Employees’ Internet Addiction and Work Burnout: The Mediating Role of Hope

Authors

Weihong Ning, Central Connecticut State UniversityFollow
Tuyen Ho, American Nuclear InsurersFollow
Joo Eng Lee-Partridge, Central Connecticut State UniversityFollow
Ying Chen, Central Connecticut State UniversityFollow
Yinfei Chen, Central Connecticut State UniversityFollow

Abstract

Work burnout is becoming a more common and serious problem nowadays (e.g., Manag 2023). Meanwhile, Internet addiction has negatively influenced people’s work and lives (e.g., Karakose et al. 2022). Although a great number of studies have examined the negative impact of Internet addiction, little research has shed light on the impact of Internet addiction on employees’ work burnout. Therefore, we intended to fill this important gap with the following three research questions. We addressed these questions based on the hope theory (Snyder 2002). Q1: Does Internet addiction influence employees’ hope? Q2: Does the hope have an impact on employees’ work burnout? Q3: Does Internet addiction contribute to employees’ work burnout? A total of 163 full-time and part-time employees participated in this study by filling out an online survey. The participants were between 18 and 76 years old (M = 42.90, SD = 12.92). They comprised 94 women and 69 men. Among them, 62 worked in the workplace/office, 51 worked from home, and 50 worked in a hybrid way. We used SPSS to provide Pearson correlations between the variables of interest in data analyses. We also tested the research questions with SPSS PROCESS macro model 4 (Hayes 2018). The dependent variable in the model was Internet addiction, the dependent variable was work burnout, and the mediator was hope. The control variables were age, gender, home working hours, and social desirability. Our results showed that Internet addiction decreased employees’ hope, which in turn significantly influenced their work burnout. Also, Internet addiction did not have a significant impact on employees’ work burnout. Thus, the relationship between internet addiction and work burnout was fully mediated by hope. This study provides a theoretical contribution to the literature on internet addiction and practical implications for managing employees’ work burnout.

Paper Number

tpp1398

Recommended Citation

Ning, Weihong; Ho, Tuyen; Lee-Partridge, Joo Eng; Chen, Ying; and Chen, Yinfei, "Employees’ Internet Addiction and Work Burnout: The Mediating Role of Hope" (2024). AMCIS 2024 TREOs. 37.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/treos_amcis2024/37