This Is Not My Task:The Impact Of Illegitimate Tasks On Employees’ Time Banditry Behavior

With continuous technological changes and rising global economic pressures,employees are often asked to perform tasks outside their formal job roles.As a new type of workplace stressor,illegitimate tasks have thus recently caught the researchers’ attention.When organizations assign employees to take up various roles at work,employees will naturally evaluate what they ought to perform according to their roles.Such evaluation sets the boundaries of “what may legitimately be expected” from employees in terms of task performance,and any task not assigned according to such expectation may be considered by employees as illegitimate.Since illegitimate tasks involve work assignments that cannot be reasonably and appropriately expected,performing illegitimate tasks will trigger negative cognitive and emotional responses of employees,which will not only threaten employees’ self-esteem,but also induce negative emotions such as anger.However,previous studies only discussed the cognitive and emotional mechanisms between illegitimate tasks and negative consequences,and did not fully take into account the integrated effectiveness of the two.Moreover,few scholars explore the mechanism of illegitimate tasks from the perspective of role relevance based on the core characteristics of illegitimate tasks-outside the scope of self-role.Therefore,based on the role identity theory,this study constructs a moderated mediation model to explore the impact of illegitimate tasks on employees’ time banditry behavior.Firstly,this research summarizes and reviews five main variables,namely,illegitimate tasks,work alienation,emotional exhaustion,time banditry behavior and work role identity.Secondly,the hypotheses and model of this study are proposed.Thirdly,the 265 sample data collected from5 large enterprises are analyzed by Spss26.0 and Amos23.0.Finally,the research results are discussed,and the theoretical and practical implications are proposed,as well as the future research prospects.The conclusions of this study are as follows:1.Illegitimate tasks have a positive impact on time banditry behavior;2.Illegitimate tasks positively affect work alienation;3.Illegitimate tasks have a positive impact on time banditry behavior through the mediating effect of work alienation;4.Illegitimate tasks have a positive impact on emotional exhaustion;5.Illegitimate tasks positively affect time banditry behavior through the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion;6.Work role identity moderates the relationship between illegitimate tasks and work alienation;7.Work role identity moderates the mediating effect of work alienation between illegitimate tasks and time banditry behavior;8.Work role identity moderates the relationship between illegitimate tasks and emotional exhaustion;9.Work role identity moderates the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion between illegitimate tasks and time banditry behavior.