.

Hypothesis3 (H3): There is a significant relation between Workaholism & Employee Wellbeing.

Hypothesis4 (H4): Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Workaholism & Employee Wellbeing.

In this Study, the researcher seeks to examine the main hypothesis which is: the Workaholism has a significant effect on the Employee Wellbeing with Work-Family Balance (WFB) as a mediating variable.

As a result of research objectives, the researcher concerns with Four major research hypotheses as the following:

(H1): There is a significant relation between Workaholism & Work-Family Balance (WFB).

H_1.1: Work Perfectionism has a significant effect on Work-Family Balance (WFB).

H_1.2: Work Addiction has a significant effect on Work-Family Balance (WFB).

H_1.3: Unpleasantness has a significant effect on Work-Family Balance (WFB).

H_1.4: Withdrawal Symptoms has a significant effect on Work-Family Balance (WFB).

H_1.5: Working Excessively has a significant effect on Work-Family Balance (WFB).

H_1.6: Working Compulsively has a significant effect on Work-Family Balance (WFB).

(H2): There is a significant relation between Work-Family Balance (WFB) & Employee Wellbeing.

(H3): There is a significant relation between Workaholism & Employee Wellbeing.

H_3.1: Work Perfectionism has a significant effect on Employee Wellbeing.

H_3.2: Work Addiction has a significant effect on Employee Wellbeing.

H_3.3: Unpleasantness has a significant effect on Employee Wellbeing.

H_3.4: Withdrawal Symptoms has a significant effect on Employee Wellbeing.

H_3.5: Working Excessively has a significant effect on Employee Wellbeing.

H_3.6: Working Compulsively has a significant effect on Employee Wellbeing.

(H4): Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Workaholism & Employee Wellbeing.

H_4.1: Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Work Perfectionism & Employee Wellbeing.

H_4.2: Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Work Addiction & Employee Wellbeing.

H_4.2: Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Unpleasantness & Employee Wellbeing.

H_4.3: Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Withdrawal Symptoms & Employee Wellbeing.

H_4.4: Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Working Excessively & Employee Wellbeing.

H_4.5: Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Working Compulsively & Employee Wellbeing.

7. Proposed Research Model

This study investigates the mediating role of work–family balance (WFB) on the relationship between workaholism and employee wellbeing.

• Workaholism is the Independent Variable

• Employee Wellbeing is the Dependent Variable

• Work-Family Balance is the Mediating Variable

8. Research Methodology

Population: Employees who are working in the Education Industry in Egypt especially who are working in the private universities existing in Cairo.

Sample: In order to get a sample considered to be a representative one, the researcher used Krejcie and Morgan’s method (1970) as being “a generalized scientific guideline for sample size decisions” stating that if the population (N) size exceeds 1,000,000 while having a sample error (+/- 5%) with a confidence level of 95%, then a non-proportional quota sample (S) of 384 will provide the anticipated results ( Krejcie and Morgan, 1970) ⁵⁹.

This research is relying on two integrated approaches:

Theoretical study: it is to analyze, study, and evaluate previous studies such as journals that are academic “academic journals” related to management; journals and theses to collect essential secondary data and form an integrated framework to the study.

Field study: it is implemented by distributing questionnaires over number of employees of chosen private university in education industry in Egypt especially in Cairo. As questionnaires are one of quantitative methods which means that the information collected will be based on accurate and precise percentages. The researcher used questionnaire to make sure of the credibility and validity of the data collected. Questionnaires also ensures that the respondent will write what they want, as it gives the respondents a chance to answer the questions freely, and most of the respondents are familiar with such a method, moreover, analyzing data will be easier using questionnaires because questionnaires are easy method.

First step conducted to collect the data is deciding to conduct a questionnaire as being one of the quantitative methods and to ensure that the data collected will be credible and valid. After the deciding of the method, the researcher began in writing it using Google Forms. Then the conducted questionnaire distributed online to help the researcher reach as much Administrative” Non-Academic Staff Member” and Non-Administrative “Academic Staff Member” working in the private universities in Egypt.

The independent variable for this study consists of the constructs of Workaholism in terms of the following:

• Work Perfectionism.

• Work Addiction.

• Unpleasantness.

• Withdrawal symptoms.

• Working Excessively.

• Working Compulsively.

The Mediator construct for this study is Work-Family Balance (WFB).

The dependent variable for this study is the construct of Employee Wellbeing.

9. Statistical Analysis Results

Reliability and intrinsic validity for research variables:

According to Table 1, we find out the following:

The reliability coefficient and intrinsic face validity for research constructs are (0.975), (0.987) respectively; highly internal consistency based on the average inter-item correlation. The eight constructs with highest Reliability coefficients are; Work Family Balance (WFB), Unpleasantness, Withdrawal symptoms, Work Perfectionism, Work Addiction, Working Compulsively, Working Excessively, and Employee Wellbeing, with a Reliability coefficient (0.948), (0.939), (0.931), (0.930), (0.929), (0.928), (0.922),(0.874), respectively. All constructs are greater than the limits of the appropriate value (70) at least, (Hair et al, 2014, P90).

Summary of Descriptive statistics for independent, mediator and dependent constructs:

According to descriptive statistical techniques that include (means, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation.); the researcher can summarize the main attitudes of all constructs as shown in the following table.

According to Descriptive statistics in Table 2, it can be concluded that:

• The six most homogeneous constructs are Employee Wellbeing, Work Perfectionism, Work-Family Balance (WFB), Working Compulsively, Working Excessively, and Work Addiction, with a coefficient of variation (24.82 %), (26.95 %), (28.57 %), (28.59 %), (28.93 %), (30.67 %) respectively.

• On the other hand, the two most heterogeneous constructs are Withdrawal Symptoms, and Unpleasantness, with a coefficient of variation (31.87 %), (33.56 %) respectively.

The researcher revealed that:

1. There are significant negative linear relationships between the constructs of Workaholism in terms of Work Perfectionism, Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Withdrawal Symptoms, Working Excessively, Working Compulsively and the Work-Family Balance (WFB) at a Significant level less than (0.001).

2. There are significant negative linear relationships between the construct of Workaholism in terms of Work Perfectionism, Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Withdrawal Symptoms, Working Excessively, Working Compulsively and Employee Wellbeing at a Significant level less than (0.001).

3. There are significant positive linear relationships between Work-Family Balance (WFB) & Employee wellbeing at Significant level less than (0.001).

The researcher revealed that:

There is a significant negative effect of the constructs of workaholism in terms of Work Perfectionism, Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Withdrawal Symptoms, Working Excessively, and Working Compulsively on the construct of Work-Family Balance (WFB) at a significant level less than (0.05). This validates the first research hypothesis; (H1): There is a significant relation between Workaholism & Work-Family Balance (WFB) with regression model as the following:

WFB = -0.155 * Work perfectionism – .280 * work addiction-.179 * Unpleasantness-.125* Withdrawal symptoms-.116* working Excessively-.132 *working Compulsively

The exogenous variables were accepted Workaholism in terms of Work Perfectionism, Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Withdrawal Symptoms, Working Excessively, and Working Compulsively, in SEM explain (73.1%) from total variation of dependent variable; Work-Family Balance (WFB) , the rest percent due to either the random error in the regression model or other Independent Variables excluded from regression model.

There is a significant positive effect of the construct of Work-Family Balance (WFB) as being the mediator variable on Employee wellbeing at the significant level (0.001), this validates the second research hypothesis (H₂) showing the significant relation between Work-Family Balance (WFB) & Employee Wellbeing. In addition, there is a significant negative effect of the construct of Workaholism in terms of Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Working Excessively, and Working Compulsively on Employee Wellbeing, this partially validated the third hypothesis (H₃) showing the significant relation between Workaholism & Employee Wellbeing, with regression models as the following:

Employee wellbeing = .108 WFB+0.037 * Work perfectionism – 0.077 * work addiction-0.148 * Unpleasantness-0.032* Withdrawal symptoms-0.093* working Excessively-0.666 *working Compulsively

The exogenous variables was accepted Workaholism in terms of Work Perfectionism, Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Withdrawal Symptoms, Working Excessively, Working Compulsively and Work-Family Balance (WFB), in SEM explain (98.4%) from the total variation of dependent variable; Employee Wellbeing, the rest percent due to either the random error in the regression model or other Independent Variables excluded from the regression model.

According to Standardized direct and indirect Effects, the researcher revealed the following:

The most important exogenous observed constructs directly effect on Work-Family Balance (WFB) are Work Perfectionism, Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Withdrawal Symptoms, Working Excessively, Working Compulsively by Standardized direct coefficients from (-0.116 to -0.280).

The most important exogenous observed constructs directly effect on Employee Wellbeing are Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Working Excessively, Working Compulsively, and Work-Family Balance (WFB) by Standardized direct coefficients from (-0.077 to -0.666).

The exogenous observed construct of workaholism in terms of Work Perfectionism, Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Withdrawal Symptoms, Working Excessively, and Working Compulsively indirectly effects on Employee Wellbeing through Work-Family Balance (WFB) by Standardized indirect coefficients from (-0.013) to (-0.030).

It revealed that there is a significant indirect standardized effect of the workaholism in terms of Work Perfectionism, Work Addiction, Unpleasantness, Withdrawal Symptoms, Working Excessively, Working Compulsively on Employee Wellbeing through Work-Family Balance (WFB) as a mediator variable at a significant level less than (0.05), by using the possible sampling method for (200) Number of Bootstrap Samples. This validates the fourth research hypothesis H₄: Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Workaholism & Employee Wellbeing.

Measuring the Goodness of Fit of the (SEM) model:

Therefore, the researcher noticed the following:

All the goodness of fit measures of the model indicates that all indicators at acceptable limits or greater than cut-off values, especially GFI, AGFI, NFI, RFI, IFI.TLI, and CFI close to one and Normed Chi-Square with cut-off values less than (5). The fit measures indicate the goodness of fit of the structural model and its ability to measure the effect of the augmented services brand antecedents on augmented services brand equity with student's satisfaction as a mediator variable.

Both Root Mean Square Residual (RMR) and Root Mean Square Residual Approximation (RMSEA) less than (0.10), which indicates a close fit of the theoretical model to the actual model.

10. Research Discussion

As a Findings Summary, this discussion will provide a support for the findings from the researcher’s literature review. For Hypothesis 1 which is “There is a significant relation between Workaholism & Work-Family Balance (WFB)”: The survey findings showing that there is a negative relation between workaholism (independent variable) and work-family balance (mediating variable) and this point is supported by the research paper named “Work-Family Balance: A Review and Extension of the Literature”. Regardless the research papers showing the positive side for it. Especially in the latest years, there is a rising interest regarding the positive aspects’ examination of combing both work and family role.

The Researcher has found that there is a negative relationship between Workahlism and Work-Family Balance (WFB). According to (Aziz and Zicker, 2006 ⁶⁰ through Matuska, 2010 ⁶¹), a person with the workaholic syndrome would be an unhappy person whom life is not balanced along with the research available showing that they report lesser overall happiness and life satisfaction; they are more perfectionist and stressed, in addition to more complaints regarding their health. It was shown also by the theory of Veenhoven regarding a balanced life that a workaholic person is considered someone leading an imbalanced life resulting in less happiness.

For Hypothesis 2 which is “There is a significant relation between Work-Family Balance (WFB) & Employee Wellbeing”: The survey findings show that there is a positive relation between Work-Family Balance (mediating variable) and Employee wellbeing (dependent variable) and this point is supported by (Peng, et al., 2011) ⁶² by stating that there are some researchers gave suggestions that the greater integration among work and family roles is consider to be a way in which work and family can be balanced , and such integration can even help in the facilitation of a positive synthesis among the two roles.

For Hypothesis 3 which is “There is a significant relation between Workaholism & Employee Wellbeing”: Regarding the relationship existing between both the workaholism and the employee wellbeing, there is a claim made by the researchers that workaholism concept should be treated as a “negative construct” rather than a positive one with the two classified dimensions in both working excessively and working compulsively (Schaufeli et al, 2008, p. 204) ²⁰. According to (Vodanovich & Piotrowski, 2007) ⁴⁰, it was shown that there are previous research findings related to workaholism reveal that it has unfavorable and harmful consequence on the employee wellbeing. Also both McMillan & O’ Driscoll showed also that workaholics people are more prone to chronic diseased such as coronary heart disease (McMillan & O’ Driscoll, 2004) ⁶⁹. Also Spence & Robbins, 1992 ¹⁴ showed that workaholics are reporting in a frequent basis other physical and psychological health issues.

For Hypothesis 4 which is “Work-Family Balance (WFB) plays a mediating role between Workaholism & Employee Wellbeing”. The survey findings show that the existing of the work-family balance (WFB) as a mediating variable creating a positive relation between both the independent variable (workaholism) & the dependent variable (employee wellbeing) rather than a negative one. According to the experiential model of life balance, a workaholic person could be living a balanced life. Since the existence of low work enjoyment as one of the three characteristics of the workaholic syndrome, there is no research to date examining perceived enjoyment and the types of experiences typical of workaholics.

However, there is a great deal of research revealing the positive psychological benefits coming from the engagement in tasks which are meaningful and challenging (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) ⁶³ but little is known regarding the way workaholics perceive their work experiences apart from that they don’t typically enjoy them. The relationship among both workaholism and life balance can also be considered in relation to an experiential balance model proposing that a balanced mix of everyday experiences is vital for both health and wellbeing.

11. Limitation

The Researcher faced limitations while conducting the research paper, as the chosen area was a specific one “Cairo” with Specific sector which is the “private one” without taking into consideration the public sector in Cairo. This means that due to the limitations, the researcher only conducted the research and tested only on a specific area in Egypt which is Cairo without taking into consideration the other governorates of Egypt in addition to specific private sector without taking into consideration the public one.

12. Future Work

The relationship between Workaholism and Employee Wellbeing: The Mediating Role of Work-Family Balance (WFB) could be hypothesized and tested on other industries in Egypt rather than the Educational one. Researchers could go further by taking another interesting industry; for instance, the Real Estate Industry is an interesting industry nowadays in Egypt. According to the Egyptian Real Estate Market top trends in 2022, the performance of the Egyptian real estate sector is one of the best investment areas in the country. As for the Ministry of planning & international cooperation, the growth rates of the property topped 15%. This sector has benefited from the regional & global economic challenges’ uncertainty & instability.

Taking a view regarding the Human Resources challenges the real estate market face in Egypt, real estate sales are often having the exposure to a high level of stress with a frequent experience of burnout and need assistance from a mental health. There is an importance for choosing the right approach to the employees & ensuring the right execution of the HR-oriented strategies. As for the real estate agents, they tend to be workaholics; those agents usually work long hours with perseverance while dedicating themselves almost entirely to their clients. They often measure their success by their sales, and often beat themselves up if their high expectation (sometimes impossible) is not met. Several agents stated that the worst part of their job is that it never stops.

As said by Adam Feinberg of Anchor Associates, that the worst part of his job is “working around the clock -24/7”. As for the new agents, the hardest part of being in real estate is the financial part; it is financially challenging because most people are used to salaried positions. Therefore, this financial challenge pushes the real estate agents to work hard. In addition, it was mentioned by Lucas Maclado, co-founder of House Heroes Realty LLC, that the most challenging aspect of the real estate industry is the “off-hours work”; as most pf the people who decided to buy or sell their homes have regular day jobs & may only be available during the evening or weekend; meaning that agents must work whole their friends & family are off. Moreover, Machado stated that there is a responsibility for the real estate agents to grow their business with a complete control; meaning that the career rises or falls on the agent own work. There is always more work that could be completed; this creates a compulsion to work as hard as possible with the feeling of “slacking off “when trying to relax.

In addition, researchers can go further in the educational industry but by focusing on workaholism regarding the administrative “non-academic” staff and the non-administrative” academic staff”. As administrators on the educational field can see & edit the schedules of teachers and take attendance on their behalf. While teachers who are not administrators can only have a view for their own students & schedules & only take attendance for their own lessons. The administrators are having the responsibility for the daily functioning & overall success of their educational entity. In addition, they manage and support the academic staff. They are also considered the heart of any educational entity by keeping things moving & ensuring that essential and non-essential services are available to students. As the backbone of the education sector is its administrative staff. Without the administrative roles, the educational sector would not be able to function effectively or efficiently. The administrative functions also provide support to teaching staff by keeping educational facilities operating. Therefore, researchers can focus on those two types of staff in the educational sector and their workaholism level, whether the workaholism level differs from one group of staff to another.

13. Implications

The relationship between Workaholism and Employee Wellbeing: The Mediating Role of Work-Family Balance (WFB) could be hypothesized and tested on other industries in Egypt rather than the Educational one. Researchers could go further by taking another interesting industry; for instance, the Real Estate Industry is an interesting industry nowadays in Egypt. According to the Egyptian Real Estate Market top trends in 2022, the performance of the Egyptian real estate sector is one of the best investment areas in the country. As for the Ministry of planning & international cooperation, the growth rates of the property topped 15%. This sector has benefited from the regional & global economic challenges’ uncertainty & instability.

Taking a view regarding the Human Resources challenges the real estate market face in Egypt, real estate sales are often having the exposure to a high level of stress with a frequent experience of burnout and need assistance from a mental health. There is an importance for choosing the right approach to the employees & ensuring the right execution of the HR-oriented strategies. As for the real estate agents, they tend to be workaholics; those agents usually work long hours with perseverance while dedicating themselves almost entirely to their clients. They often measure their success by their sales, and often beat themselves up if their high expectation (sometimes impossible) is not met. Several agents stated that the worst part of their job is that it never stops.

As said by Adam Feinberg of Anchor Associates, that the worst part of his job is “working around the clock -24/7”. As for the new agents, the hardest part of being in real estate is the financial part; it is financially challenging because most people are used to salaried positions. Therefore, this financial challenge pushes the real estate agents to work hard. In addition, it was mentioned by Lucas Maclado, co-founder of House Heroes Realty LLC, that the most challenging aspect of the real estate industry is the “off-hours work”; as most pf the people who decided to buy or sell their homes have regular day jobs & may only be available during the evening or weekend; meaning that agents must work whole their friends & family are off. Moreover, Machado stated that there is a responsibility for the real estate agents to grow their business with a complete control; meaning that the career rises or falls on the agent own work. There is always more work that could be completed; this creates a compulsion to work as hard as possible with the feeling of “slacking off “when trying to relax.

In addition, researchers can go further in the educational industry but by focusing on workaholism regarding the administrative “non-academic” staff and the non-administrative” academic staff”. As administrators on the educational field can see & edit the schedules of teachers and take attendance on their behalf. While teachers who are not administrators can only have a view for their own students & schedules & only take attendance for their own lessons. The administrators are having the responsibility for the daily functioning & overall success of their educational entity. In addition, they manage and support the academic staff. They are also considered the heart of any educational entity by keeping things moving & ensuring that essential and non-essential services are available to students. As the backbone of the education sector is its administrative staff. Without the administrative roles, the educational sector would not be able to function effectively or efficiently. The administrative functions also provide support to teaching staff by keeping educational facilities operating. Therefore, researchers can focus on those two types of staff in the educational sector and their workaholism level, whether the workaholism level differs from one group of staff to another.

14. Recommendations

Due to the limitations faced by the researcher, it was recommended for other researchers to take into consideration the various areas in Egypt; for instance, taking other governorates of Egypt in addition to covering both sectors the private sector and the public one. Moreover, there is another recommendation regarding the theoretical framework of this research; the dependent variable of “Employee wellbeing” could be more specific to be “Teacher-wellbeing” as the chosen industry to test on was the educational field. Accordingly, the choice of to be more specific on the choice of the dependent variable is recommended. The Teacher well-being (TWB) is seen as relating to the educational governance, teaching effectiveness, and the students’ outcomes (Duckworth, Quinn, & Seligman, 2009; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003) ⁶⁴. As the high level of teacher wellbeing shown to aid the educational institutions stabilizing their functioning and helps in the increments regarding the commitment of staff members .In contrast to the low of teacher wellbeing, it helps in the appearance of the obstacle exist to educational institutions’ improvement, educational reforms and can lead to higher rates regarding the teacher absenteeism rate (Parker, Martin, Colmar, & Liem, 2012) ⁶⁵.

Teacher wellbeing is also having an association with other psychological constructs including negatively with stress that teachers have in addition to burnout (Burić, Slišković, & Penezić, 2019) ⁶⁶, and positively with the existence of satisfaction in addition to positive emotions, flexibility and flourishing, motivation and commitment. Also, it has been considered within the mental health’s wider context (Gray, Wilcox, & Nordstokke, 2017) ⁶⁷. For those reasons, it was recommended to focus on the studies that have explicitly addressed the concept of teacher wellbeing in addition to studying the effect of the workaholism level on the teacher wellbeing taking into consideration the work-family balance as being a mediating variable in the educational industry.

Additionaly, the recommendation for studying this variable “ teacher wellbeing” came from the article named “Teacher well-being: A systematic review of the research literature from the year 2000–2019 by (Hascher & Waber, 2021) ⁶⁸ showing that The variety of research regarding teacher wellbeing can be allocated to diverse clusters, a more accurate an domain-specific definition regarding teacher wellbeing is promoted, social relationships play a significant role for teacher wellbeing, teacher wellbeing’s outcomes need more research attention, and finally showing that research on predictors and teacher wellbeing interventions need an alignment.

15. Conclusion

A century ago, both workaholism and life balance were not applicable and competent. But nowadays they are considered relatively new ideas. The literature points to a life condition appearing to resonate with people in some countries taking the focus to Egypt as being the Northern part of Africa continent. At this time, these mentioned concepts and their effects are considered only ambiguously understood; but are having wide acceptance in the modern life’s terminology. Both concepts left more questions than answers, but this review, critique, and analysis of both workaholism and life balance helps in answering most of those questions. As both concepts need more clear definition and measures in addition to more validation evidence for their claims.

The idea itself for some people is having a growing support; people who are having too much focus on their work at the expense of their life parts representing a life imbalance’s form with potential negative consequences regarding both social and health. Regarding the highlighting areas in which research is needed, there was a hope that this review will give stimulation for the discussion on both topics; the workaholism and life balance and imbalance. For the employee wellbeing, emphasizing the health’s importance will help employees. As the health and wellbeing of the employees help contributing heavily to their overall engagement in the business.

Generally, many of us spend most of our waking time at work; the way of feeling regarding our work have an impact the personal lives we have and vice versa. When we have a struggle in our home life, this will certainly influence our ability to contribute to the workplace effectively. As offering a range of expressive benefits for supporting the employees’ wellbeing can have many benefits for organizations which are tangible and intangible ones.

References