It's about time: A study of hours worked and work spillover among law firm lawyers.

Abstract This study set out to address two basic questions: why do law firm lawyers work as much as they do and why do they feel that their work is invading their nonwork life? The results show that the factors related to the number of hours worked do not necessarily translate into feelings of work spillover and that the number of hours worked is not very important in mediating effects on work spillover. Work motivation was positively associated with the number of hours worked, but unrelated to feelings of spillover. For women, having preschool children is also highly related to hours worked, but this is not important in understanding work spillover. Conversely, factors that were found related to work spillover are not associated with the number of hours lawyers work (e.g., promotional opportunity, social value of work and profit driven). Work overload is the only common determinant. This pattern of findings suggests that the factors associated with hours worked may not necessarily produce feelings of work spillover and it is critical to distinguish between the two variables in order to examine their different antecedents.

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