Abstract:

Illegitimate tasks refer to tasks that are in violation of what employees feel can reasonably be expected from them. Illegitimate tasks can be differentiated into unreasonable and unnecessary tasks. To date, several empirical studies have revealed the negative effects of illegitimate tasks on employees, such as lower job satisfaction, poor psychological detachment from work, lower self-esteem, and stronger feelings of resentment. Given the detriments of illegitimate tasks, how should employees respond to them? Surprisingly, prior research has mainly focused on employees’ negative responses, such as counterproductive work behaviour and turnover intention. Only one study has found that employees can respond to illegitimate tasks proactively (e.g., task crafting). Integrating these ongoing research streams, we propose a dual model of illegitimate tasks. In doing so, we provide a balanced perspective for understanding differentiated responses for illegitimate tasks.
To explore how employees respond to illegitimate tasks, we draw on the approach-avoidance model to hypothesize the following: For employees who have a high level of approach tendency, illegitimate tasks facilitate their taking charge behaviours as a means of improving the work situation. Felt responsibility for constructive change accounted for the above moderating effect. In contrast, for employees who have a high level of avoidance tendency, illegitimate tasks cause their procrastination at work as a means of keeping away from such a situation. Work alienation accounted for the moderating effect.
To test our theoretical model, we carried out an experiment. The results of descriptive statistics (see Table 1) suggest that approach tendency is significantly positively related to taking charge behaviour (r = 0.24, p < 0.001), and avoidance tendency is significantly positively related to work procrastination (r = 0.26, p < 0.001). The experiment showed that approach tendency and illegitimate tasks positively interacted to facilitate taking charge behaviour (b = 0.17, p < 0.001), and that avoidance tendency and illegitimate tasks positively interacted to facilitate work procrastination (b = 0.18, p < 0.001) (see Table 2).
In addition, we recruited a variety of full-time employees to participate in the survey. The final sample included 207 three-wave data. The results of descriptive statistics (see Table 3) suggest that illegitimate tasks (r = 0.23, p < 0.001) and work alienation (r = 0.26, p < 0.001) both are significantly positively related to work procrastination. Felt responsibility for constructive change is significantly positively related to taking charge behaviour (r = 0.23, p < 0.001). Regression analysis was used to test our hypotheses (see Table 4). The results showed that approach tendency and illegitimate tasks positively interacted to facilitate taking charge behaviour (b = 0.13, p = 0.015), and felt responsibility for constructive change (b = 0.11, p = 0.006). Avoidance tendency and illegitimate tasks positively interacted to facilitate work procrastination (b = 0.23, p = 0.001) and work alienation(b = 0.12, p = 0.019). Moreover, felt responsibility for constructive change played a mediating role in the interaction between approach tendency and illegitimate tasks, the indirect effect is 0.03 (95% CI = [0.002, 0.058]), while work alienation played a mediating role in the interaction between avoidance tendency and illegitimate tasks, the indirect effect is 0.03 (95% CI = [0.003, 0.076]).
Our findings demonstrate that approach-oriented employees respond to illegitimate tasks in a positive way, whereas avoidance-oriented employees respond to illegitimate tasks in a negative way. In addition, our findings advance the approach-avoidance model by applying this model on the field of illegitimate tasks. In practice, our research provides implications for managers to manage illegitimate tasks according to employees’ psychological tendencies. If illegitimate tasks are unavoidable, organizations should pay more attention to promoting employees’ approach tendency and felt responsibility for constructive change.

Key words: illegitimate tasks, approach-avoidance tendency, felt responsibility for constructive change, work alienation, taking charge, procrastination at work