Does sleep help or harm managers' perceived productivity? Trade-offs between affect and time as resources.

Area of Science:

• Organizational Behavior
• Sleep Science
• Workplace Psychology

Background:

• Managers frequently experience insufficient sleep, impacting their cognitive functions and workplace performance.
• Conservation of Resources (COR) theory posits that individuals manage finite resources, including time and energy, which sleep affects.
• Sleep presents a trade-off between resource gains (e.g., improved mood) and resource losses (e.g., reduced work hours).

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between managers' sleep duration and their perceived productivity.
• To examine how perceived productivity influences subsequent sleep duration, guided by COR theory.
• To explore the curvilinear effect of sleep on managers' affect and its implications for productivity.

Main Methods:

• A diary study was conducted with hotel managers to collect daily data on sleep, work hours, and perceived productivity.
• Quantitative analysis was used to assess the impact of sleep duration on perceived productivity and vice versa.
• Exploratory analyses examined the non-linear relationship between sleep and affect.

Main Results:

• Increased sleep duration was associated with lower perceived productivity due to reduced work hours; each extra hour of sleep correlated with approximately 31 minutes less work.
• Decreased perceived productivity led managers to increase subsequent sleep duration, conserving resources as predicted by COR theory.
• Sleep exhibited a curvilinear effect on affect, with both too little and too much sleep being detrimental.

Conclusions:

• Sleep duration involves a trade-off between work time and affect, significantly influencing managers' perceived productivity.
• The findings support COR theory, demonstrating how managers adjust sleep based on perceived resource depletion and productivity.
• Understanding these sleep-related trade-offs is crucial for optimizing managers' well-being and workplace effectiveness.