Shifting perspectives: How daily work interruptions relate to interrupters' work engagement

Past research studied how daily work intrusions – unexpected interruptions by other employees that suspend ongoing work – reduce interrupted employees' work engagement. We shift perspectives to employees who interrupt and examine how intrusions may be positively related to job resources conducive to interrupting employees' work engagement. In doing so, we differentiate between four intrusion types derived from key reasons for intrusions. We expect these intrusion types to serve distinct functions for interrupting employees, allowing them to attain different job resources. Building on the motivational process of the job demands-resources model, we hypothesize that performing intrusions is positively associated with interrupting employees' work engagement by contributing to three social job resources: received task support, belongingness, and prosocial impact. We report findings from a two-week diary study with two daily measurement occasions ( N = 390 employees; n = 3383 days). Multilevel path analysis showed that three of the four intrusion types were indirectly positively related to interrupting employees' work engagement via the three social job resources. Altogether, we contribute to a more nuanced understanding of intrusions by studying two important yet overlooked aspects of intrusions: the interrupting employees and their reasons for intrusions. Our new approach to examining intrusions suggests that intrusions can facilitate work engagement.