SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY, 2005, 33(6), 609-618

® Society for Personality Research (Inc.)

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF THE WORKAHOLISM

BATTERY (Work-BAT): TURKISH FORM

MuGE ERSOY-KART
Ankara University, Turkey

The aim of this sUidy was to determine the reliability and validity of the Turkish version of
the Workaholism Battery (Spence & Robbins, 1992). The original scale was translated into
Turkish and then administered to 175 working graduates. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded
a 2-factor solution with 9 items estabUshed in the first factor (WE) and 11 in the second (D).
The reliability coefficient of the new shortened scale was .83 and the split-half reliabihty
coefficient was .69. This scale has adequate criterion-related validity, with a positive
correlation between the Jenkins Activity Survey - Type A Behavior subscale (Jenkins,
Zyzanski, & Rosenman, 1979) and both WE and D. Congruence between the findings and the
literature is discussed.

The notion of workaholism is often discussed in the business and popular press.
Recently, this subject has become of increasing academic interest. Oates (1968)
gave the first scientific definition of workaholism, as an excessive and
uncontrollable need to work that permanently disturbs health, happiness, and
relationships. The part of this definition emphasized most is the centralization of
work as a behavior in a person's life. For example, Mosier (1983) defmed
workaholics simply as those who work at least 50 hours a week (see Harpaz &
Snir, 2003). However, according to Mudrack and Naughton (2001, p. 94),
employees who work hard and focus exclusively on tasks at hand during

Muge Ersoy-Kart, PhD, Department of Labor Economics and Industrial Relations, Faculty of
Political Sciences, Ankara University, TUrkey.
Appreciation is due to reviewers including: Ronald J. Burke, PhD, Department of Organizational
Behavior, Schulich School of Business, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, Canada
M3J 1P3, Email: <[email protected]>; Lynley H.W. McMillan, PhD, PO Box 362, Tauranga,
New Zealand, Email: <[email protected]>
Keywords: Workaholism Battery, reliability, validity, Turkish work environment.
Please address correspondence and reprint requests to: Muge Ersoy-Kart, Ankara University Faculty
of Political Sciences, Department of Labor Economics and Industrial Relations, Ankara Universitesi,
Siyasal Bilgiler Fakultesi, Cebeci, Ankara, Turkey 06590. Phone: 90 312 319 77 20 / 333; Fax: 90
312 319 77 36; Email: <[email protected]>

609
610 WORKAHOLISM IN TURKEY
scheduled working hours would not necessarily be workaholics if they also
"forgot about" work at other times. Actually, the label workaholism is commonly
used to describe a socially atypical focus on work (McMillan, O'DriscoU, Marsh,
& Brady, 2001).
However, today the fear that excessive working will result in costs for the
individual and society has intensified. When workaholism is seen as an addiction
just like alcoholism, an uncontrollable working drive could threaten the
individual's happiness and productivity in other areas of life (Seybold &
Salomone, 1994). Thus, workaholism should involve increasingly hamiful side
effects for personal health and relationships (McMillan, O'DriscoU, & Brady,
2004). On the other hand, Burwell and Chen (2002) highlighted the fact that
while society condemns alcoholism it finds workaholism quite acceptable. It may
be tme that today employers may actually look for workaholics in order to get
longer hours without paying a greater salary. Indeed, the employee does not have
the option of working less than required. Although workaholism is traditionally
conceptualized as an intrapersonal phenomenon, it may also have an important
interpersonal component (Mudrack & Naughton, 2001).
There may be certain organizational cultures in which long hours and sacrifices
are widely believed to be required in order to achieve success and advancement
(Harpaz & Snir, 2003, p. 294). Because advances in technology allow employees
to stay in contact with the workplace (Porter, 2001), they may have difficulties
creating a balance between their work lives and their daily private lives.
Certainly it is not sufficient to classify all individuals who have to work long
hours due to the requirements of their jobs as workaholics. It is critically
important to understand why workaholic individuals voluntarily spend so many
hours on the job at the expense of their private lives. Finally, it can be argued that
in order to understand workaholism it is important to take into consideration not
only personal factors but also situational factors (Harpaz & Snir, 2003).
Many authors have defined workaholism as an addiction to work; therefore,
there is an uncontrollable need to work incessantly. For example, Machlowitz
(1980) stated that the workaholic loves to work and has a healthy and happy
lifestyle (cited in Seybold & Salomone, 1994). According to her, the addiction
stems not from the motivation to eam more money, but rather to eam what she
referred to as "psychic income", defined as "responsibility, meaning, opportunity,
[and] recognition" (Seybold & Salomone, 1994, p. 6).
In contrast to that approach, other investigators (e.g., Cherrington, 1980) see
workaholism as an irrational commitment to excessive work (see Harpaz & Snir,
2003, p. 293). These writers equate workaholism with other addictions and depict
workaholics as unhappy, obsessive, tragic figures who are not performing their
jobs well and who are creating difficulties for their coworkers (Burke & Koksal,
2002, p. 60). Moreover, workaholics may find working a way to escape from an
 WORKAHOLISM IN TURKEY 611

unhappy home life (Robinson, 2000). Consequently, workaholism may be a

mechanism that releases people from solving problems, facing their emotions,
and/or carrying out responsibilities conceming their family.
Some researchers have proposed different types of workaholic behavior
pattems, each having potentially different antecedents and associations with
performance, and work and life outcomes (Harpaz & Snir, 2003). For example,
Naughton (1987) suggested that certain obsessive-compulsive individuals may
simply be workaholics acting out their personality orientation through the work
setting (see Seybold & Salomone, 1994, p. 6). Certainly "control of others"
means getting involved in the work of others and this may be the critical factor
determining workaholism. As workaholics like to have control they will rarely
delegate work to others (Spence & Robbins, 1992). However, without
cooperation and communication with colleagues, achieving success might be
very difficult. These tendencies are similar to those of lype A behavior, which
includes perfectionism and excessive control need. In particular, overin-
volvement in work is very high in workaholics as well as in Type As (Burke,
2000; McMillan et al., 2001; Seybold & Salomone, 1994).
Spence and Robbins (1992) have pointed out that a workaholic exhibits three
properties: in comparison with others, the workaholic is highly work involved,
feels compelled or driven to work because of inner pressures, and has low
enjoyment in his/her work. According to Spence and Robbins, these three
properties are substantially independent of each other. Workaholics score high on
work involvement (WI) and feelings of being compelled to work (D), and low on
work enjoyment (WE). In contrast, work enthusiasts score high on WI and WE,
and low on D. Enthusiastic workaholics score high on all three components.
Considerable efforts have been made to develop a workaholism scale. The
oldest scale is the Work Addiction Risk Test (WART; Robinson, 1989), which
consists of 25 items and is generally inclined to measure Type A behavior pattem.
The Schedule for Nonadaptive Personality Workaholism Scale (SNAP-WORK)
developed by Clark in 1993, is an 18-item forced-choice (true/false) instrument
(cited in McMillan et al., 2001). The most widely utilized instrument in
workaholism research is the Workaholism-Battery (Work-BAT, Spence &
Robbins, 1992), a 25-item self-report questionnaire utilizing a 5-point response
format.
The Spence and Robbins (1992) measurements were developed and validated
using US samples of college students, social-work professionals, and MBA
graduates (Burke & Koksal, 2002). The scale has also been used in Japan,
Canada, Australia, Norway and New Zealand, but McMillan et al. (2001) have
claimed that a degree of controversy exists over the factor stmcture of the Work-
BAT because factor analysis has not replicated the WI factor structure.
612 WORKAHOLISM IN TURKEY
McMillan et al. (2002), with a sample of 320 participants, did not find adequate
support for the constmct validity of the Work-BAT in its original format. They
suggested eliminating the WI scale and shortening the WE and D scales. They
also found weak correlations (.16 and .22) among WE and D and hours worked,
which they interpreted as showing that workaholism is a distinct constmct that
cannot be explained merely in terms of "hours worked per week".
Burke and Koksal (2002), with a sample of Turkish managers and
professionals, found that only one of the three measures of workaholism
components had an acceptable level of intemal consistency, namely work
enjoyment (alpha = .79). Thus, they suggested that a closer examination of
particular items could be useful.
The present study examined the reliability and validity of the Work-BAT-
Turkish Form. The main hypotheses in this study are as follows:
Hypothesis 1: Factor analysis would produce three distinct scales (WE, WI
andD).
Hypothesis 2: WI, WE and D would correlate with the Jenkins Activity Survey-
Type A Behavior subscale.
Hypothesis 3: WE, WI and D would relate moderately with hours worked per
week.

METHOD

RESPONDENTS
The sample consisted of 175 adult volunteers who were graduates of 28
different universities in Turkey. They were employed full-time in a variety of
industries. There were 99 females (57%) and 76 males (43%) and their mean age
was 36. The career classifications and hours worked per week are shown in
Tables 1 and 2, respectively. The questionnaires were distributed to the
respondents by the author.

TABLE 1
CAREERS OF THE RESPONDENTS

Career Number of subjects (%)

Health care 44 (25%)

Engineering 49 (28%)
Social science 36 (21%)
Academic work 22 (13%)
Other 22 (13%)

TOTAL 173 (100%)*

Note: * Two respondents did not answer this question.

 WORKAHOLISM IN TURKEY 613
TABLE 2
HOURS WORKED PER WEEK

Hours worked per week Number of subjects (%)

Less than 25 hours 7 (4%)

26- 45 hours 121 (71%)
46-65 hours 38 (22%)
More than 65 hours 5 (3%)

TOTAL 171 (100%)*

Note:' Four respondents did not answer this question.

MEASURES
Spence and Robbins's (1992) Work-BAT - Turkish Form, and the Jenkins
Activity Survey- Type A Behavior subscale were used to receive answers to the
research questions.

Work-BAT-Turkish Form Work-BAT is a 25-item self-report questionnaire

utilizing a 5-point response format. It was originally developed by Spence and
Robbins (1992). They derived three workaholism components on the basis of an
extensive literature review: work involvement (WI); feeling driven to work (D)
and work enjoyment (WE). Workaholism types (workaholics, work enthusiasts,
and enthusiastic workaholics) are determined on the basis of either high or low
scores on these three scales. Work-BAT has adequate intemal consistency (a=.67
-.86,p<.001).
The present study used this scale, and WI had eight items, WE had ten and D
had seven. The scale was developed by translation-backtranslation and evaluated
in terms of suitabihty for the Turkish culture and comprehensiveness by five
volunteer judges, who are lecturers in psychology. The fmal form ofthe scale was
determined in accordance with their views.
Jenkins Activity Survey - Type A Behavior Subscale The Jenkins Activity
Survey- Type A Behavior subscale (Jenkins, Zyzanski, & Rosenman, 1979) was
also used. It has 21 items. This scale was adapted into Turkish by Ergene in 1991
(cited in Izci, 1998). The test-retest reliability coefficient was .70. For the validity
of the scale, 64 cardiac patients and 64 healthy people with characteristics similar
to those of the ill respondents were studied. The data showed that the cardiac
group displayed a Type A behavior pattem more often than did the normal group
(Izci, 1998).

RESULTS

For all analyses an alpha value of .05 was chosen. Validity and factor analyses
were conducted with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 9.0.
614 WORKAHOLISM IN TURKEY

FACTOR STRUCTURE
As noted earlier, existing studies were unable to confirm the three-factor Work-
BAT stmcture (i.e., McMillan et al., 2002) and proposed a two-factor model. In
the present study, two main refractions were identified in the screen plot of
eigenvalues as well. Thus, a confirmatory factor analysis was undertaken using
an unweighted least squares function and promax rotation, restricted to a
maximum of two factors and a minimum eigenvalue of 1.00. A cut-off point of
.40 was chosen for the item loadings. Table 3 shows that nine items are
established in the first factor and eleven items in the second. Factor loadings
range between .42 and .71 in the first factor; and .45 and .65 in the second. These
two factors explained 29.60% of the variance and communalities range between
.34 and .58.
Considering the 9 items that comprise the first factor, the most suitable name
for this factor is "Work Enjoyment". The second factor, with 11 items, can be
named "Drivenness". The reliability coefficients of the two factors are .81
(p<.05) for all. However, 3 original WI items (items 21,15, 24) were included in
the second factor (D) and 1 original WI item (item 8) was included in the first
factor (WE).
It is also noted that the 5 items excluded corresponded with the WI items in the
original Work-BAT. Consequently, it is concluded that WI cannot be measured in
the Turkish sample either.
Although Spence and Robbins (1992) have claimed that the three scales are
separate, in the present study there were significant positive correlations between
W E a n d D ( r = .47,p<.05).

RELIABILITY ANALYSIS
After item selection it was observed that the D and WE scales were normally
distributed. The reliability coefficient of the new shortened scale was calculated
by Cronbach alpha to be .83. The split-half reliability coefficient is .69 (p<.05).
For the item analysis classical test theory and item-total correlations were used.
With a cut-off point of .20, the correlations of only two items (item 11 and item
18) are below .20. This may stem from the way the questions were phrased in the
Turkish questionnaire. Means of the items range between 1.90 and 3.61. Item-
total correlations range between .11 and .62.

CRITERION-RELATED VALIDITY
Pearson correlation analysis showed that both WE and D demonstrate
convergence with Type A behavior, r=.22 and .24 (p<.05) respectively, indicating
that the Work-BAT- Turkish Form has adequate validity.
However, there are no significant correlations among hours worked per week
and WE and D at the 5% level.
 WORKAHOLISM IN TURKEY 615
TABLE 3
RESULTS OF FACTOR ANALYSIS ACCORDING TO PROMAX ROTATION

Item number Factor 1 Factor 2 Communality

2 .56 .22 .46
4 .71 .12 .54
7 .65 .00 .58
8 .42 .00 .34
9 .56 .25 .51
10 .71 .12 .53
11 .45 -.22 .42
17 .63 .44 .52
19 .42 .40 .43
3 .18 .47 .41
14 .00 .45 .40
15 .12 .47 .37
16 .29 .48 .41
18 .00 .47 .36
20 .37 .57 .52
21 .00 .52 .37
22 .42 .59 .45
23 .48 .55 .44
24 .37 .56 .43
25 .36 .65 .46
1 -.31 -.20 .28
5 .00 .37 .29
6 .00 .00 .22
12 .00 .38 .34
13 .19 .29 .29
Eigenvalue 4.88 2.52
% of variance 19.53 10.07
Cumulative % 19.53 29.60

DISCUSSION

While Spence and Robbins (1992) seemed to regard WI as the core indicator
of workaholism, in the present study factor analysis yielded a two-factor model
of workaholism, which is consistent with results from previous research (e.g.
McMillan et al., 2002). This may be due to the fact that workaholism is a
behavioral pattem, but WI reflects an attitude (Scott, Moore, & Micelli, 1997).
The data showed that the Work-BAT-Turkish Form consists of 20 items and two
subscales (WE and D). The shortened scale had acceptable intemal consistency
(alpha = .83, p<.05).
616 WORKAHOLISM IN TURKEY
Validity analysis revealed that the new shortened scale has adequate criterion-
related validity, with a positive correlation between the T^pe A Behavior subscale
and both WE and D. These correlations were low, but because of their
significance they could be regarded as showing sufficient criterion validity.
Consequently, it is concluded that the scale is a reliable and valid instmment for
Turkey.
According to McMillan et al. (2001), workaholism is a personal reluctance to
disengage from work evidenced by the tendency to work (or to think about work)
anytime and anywhere. In the present study, the drivenness dimension was
replicated, therefore indicating that people with workaholic tendencies may be
forced by something to work excessively. But again, the most important thing
here is to understand why people voluntarily devote their time to working so
excessively. Workaholics may deny, or try to rationalize, their abnormal working
behavior in order to feel better. This means that self-report measures have some
limitations. For this reason, using observational and questionnaire techniques
together is recommended. Mudrack and Naughton (2001) suggested that certain
items may be neither applicable nor meaningful to respondents in different work
settings (or even to respondents in other positions in the same work setting).
Consequently, different workaholism survey items may be needed for different
groups of respondents.
As Kanai and Wakabayashi (2001) pointed out, working hard and enjoying it
may allow people to work harder without losing the meaningfulness of their work
and so the pattem of work behavior "driven to work but still enjoying work"
might have occurred as a means of coping with mounting demands at work. This
may also be tme for Turkish people, because a significant positive correlation
was computed between WE and D scores among the respondents
(r = .47, p<.05), meaning that people who are contented to work because of inner
pressures can feel enjoyment when they work. This is consistent with Kanai and
Wakabayahi's findings in Japan, but is in contrast to Spence and Robbins's
(1992) study, which found no correlation with the two scales. This can be
interpreted as a unique aspect of workaholism among Turkish workers, similar to
findings for Japanese and New Zealand workers.
Finally, there was no significant correlation among hours worked per week,
WE and D. This means that hours worked are an imperfect indicator of
workaholism. The main reason for this result might be the fact that most people
in this study were working 45 hours a week.
In short, the present study provides preliminary evidence that the Work-BAT-
Turkish Form is a valid and reliable scale to determine workaholic behavior
pattems in Turkish people. Further research is needed to determine why WI may
not hold for Eastern/Asian (Japan), Western/Pacific (New Zealand) and Middle
Eastem (Turkey) cultures, but does hold for America.
 WORKAHOLISM IN TURKEY 617

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