{"id":3879,"date":"2025-07-08T15:54:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3879"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:54:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:54:21","slug":"counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism\/","title":{"rendered":"Counterintuitive Aspects of Workaholism"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Most people see workaholism as hurting emotional and physical well-being and personal relationships. Continually working long hours can affect professionals\u2019 health and lead to all sorts of other problems. But a passion for work can mitigate the consequences of workaholism and may even give some workaholics a sense of purpose.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Nancy Rothbard<\/a> of the University of Pennsylvania said her research with colleagues revealed that there are actually two types of workaholism. The classic type of workaholism is significantly negative due to the detrimental effects it has on workaholics\u2019 health, wellness, and long-term on-the-job engagement. But another set of workaholics are really passionate about their work.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the set of passionate workaholics who are really engaged and love their work, it turns out that the negative health implications were not there, and in fact, they had a lower risk of metabolic syndrome, which essentially means risk of cardiovascular disease,\u201d Rothbard said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we unpacked those findings to try to understand what was going on there, we found that people who are engaged workaholics have more social support, they have a better handle on their recovery activities, things like going to the gym and managing their health in real time,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are workaholics; they\u2019re very engaged in their work; they feel obsessive about their work, but they also love their work.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so, they\u2019re not being drained in the same way over time and, despite working very long hours, had better work-life balance or more social support from their managers, peers, and family than what we call non-engaged workaholics.\u201d
\nManagers can help to avoid some of the negative effects of non-engaged workaholism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are ways to increase the engagement of your employees through providing them with a strong set of goals and vision,\u201d Rothbard said. \u201cAll the great leadership types of activities that we that we know work are really important for increasing engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Most people see workaholism as hurting emotional and physical well-being and personal relationships. Continually working long hours can affect professionals\u2019 health and lead to all sorts of other problems. But a passion for work can mitigate the consequences of workaholism and may even give some workaholics a sense of purpose. Academy of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,29,76,46],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-emotions","category-performance","category-well-being"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCounterintuitive Aspects of Workaholism - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Counterintuitive Aspects of Workaholism\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-08T15:54:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":327,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-scaled.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"BEHAVIOR\",\"EMOTIONS\",\"PERFORMANCE\",\"WELL-BEING\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/counterintuitive-aspects-of-workaholism\\\/\",\"name\":\"Counterintuitive Aspects of Workaholism - 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You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.","sameAs":["https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daniel-butcher","display_name":"Daniel Butcher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true],"owl_elementor_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-600x400.jpg",600,400,true],"owl_elementor_team":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-350x450.jpg",350,450,true],"owl_elementor_testimonial":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/woman-burning-the-midnight-oil_workaholism_workaholic_shutterstock_227463739-100x100.jpg",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Daniel Butcher","author_link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"},"rttpg_comment":1,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/behavior\/\" rel=\"category tag\">BEHAVIOR<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/emotions\/\" rel=\"category tag\">EMOTIONS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/performance\/\" rel=\"category tag\">PERFORMANCE<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/well-being\/\" rel=\"category tag\">WELL-BEING<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By Daniel Butcher Most people see workaholism as hurting emotional and physical well-being and personal relationships. Continually working long hours can affect professionals\u2019 health and lead to all sorts of other problems. But a passion for work can mitigate the consequences of workaholism and may even give some workaholics a sense of purpose. Academy of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3879"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3879"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}