Work values ethic and personal discretionary non-work activities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the constituents of personal discretionary non-work activities and their influence on the work values ethic (WVE). Design/methodology/approach The constituents of personal discretionary non-work activities and their relationship to the WVE for 1,349 employees drawn from three manufacturing companies were surveyed. The data was used to test a measure of WVE, to develop a valid measure of personal discretionary non-work activities and to test a model of the relationship between personal discretionary non-work activities and a WVE. Findings Data obtained from the survey enabled the identification of a valid measure of personal discretionary non-work activities and the components that made up this measure. A measure of WVE was shown to be both valid and reliable, and a model of the relationship between personal discretionary non-work activities and WVE was tested. Research limitations/implications A positive relationship between personal discretionary non-work activities and WVE was identified. However, the study was not designed to investigate motivations and such relationships should be the subject of future research. Practical implications Personal discretionary non-work activities were shown to be of importance for a major proportion of the study’s respondents and to contribute to the employees’ work ethic. Originality/value The study has extended the non-work and work literature and has identified a formative non-work measure that was able to be tested in an overall model.