The downside of organizational identification: Relations between identification, workaholism and well-being

Abstract

Employee organizational identification has been proposed and found to be positively related
\nto employee health and well-being. The empirical evidence, however, is not unequivocal, and
\nsome authors have suggested possible downsides of identification with the organization as a
\nwhole or with a group within it. The potential negative effect of over-identification was tested
\nempirically for the first time in the present paper. Two studies were conducted; Study 1 was
\ncross-sectional and used a sample of Italian law court clerks (N195) and Study 2 was
\nlongitudinal and employed a sample of Italian teachers (N140 at T2). We proposed a
\ncurvilinear mediation model with identification curvilinearly predicting workaholism, and
\nworkaholism, in turn, negatively affecting employee well-being. This curvilinear link between
\norganizational identification and workaholism means that workaholism at first decreases
\nwith growing identification, but when identification becomes too strong, workaholism
\nincreases. The results confirmed our hypotheses, and we discuss theoretical and practical
\nimplications