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

Xia Jiang, Jing Du, Tianfei Yang and Yujing Liu
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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

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 6, 1-13

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.

Keywords: instant message; engagement; self-control; psychological withdrawal; COR (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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