Autonoom werken voor de goede zaak?

Since the rise of the concept of work autonomy in scientific literature, positive or negative spillover from one to the other life domain has been regularly examined. The increasing fluidization of the border between professional and private life caused by the growing number of employees who are more autonomous in their work than before, is mutually resulting in positive and negative effects. Yet, researchers acknowledge that life comprises more than those two domains, almost all research concerning the influence of work autonomy on other domains outside of work is referring to a spillover effect between work and family life. Therefore, this research has focused on the spillover effects between work (autonomy) and civic behavior. More accurate: this research is trying to clarify and explain the link between work autonomy and civic behavior. It is found that there is a positive correlation between work autonomy and political civic behavior, meaning that more work autonomy will lead to more political civic behavior. Although we have tried to explicate the mechanisms behind this relationship using six hypotheses, only little of the effects between work autonomy and civic behavior is explained by the proposed mediation effects. Results show that there are little or no effects of mediators explaining possible spillover of affects, skills and values between work and civic behavior. Yet, it is concluded that there is one skill ‘entrepreneurial behavior’, which is partly affirming the mediation between work autonomy and political civic behavior. Also, it is unexpectedly found that people who are still thinking about work, when they are not at work, will engage in political civic behavior sooner than people who don’t. We conclude this study by emphasizing on the differences between the work-family relation and the work-civic relation, and recommend (1) to develop a special theory concerning the work-civic relation and (2) incorporate that theory into an integral theory of all the different domains people have to deal with in their life.