The moderating role of time perspective profiles in the association of workaholism, work engagement and perfectionism among Japanese employees

PurposeFirst, this study aimed to investigate the association of time perspective (TP) profiles with work engagement and workaholism. Second, it tested TP profiles as the moderator of perfectionism with work engagement and workaholism relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe sample of this study comprised 148 Japanese employees, and snowball sampling was used for data collection. The authors found the TP profiles in the first step using cluster analysis with five TP dimensions. Next, the authors tested workaholism and work engagement in three clusters. The two dimensions of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns were extracted through the exploratory factor analysis of Sakurai and Ohtani's (1997) perfectionism measure. Further, their relationship with workaholism and work engagement was tested in the TP profiles using multiple group analysis in structural equation modeling (SEM).FindingsThree TP profiles were found, which the authors named: Future (F), Hedonistic and Balanced. There was a significant difference between the three groups. Notably, working compulsively was significantly higher in the Future cluster in the three clusters. The moderator analysis results indicated that perfectionistic concerns positively affected workaholism in the Future cluster but not for the Balanced cluster.Originality/valueTo the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the relationship between perspective profiles, workaholism and work engagement. The relationship between these factors can be a stepping stone for further research.