Impacts of job control on overtime and stress: cases in the United States and South Korea

Although considerable research has focused on the relationship between working hours and stress, few cross-cultural studies have examined this relationship with job control. This study investigated how job control relates to working overtime and stress with work centrality and organizational constraints in the United States and South Korea. Survey data collected from 787 employees from these two countries were analyzed using a multi-group path analysis. In the path model, job control was not related to overtime in either country but job control significantly related to stress in Korea. In the Korean sample only, job control significantly moderated the relationships of overtime with work centrality and organizational constraints and the relationships of stress with perceived overtime and organizational constraints. This study highlights the different effects of job control on overtime by culture, which has not been previously emphasized in western research. It also demonstrates the importance of job control on employee stress.