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Anales de Psicología

versão On-line ISSN 1695-2294versão impressa ISSN 0212-9728

Anal. Psicol. vol.38 no.2 Murcia Mai./Set. 2022  Epub 29-Jul-2022

https://dx.doi.org/10.6018/analesps.427401 

Organizational Psychology

Polychronicity, time perspective, and procrastination behavior at the workplace: an empirical study

Policronicidad, perspectiva temporal y comportamiento de procrastinación en el puesto de trabajo: un estudio empírico

Song Zhijie1  , Nida Gull1  , Muhammad Asghar1  *  , Muddassar Sarfraz2  3  , Rui Shi1  , Muhammad Asim-Rafique1 

1School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, 066004 (China)

2Binjiang College, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Wuxi, Jiangsu (China)

3Research Center in Engineering and Management, Politehnica University of Timisoara, 300191 Timisoara, (Romania)

Abstract

Daily duties, tasks, various situations, and decisions must be resolved. However, it is frequently the case that we defer critical activities till later due to an overload of information from many sources, an excessive number of duties, the quick pace of life, and so on. Procrastination behavior impedes the development of every organization. The main objective is to identify possible differences in procrastination and the proper use of polychronicity in a cross-cultural context. A sample of 281 employees of manufacturing industries in Pakistan was considered. A study proposed hypotheses were tested through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique. The findings indicated that polychronicity increased procrastinating behavior, the role of conflict mediation influence. Furthermore, job autonomy acts as a negative moderator of polychronicity influence on the role of conflict occurrences, therefore weakening the entire mediating process between polychronicity and individual procrastinating behaviour. Finally, the results are used to show the model's theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords: Polychronicity; Multitasking; Procrastination behavior; Role of conflict; Job autonomy

Resumen

Deben resolverse los deberes diarios, las tareas, las diversas situaciones y las decisiones. Sin embargo, con frecuencia postergamos las actividades críticas para más tarde debido a una sobrecarga de información de diversas fuentes, un número excesivo de tareas, el ritmo de vida rápido, etc. El comportamiento de procrastinación impide el desarrollo de todas las organizaciones. El objetivo principal es identificar las posibles diferencias en la procrastinación y el uso adecuado de la policronicidad en un contexto transcultural. Se consideró una muestra de 281 empleados de industrias manufactureras en Pakistán. Las hipótesis propuestas en este estudio fueron probadas mediante la técnica de Modelado de Ecuaciones Estructurales (SEM). Los hallazgos indicaron que la policronicidad aumentó el comportamiento de procrastinación, el papel de la influencia de la mediación de conflictos. Además, la autonomía laboral actúa como un moderador negativo de la influencia de la policronicidad en el papel de los sucesos de conflicto, debilitando así todo el proceso de mediación entre la policronicidad y la conducta procrastinadora individual. Finalmente, los resultados se utilizan para mostrar las implicaciones teóricas y prácticas del modelo.

Palabras clave: Policronicidad; Multitarea; Conducta de procrastinación; Rol del conflicto; Autonomía laboral

Introduction

Procrastination is pervasive and has a negative impact on both individual and organizational performance (Ferrari & Tice, 2000; Stead et al., 2010). Procrastination has historically been predominantly seen as a counterproductive construct, frequently presented as a dysfunctional and self-defeating behavior (Park et al., 2018). However, studies have recently completed that various factor influence the degree to which procrastination is troublesome (Rebetez et al., 2016). It has demonstrated that external restrictions, such as the nature and characteristics of events, and internal factors, such as the degree of procrastination, influence procrastination in companies. He (2017) suggested a unique framework for procrastination, distinguishing between passive, inhibiting and active, enabling effects. While the suppressing effects are consistent with the popular image of procrastination (Kern et al., 2020), facilitating results imply that procrastination may facilitate better decision-making, resource optimization, time management, and motivation (Rebetez et al., 2014). Despite these assertions, little research has been conducted in response to these findings (Kern et al., 2020).

Procrastination behavior is used in organizations to describe delaying a scheduled completion (Schraw et al., 2007). Time is a scarce resource for contemporary organizational culture (Peng & Kamil, 2018). Employees manage their time well frequently make more significant contributions to the organization. On the other hand employees that often fail to complete their work on time, it will obtain more deficient assessments (He, 2017).

According to the study, Steel (2007) procrastination can have many psychological impacts, including mental fatigue and other health troubles. How to reduce employee procrastination has become a significant concern of this study. Most previous studies have examined the causes of procrastination behavior from the perspectives of individual traits, self-management, and time management (Gupta et al., 2012). Through meta-analysis, Peng and Kamil. (2018) discovered that personal traits such as a sense of responsibility and self-efficacy could lower the occurrence of delaying activities. Time management training can reduce procrastination behaviors. He (2017) discovered that a lack of self-regulation ability could result in prolonged behavior among workers. Individuals, not just their qualities, are also affected by behavior and the characteristics of the tasks that they must complete (Reinecke et al., 2018).

In modern organizations, procrastination behavior is a prevalent issue. When prioritizing tasks and emphasizing the value of time, it is anticipated that participants can complete more tasks in less time (Carrier et al., 2009). Multitasking behavior is a form of polychronicity associated with self-motivated and independent behavior (Reinecke et al., 2018). Individuals recognized this tendency within employees, and polychronicity, or the individual multitasking behavior, demonstrates the penchant for completing numerous tasks or activities concurrently (Asghar et al., 2021).

Nowadays, many professional jobs demand employees to be adaptable and capable of performing multiple activities concurrently or switching back and forth between various tasks; as a result, people engage in multitasking (Zhijie et al., 2019). The disingenuous scenario resulting from multi-tasking trends, and the way contextual circumstances impact employee behavior, should be considered when analyzing whether the multi-tasking trend impacts procrastination (Zhijie et al., 2019; Gull et al., 2021). Nevertheless, no research was done on the relationship between multitasking and individual procrastination. Moreover, the role of conflicts as a mediating role between polychronicity and procrastination, while the moderating role of job autonomy. The multi-tasking style suggests that to expect from employees perform multiple tasks simultaneously and transition between them. This trait influences several individual behaviors, as a part of group culture (Asghar et al., 2020). Therefore, procrastination from the point of view of multi-tasking individual level must be studied carefully.

Theoretical Background and Hypothesis

Polychronicity and procrastination behavior

The multi-tasking trend is to perform multiple task preferences simultaneously, which represents the common cognition of employees (Bluedorn et al., 1999). At present, due to the gradual weakening of independence between tasks and the requirement to complete work quickly, expect employees to complete as many tasks as possible in less time (Hecht and Allen, 2005; Mohammed and Nadkarni, 2014). This multitasking preference will change the behavior of internal employees. On the other hand, multitasking has been demonstrated in studies to have both positive and negative consequences on an organization's development (Mattarelli et al., 2015). According to Robinson and Kalafatis, (2017), executing many activities at the same time can lead to more task behaviors and higher performance. Anser et al. (2020) point out that people who are aware of the multitasking trend in the workplace are more likely to engage in task-related behaviors. Only one task at a time, according to Pachler et al. (2018) can perform better completing numerous tasks at the same time might lead to delays in task completion and frequent errors.

Anser et al. (2020) have pointed out that individuals' use of perceived environmental clues or information can change their evaluation of events, attitudes, expectations, and further affect their behaviors. Therefore, employees find that every organization wants them to perform multiple tasks simultaneously or switch between different tasks (Asghar et al., 2020). To obtain a more positive evaluation, they may be involved in various tasks. However, participating in multiple tasks at the same time means that they need to spend more time and energy, and constantly switch their attention to different tasks (Asghar et al., 2018). Košíková et al. (2020) pointed out that this interruption is likely to cause individuals to miss the best time to complete the task.

Robinson and Kalafatis (2017) believe that dispersing attention and resources between multiple tasks at the same time will reduce the speed and accuracy of task completion. Moreover, Kern et al. (2020) found that individuals would adjust the task progress status through their existing resources and push the task toward the expected. But for individuals who need to participate in multiple tasks at the same time, their remaining time resources are less, their self-regulation ability is limited, and they cannot effectively adjust the task progress (Reinecke et al., 2018). This may cause the task to fail to be complete successfully. According to research (Conte and Jacobs, 2003), individuals who participate in many tasks have low time consciousness, which may cause them to postpone completion of the planned work.

Procrastination is the action of laying off what we know we should do. At times, our prevention techniques may be rather inventive (Rebetez et al., 2014). Procrastination is best defined as the action of postponing a task that was initially scheduled despite anticipating being worse off because of the delay (He, 2017). All conceptualizations of procrastination behavior acknowledge the necessity of postponing, delaying, or deferring a job or choice, consistent with the term's Latin roots of pro meaning "forth, out, or in favour of" and ante meaning "of tomorrow" (Schraw et al., 2007; Kandemir, 2014). Procrastination is also defined as the deliberate postponement or avoidance of a planned or scheduled job without justification.

Procrastination is described as "postponing a scheduled, required, or significant action, despite the possibility of negative effects" (Stead et al., 2010). Prior research has concentrated on the consequences of procrastination on individual traits, self-regulation, and time management (Nayak, 2019). Yile (2020) established empirically that temporal perspective influsences procrastination behavior. Individuals who are optimistic about the past but pessimistic about the future will demonstrate increased procrastination. At the same time, those who are gloomy about the past and optimistic about the future will exhibit less procrastination (Reinecke et al., 2018). Nayak (2019) discovered that people are willing to move more than procrastinate when they feel that labour is valuable. According to Yile (2020) investigation, anxious individuals are more likely to postpone writing and receive lower satisfaction and grades. This study did not consider the effects of environmental circumstances on the employee's behavior because procrastination is a behavior with time. Gupta et al. (2012) have known that time has been more focused. Therefore, some temporal features at the group level may affect employee procrastination behavior, including the multi-taking trend.

According to resource conservation theory, when a employees multitasking is higher, more work requirements are put forward for the employees' work, resulting in the dispersion of energy and time among employees (Hobfoll, 2001), reducing task speed and accuracy. COR theory illustrates, human beings' first and foremost motivation is to cultivate, defend, and build a pool supply, which eventually offers protection to social bonding, that protects self (Alvaro et al., 2010). This theory describes how to prevent losing resources, keep existing ones, and acquire new ones for engaging in appropriate behaviour. According to the aforementioned theory, resources determine an individual's assessment of a potentially difficult scenario, as well as an individual's ability to deal with a demanding situation (Hobfoll, 2012a). As a result of this profound interconnection of comprehensive life, COR theory explains how we deal with and interpret pressure in a multiplex learning environment where students have uneven access to resources. It may also reduce their remaining time resources and limit their ability to adjudicate. This study presents the following hypotheses based on the above studies:

H1: Multitasking has a positive relationship with employees procrastination behavior.

Polychronicity, multitasking and role of conflict

Individuals frequently perform numerous things simultaneously polychronicity and multitasking) (Deniz and Satici, 2017). They watch television while updating their social media statuses, listen to music while studying, or concurrently open many windows on a computer screen (de Freitas et al., 2016). Individuals multitask to improve their time management efficiency or make dull jobs more entertaining. A recent study examined the surgical health care system (Deniz and Satici, 2017). Distractions during laparoscopic surgery are common, and multitasking between surgery and other jobs, such as technical equipment handling, is crucial (Lee, Yang and Li, 2017). This study has determined that whether multitasking and, more precisely, task switching can be taught using a virtual-reality laparoscopic skills simulator. Role of conflict is defined as a role in which an individual's responsibilities and expectations surpass their skills and resources (Asghar et al., 2018). Botella and Duran, (2019) argue that individuals must perform various jobs at work, each with its own set of criteria and expectations. While these requirements and expectations are reasonable in and of themselves, as the expectations increase (Sureda et al., 2019), the individual may feel that the available resources and time are insufficient to meet the work requirements, at which point the individual will perceive the role as overloaded. Conflict plays a role in job requirements (Lee et al., 2017), and personal characteristics (Suárez and Pérez, 2013), and has negative consequences such as decreased performance and job satisfaction (Sureda et al., 2019), decreased organizsational citizenship behavior (Botella & Duran, 2019), and increased work-family conflicts and turnover intention (Zhijie et al., 2021; Asghar et al., 2018).

On the one hand, the multitasking tendency reflects employees' job demands, but it does not increase the employeess' working time (Carrier et al., 2009). When a result, multitasking tendency grows, work needs for employeess will increasingly surpass the employees' working hours, creating a demanding perception, namely role conflict (Mattarelli et al., 2015). Furthermore, Kokoç (2021) shows that multitasking work situations can lead to people feeling overworked. On the other hand, employees may increase their impression of resource consumption if they believe their role is overburdened. Individuals' commitment to the goal of resource conservation may wane (Botella and Duran, 2019). Asghar et al. (2020) agree that role conflict has several negative consequences, including reduced individual productivity and delays in task completion.

According to resource conservation theory, people have scarce time resources; as the work requirements increase, individuals will lose time resources (Hobfoll, 2001). For resource conservation, individuals will try to reduce the rate of resource loss. When individuals are affected by the multi-tasking tendency and perform multiple tasks, they will feel overloaded because they have assumed more job role requirements (Hobfoll, 2012a; Holmgreen et al., 2017). To perform multiple tasks at the same time, the time resources they have are also consumed. To preserve resources, they will reduce their efforts, thereby delaying the completion of the original plan. In addition, switching between different tasks will also speed up the perception of resource consumption, especially the conversion between different types of tasks (Anser et al., 2020). Individuals will also reduce the conversion between different tasks for the drive of resource conservation, resulting in tasks that cannot be completed according to the original plan. Therefore, as the multitasking trend goes down, the individual feels that the role is overloaded. In order find a psychological balance, the effort on the goal may be reduced, and procrastination may occur (Reinecke et al., 2018). Chauhan et al. (2020) also pointed out that engaging in multisple tasks will change the individual's perception of workload and then cause some negative effects.

H2: Role conflict plays a mediating role in the relationship between multitasking and procrastination beahvior.

The moderating role of job autonomy

Conservation resource theory also states that individuals may try to alleviate the perception of resource loss by reallocating time resources (Alvaro et al., 2010). Hobfoll (2012) also expressed a similar view, autonomy focuses more on the person-it is truly self-controlling, since it generally doesn't influence your colleagues when you decide how you execute your activities. In the field of medical equipment sales, you can select how you maintain relations with clients; however, you cannot assign this responsibility to another sales representative. So, job autonomy, not authority, can be available (Holmgreen et al., 2017). Working in groups is a central theme for manufacturing and industrial psychology. The consequences of autonomy on performance and other outcomes of group work are a topic that has gotten a lot of study under this theme (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Job autonomy refers to control over (aspects of) task performance and is generally regarded as a positive trait, bringing health and satisfaction to the employee who has it, as well as efficient work processes, profit, and satisfied clients to the employer who grants it (Hobfoll, 2012b). This reallocation of time resources can be reflected in the arrangement of working hours, that is, work autonomy.

Autonomy has been confirmed as an important moderating variable at the individual level by many studies (van Dorssen-Boog et al., 2020), but little attention has been paid to indivdual-level job autonomy. Different autonomy at the individual level, job autonomy is the discretion of employees. The common perception of rights can better reflect the system design and job autonomy in an organization. van Dorssen-Boog et al. (2020) has pointed out that carrying out multiple tasks at the same time may produce positive results and may also lead to negative results, and it is critical to identify the time conditions during which they act.

According to the theory of resource conservation, people can ease the role of conflict by moving time resources. If the high autonomy, employees of the employee will feel that they can arrange their time freely, thus forming control over working time (Hobfoll et al., 2018). However, it is suggested that a high standard of job autonomy does not inherently mean great individual self-autonomy for all employees’ chance but not their duty to take on more tasks. For example, which delegates work planning and budgeting, leaving it to the organization to act at its discretion (Sureda, Mancho and Sesé, 2019). Although three employees voluntarily take on some of the duties for planning and budgeting immediately, two others do as usual without further tasks (Botella & Duran, 2019). The increasing job autonomy, on average, will lead to more autonomy for individuals. However, significant disparities between the employees will occur simultaneously (Willemse et al., 2012). Therefore, it may be concluded that there is a variation in the impact of multitasking on the role of burden in contexts with variable job autonomy (Fuller et al., 2010). Multitasking is likely to affect role conflicts for staff working in job autonomy environments.

H3: Job autonomy plays as moderating role in the relationship between multitasking and role conflicts.

This study integrates and proposes a regulated mediation effect model based on the mentioned above H1, H2 and H3. The mediation affects the role of conflict is regulated by job autonomy. Specifically, when individuals work with high autonomy, they can flexibly determine working hours and working methods, freely redistribute available time resources, balance the relationship between work requirements and individual time resources, and reduce multitasking tends to conflict character roles (Asghar et al., 2020). As a result, employees' efforts to reduce resources for resource conservation purposes will also decrease, and the frequency of procrastination will also decrease. On the other hand, when people have a high degree of autonomy, making it impossible to redistribute time resources flexibly. Instead, this restriction will worsen the disparity between work demands and individual time resources. The perception of character overload is enhanced by intelligence. As a result, employees are more likely to threaten resource consumption and focus their efforts on achieving psychological equilibrium to conserve resources, increasing the frequency of procrastination; this article provides hypotheses based on this Figure 1.

Method

Sample and data process

The data collection instrument for this study through questionnaire. The samples are drawn from 28 manufacturing companies in Punjab, Pakistan. This questionnaire was distributed by hand the questionnaire was coded to identify employees. A total of 312 questionnaires were delivered, 281 valid questionnaires were received, 31 questionnaires was missing information. Males made up 51.1 percent of all valid samples produced, while females made up 48.9 percent; the average age is 30.54 years; the average education level is a bachelor's degree or higher, accounting for 74%; and the average working life in this organization is 2.47 years.

Figure 1 Proposed study model 

Measurement scale

The measurement tools applied in this study are pre-developed scales, and the questionnaire entries have been modified to avoid confusion during the preliminary survey and to assure the questionnaire's reliability and validity. The multitasking was quantified using an eight-item scale ranging from (Bluedorn et al., 1999). In this study, the internal consistency coefficient is set to zero 0.909. The procrastination behavior was assessed using an eleven-item pure procrastination scale refined by Rebetez et al. (2014). In this investigation, the internal consistency coefficient is 0. 896. The role of conflict is defined using a three-item scale and internal reliability 0.87 (Piko, 2006). The item scale of is used to assess job autonomy by Kirkman et al. (2004), and the internal consistency coefficient in this article is 0.840. All items were rated on a five-point Likert scale, and demographic variables like age, gender, and education were included.

Analysis method

For hypothesis testing, this study makes intense use of SPSS and SEM (Arbuckle, 2010; Rahi and Abd Ghani, 2018). This study's measurements are dependent on individual-level reports due to the multitasking tendency and autonomy notions. The mean value of the formative assessment was used as the group's observation value as a consequence of conducting a amalgamating test and organizing using the combining method. Second, standard linear regression on a single level offers appropriate explanations (Sarstedt et al., 2014; Hair et al., 2017). In this study, the primary analysis method was a regression analysis, which enabled the identification of differences between employees and raised the confidence in conclusions based on differences. Finally, the results of this investigation were rectified using regression analysis in accordance with the guidelines of (Hair Jr et al., 2017; Hair et al., 2019). Accordinfg to Santoso (2018) Monte Carlo Bootstrapping test was used to determine the trustworthiness of the conclusions during this section's mediating impact.

Results

Common method bias

Given that questionnaires were distributed and improved just once in this study, and respondents completed them separately, the homogeneous variance may be a factor. According to the one-way test results (Santoso, 2018), the first factor has a variance of 31. 553 percent. As a result, the data used in this study are free of significant common method variation and possess a certain degree of dependability.

Analysis of variables

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to assess the validity of variables on an individual basis. As a result, the challenges inherent in measuring variables can be considered overcome when the words correlate with study variables possess sufficient discriminant validity for further analysis. Table 1 shows the study's findings of which model provided the best fit. Meanwhile, the GFI (0.97), RMSEA (0.06), SRMR (0.055), and CFI (0.98) values all indicated that the observed data was well fitted. According to the discriminant validity statistic (Table 1), the CR values of all variables in the measuring instrument matched these criteria (Xiaolong et al., 2021; 2021).

Table 1 Validity and Reliability análisis 

Meanwhile, if the variance extracted measure (AVE) value was more than or equal to 0.5, the measuring equipment was regarded to be dependable. Additionally, only the perceived organizational support variable did not match these criteria. Nonetheless, it is possible to conclude that the instrument employed to assess turnover intention in this study was reliable.

Data analysis

As shown in Table 2, the correlations of the variables involved in this study are listed. Multitasking trend perception, the role of conflict and procrastination behavior all exist a significant positive correlation, which is consistent with the research hypothesis. However, its interaction and strength need to be verified by subsequent analysis.

Table 2 Correlations of the variables 

Hypothesis testing

To test hypotheses, structural equation modelling is used (SEM). First, role conflict and procrastination behavior are used to compare the main effect and intermediate effect tests for the dependent variable procrastination behavior. Without adding any factors, the results indicate that the persistent behavior of the difference is 0. 249 (0.01), whereas the variance for the role of conflict is 0. 496 (0.01). This suggests sufficient variations between procrastination behavior and the role of conflict to study using SEM analysis.

Table 3 Path Analysis 

Second, the results show that multitasking tend to predict the role of conflict at the individual level positively (b = 0.608, p < .01) and procrastination behavior (b = 0.350, p < .01), Hypothesis 1 is significant. Second, H2 Shows that the role of the individual level is addressed according to the mean value (b = 0.383, p < .01) and roles, the mean values of the (b = 0.416, p < .01) are all significant. It can be contingent that the role is conflict to the full mediation effect; H2 is significant.

As shown in Table 4, job autonomy acts as a moderator when compared to multitasking, and the job autonomy interaction term has a significant negative influence on role conflict (b =-0.467, p < .05). The regulatory effect chart presented in Figure 2 is drawn by several tasks if work autonomy is minimal in order to show the regulating influence intuitively.

Table 4 Moderating effect of Job Autonomy 

Figure 2 Regulatory effect chart 

Multitasking has a stronger effect on role conflicts, and when job autonomy is higher, multitasking has less effect on role conflicts. To verify the used to mediation effect, we performed a Monte Carlo test, and the test results showed that within 90% confidence interval, indirectly, the effect was significantly negatively measured (90% CI (-0.473, -0.02)), accordingly, Hypothesis 4 is supported.

Discussion

The goal of this study was to report findings on procrastination by examining the negative consequences of procrastination on psychological functioning in employees, an understudied cohort. Second, we investigated the function of multitasking and role conflict as mediators, as well as the importance of job autonomy in moderating the consequences of procrastinating behaviour in the Pakistani services industry.

The current study's findings support and extend on earlier research indicating a negative association between multitasking and procrastination (He, 2017). The findings contrast with those of (Reinecke et al., 2018), who discovered no such relationships. The current study defined autonomous as managers' perceptions that employees had a responsibility to complete tasks and make decisions about how to complete them. It overcomes prior research's limitations about the causes of procrastinating behaviour.

Individual characteristics, time management skills, and other variables are not considered in this study. Individual qualities, stress, and other factors all contribute to the element's effect on personal procrastination. Although the impact of behaviour is more complex in psychology, little research has been conducted on the mechanism of procrastination at the individual level (Kandemir, 2014). Procrastination is an individual habit with time characteristics, and the proclivity for multitasking reflects task preferences and time utilisation has time characteristics. Numerous studies have demonstrated that an employee's orientation might influence their conduct. This study emphasises the multitasking trend and individual delays in linking, so filling a void in the field of multitasking patterns that influence long-term behaviour. To extend the task preference characteristics to the field of individual behavior research. This study also breaks through the delays in the past Pakistani scenario. Moreover, the study found that role conflict plays a mediating role between multitasking trends and procrastination and unveiled multitasking the tendency to mediates mechanisms for procrastination.

With scholars focusing their attention on the properties of time in recent years, the theory of resource conservation has increasingly been applied to this field (Hobfoll, 2012a). The concept of resource conservation (COR) is based on the premise that individuals should try to obtain, keep, promote, and protect the things they value most. COR theory demonstrates that cognitions have an inherent evolutionary and strong inclination toward resource loss when they are overweight and resource gain when they are underweight (Holmgreen et al., 2017).

As the COR theory shows, human beings' primary motivation is to cultivate, guard, and build a pool supply that eventually provides protection to social bonds, which in turn protects the self. This theory explains how to avoid resource depletion, maintain existing resources, and obtain new ones in order to engage in suitable behaviour (Hobfoll et al., 2018). According to the COR theory, resources influence both an individual's perception of a potentially challenging situation and his or her ability to deal with it. COR theory explains how we deal with and interpret pressure in a multiplex learning environment where pupils have unequal access to resources as a result of this fundamental interconnectivity of complete life (Holmgreen et al., 2017). According to COR theory, stress occurs (a) when central or core resources are threatened with loss; (b) when central or core resources are lost; and (c) when central or core resources are not regained despite significant efforts. COR theory is a motivational explanation that accounts for a substantial amount of human behaviour. It is based on the developing urge to obtain and conserve critical survival resources for human conduct genetically (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Human humans, like other social animals, must develop and maintain personal strengths and social bonds. In comparison to other animals, humans, on the other hand, can create intricate instruments to ensure their existence and communicate in a complex language that aids in their survival and social connections. As a result, people make significant resource investments to alleviate stress and build a reservoir of sustainable resources for future demands. Individuals, families, and organisations benefit from the acquisition and protection of personal, social, and material resources because they foster a sense of resilience in the face of adversity. Individual evaluation is a critical principle of COR theory since it is subordinate and universal to what is centrally valued. Health, well-being, family, self-esteem, and a sense of purpose and meaning are all widely regarded as valuable resources. It varies according to culture but always displays the same fundamental characteristics in the manner these judgements are expressed.

This study reveals that the multitasking perception, and at the same time, as the mechanism of individual procrastination, the scope of application of resource conservation theory has been extended to the field of procrastination. In this study, multitasking tends to increase employees' role conflict, which will cause employees to feel that time resources are fast rapid consumption, there is a huge threat; therefore, for resource conservation, they seek to reduce the time investment to find a psychological balance. Reduction reduces the speed and accuracy of task completion, and individuals experience procrastination.

Finally, the study finds the moderating role of job autonomy and improves the mechanics of multitasking on individual procrastination behavior. Autonomy is a critical boundary condition to alleviate the negative effects of job requirements. Resource conservation theory states that individuals can redistribute time and resources. The source is to mitigate the sense of resource consumption. The idea of this redistribution is autonomy, and job autonomy is a change that better reflects the actual state of autonomy measurements, but very few studies focus on it. In response to the call to focus on job autonomy, this study treats job autonomy as an individual level, the moderator variables included in the study model. It was found that job autonomy can reduce the role conflict caused by multitasking, further debilitated the entire process of "multitasking perception through role conflict and thus procrastination behavior". The results make up for previous research the lack of attention of the job autonomy regulation role has enriched the boundary conditions of the multi-tasking to influence the role and helps to understand how to develop better play the positive role of the multi-tasking trend.

Practical Implications

The conclusion of this paper's research has a certain guiding value for corporate management daily. Firstly, the propensity for multitasking may be a factor in the delayed behaviour. While multitasking may have numerous benefits for a company, it may also work against its objectives. Managers should be acutely conscious of the tendency toward multitasking's "double-edged sword" effect. One cause for an individual's procrastination is that he attempted to engage in various projects and spread his time resources, resulting in a shortage of resources required to accomplish the task and time wasted when the assignment was changed. As a result, the organization's cannot pursue additional tasks blindly in a short period.

Second, showing concern for colleagues might help alleviate their role of conflicts due to work overload. A person's multitasking inclination increases the degree of conflict in his character, which results in procrastination. As a result, resolving the employee's role of conflict is critical. A manager in an organization can empower individuals, give support, establish a suitable workload, and utilize other strategies to balance employees' work requirements and available resources. Mutual support among coworkers is another method for resolving employee role conflicts.

Third, through institutional improvements, empower the with adequate job autonomy. Reduces rigid norms and arrangements, allowing employees to experience the existence of autonomy genuinely. Job autonomy more accurately reflects the genuine state of autonomy than individual autonomy, and it is also more consistent with organizational institutional frameworks. According to Fuller et al. (2010), job autonomy has been shown to effectively alleviate employee sense of tension, reducing the likelihood of procrastination. As a result, an organization should provide the complete discretion when developing a management system and process. So, that employee can enhance their time management abilities, and by reallocating time resources to achieve a balance between job requirements and available resources, negative behavior can be reduced.

Limitations and future study

The study's limitations are primarily as follows: A limitation is the cross-sectional nature of our research design, which precludes causal inferences. During the research, individual employee surveys may exist in the same source. The issue of technique bias affects the research's reliability. In the future, we will attempt to alleviate the problem of homogenous technique bias by utilizing multi-source and multi-point measurement methodologies. Increase the rigor of your statistical tests. As a result, our analyses lack a distinct direction for relationship formation. Even though our theories have been extensively grounded in theory and prior research, different interpretations of the evidence may be equally plausible. The present investigation is also constrained using self-reporting methods. Validity of variables such as multitasking, conflict resolution, and behavioural deterioration.

While this study established a mediating role for role conflict and a regulating role for job autonomy, other theories' mechanisms and boundary conditions cannot be ruled out. Consider incorporating more processes in a future study to bolster the multitasking trend and delay and the relationship's mechanism and boundary constraints. Finally, a limitation is a variance explained by the components in this study. In the realm of psychology, procrastination is a frequent outcome variable. In the discipline of management, while considering the limits of the questionnaire survey approach, we might attempt to apply experimental methodologies typically used in psychology to develop, investigate, and implement interdisciplinary research integration in a future study.

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FundingThis research work supported by “General Project of Humanities and Social Science Research of the Ministry of Education (18YJAZH079)".

Received: May 10, 2020; Revised: May 26, 2021; Accepted: July 31, 2021

* Correspondence address [Dirección para correspondencia]: Muhammad Asghar. School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, 066004 (China). E-mail: asghargcufpk@gmail.com

Conflict of interest:

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, N.G. and A.S; Methodology, M.A. and N.G.; Software, M.A. R.S and M.S; Validation, N.G. and M.A; Formal analysis, N.G. and M.S.; Investigation, N.G. and M.A.; Resources, N.G. and M.A, Data collection, N.G. and M.A.; Writing-original draft preparation, M.A, and N.G; Writing-review and editing, M.A. and, Supervision S.Z.

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