The relationship between employees’ sleep and corporate performance in information technology industry
1. Background/Introduction
Sleep can affect attention, memory and cognitive ability and that are the elements of the
workplace. However, there is no clear evidence showing that sleep can effect on corporate
performance. This research aims to study on the three factors of sleep which include sleep
quality, length of sleep, and insomnia, and then focus on how they influence on corporate
performance.
2. Literature review
In the book of Encyclopedia of Human Behaviour, it mentioned that waking cognitions,
emotions, and performance could be influenced by quantity, quality and timing of sleep (Cote,2012). And it also claimed that the possibility of performance failure and accident will increase with the increasing sleep loss. The failure and accident could inflect employees’ individual performance, but the research did not have a further study on how could individual performance effect on corporate performance. A research launched an experiment to see the daytime performance of nurses under the different sleeping environment (Rahman, Shapiro, Wang, andetc.2013). Park and Sprung (2013) pointed out there is a negative relation between sleep quality and fatigue in student workers with low recovery self-efficacy. Pronk and Kottke (2009) noted that physical activity promotion could improve employees’ health and thus improve the business performance. However, in their research, they did not notice how sleep could influence people’s state and health in daytime.
3. Research question and objectives
The previous literature showed a growing number of researchers pay attention to people’s sleep since they suppose sleep can influence the daytime performance of workers. However, there is no clear evidence show there is an apparent relationship between employee’s sleep and corporate performance. This research will provide an overview of employee’s sleep quality, length of sleep, and insomnia, which are the main elements of constructing efficient sleep. In addition, the research has an important objective which is to investigate the relationship between sleep quality, length of sleep, insomnia, and corporate performance. And aims to show how the three factors could influence corporate performance. Finally, the research purposes to give some practical implication to management to improve corporate performance through the sleep improvement of their employees.
4. Methodology
This research will collect data from a randomly choosing company in information technology industry in China. Because sleep quality, length of sleep, and insomnia data should be collected completely through the questionnaire. Choosing one company is convenient to distribute our questionnaire because we would like to overview the sleep situation of all staff in the company. This research will use return on asset to evaluate corporate performance: ROA=Net income/total assets or ROA=Net profit margin x Assets utilization. Then, the research will build a regression formula to evaluate the correlation between the three elements of sleep and ROA. Besides, the research will add earning per share (EPS) as an extra index of corporate performance. Finally, using these two indexes to analyze the relationship between them and the three elements of sleep by establishing regression model.
5. Significance
The research will give an evidence of whether the corporate performance could be influence by employee’s sleep. It will give employees a guidance to improve their productivity, meanwhile, give organizational leaders an offer to improve corporate performance by helping their employees sleep well.
6. References
Cote, K. (2012). Sleep, Biological Rhythms, and Performance. In Encyclopedia of Human
Behavior (pp. 435-441).
Park Y. A., and Sprung J. M. (2015) Weekly work–school conflict, sleep quality, and fatigue:
Recovery self-efficacy as a cross-level moderator, J. Organizational Behaviour, 2013, Vol36,
P.112–127
Pronk, & Kottke. (2009). Physical activity promotion as a strategic corporate priority to
improve worker health and business performance. Preventive Medicine, 49(4), 316-321.
Rahman, S., Shapiro, C., Wang, F., Ainlay, H., Kazmi, S., Brown, T., & Casper, R. (2013).
Effects of Filtering Visual Short Wavelengths During Nocturnal Shiftwork on Sleep and
Performance. Chronobiology International, 2013, Vol.30(8), P.951-962, 30(8), 951-962.
