魚與熊掌必然不可兼得？多工時間觀對工作壓力、工作與生活平衡、身心健康間耗損關係的緩減效果

The Buffering Effect of Polychronicity on The Effects of Job Stress on Work-Life Balance and Indicators of Physical and Mental Health

研究目的：本研究探討工作壓力對工作與生活平衡與其身心健康（包含生活品質、主觀幸福感，及睡眠品質）耗損的關聯，並檢驗工作者的個人時間特性：多工時間觀，對前述直接關係與中介機制的調節減緩效果。研究方法：本研究採用問卷施測，研究對象為二十歲以上之全職工作者，共蒐集323份有效問卷，其中平均年齡35.53歲（SD = 7.92），男性占了30.7%，職級主要為一般職員（65%）。研究結果：工作壓力會透過工作與生活平衡損害工作者之身心健康，多工時間觀則會減緩工作壓力對工作與生活平衡的負向關聯，顯示當工作者偏好多工作業時，工作壓力與身心健康間的負向關係會減弱；調節式中介模式分析結果也驗證多工時間觀會緩減工作與生活平衡在工作壓力與身心健康間的中介效果。研究結論：工作者看待時間的觀點可幫助其緩減工作壓力後果，也能緩減工作壓力對其身心健康指標的健康耗損。整體而言，本研究以多元時間觀點擴充了工作壓力、工作與生活平衡與身心健康的理論意涵。

Purpose: According to the conservation of resources theory, high job stress depletes workers’ inner resources. With job stress, neither the person’s work nor family role can obtain enough resources to meet expectations and responsibilities, resulting in a state of work-life imbalance that in turn affects job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and mental health. Individuals differ in their ability to successfully manage the boundary between work and life when under stress. Boundary management depends on the ability to switch roles and corresponding behaviors, and to simultaneously process or multitask different roles (polychronicity). We examined the critical individual characteristic of polychronicity to test the hypothesis that it reduces the harmful effect of workers' job stress on their work-life balance. We then examined its moderating role on the relationship between job stress and physical and mental health (quality of life, subjective well-being, and quality of sleep) as mediated by work-life balance. Methods: We collected a total of 323 valid questionnaires. Participants were full-time employees in Taiwan (mean age = 35.53 years, 69.3% women, 65% at the rank of general staff). We conducted confirmatory factor, correlation, and hierarchical regression analyses to test the research model and hypotheses. Results: Job stress had a significant negative correlation with work-life balance. Work-life balance had significant positive correlations with all 3 physical and mental health indicators. Greater polychronicity significantly reduced the negative effect of job stress on work-life balance. Analysis of the moderated mediation effect model indicated that greater polychronicity reduced the mediating effect of work-life balance between job stress and all 3 of the physical and mental health indicators. Conclusions: An employee’s preference for polychronicity can reduce the consequences of job stress on work-life balance, which serves as a buffer for the negative effect of job stress on physical and mental health. This study provides support for the job demands-resources model, which states that both work and personal resources can effectively alleviate the health depletion process caused by job stress: personal resources are necessary in addition to external resources. This study demonstrates that polychronicity is one such personal resource in that it can effectively reduce the negative process and consequences of job stress.