Workaholism and Work–Life Imbalance Among Teachers: Reassessing the Mediating Role of Professional Values

This study investigated whether professional values mediate the association between workaholism and work–life imbalance among teachers, employing the job demands–resources (JD-R) framework as an interpretive perspective. Using a cross-sectional design, survey responses from 429 teachers in Türkiye were analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Workaholism showed a positive relationship with work–life imbalance (β = .350, p < .001, 95% CI [.253, .501]) and with professional values (β = .660, p < .001, 95% CI [.554, .742]). At the bivariate level, professional values had no relation to imbalance ( r = .036); however, after controlling for workaholism, a negative effect (β = −.195, p = .008) became evident, despite professional values being strongly collinear with workaholism. The indirect effect (β = −.129, p = .015, 95% CI [−.257, −.052]) and the positive direct effect displayed opposite signs, a configuration typically referred to as competitive mediation, though it is more likely attributable to statistical suppression rather than a true protective process. The model accounted for 7.1% of the variance in work–life imbalance ( R ² = .071). Overall, the findings consistently suggest that workaholism forecasts greater imbalance and is closely linked to professional values, yet they offer no dependable evidence that professional values mitigate imbalance. Implications for JD-R theory and for the careful interpretation of competitive mediation are examined.