When an assignment feels unreasonable
An extra spreadsheet, a last-minute presentation or an administrative request that seems unrelated to a person’s role may appear routine to a manager. To an employee, however, the same request can suggest that their time and expertise are not respected. A new peer-reviewed study suggests that assignments perceived as unnecessary or unreasonable are associated with defensive attitudes, particularly among people who already feel pressure to protect their time.
Researchers Qian Ruan and Cheng Liu followed 306 full-time employees in China across three surveys separated by two-week intervals. Their findings, published in Frontiers in Psychology on 7 October 2026, connect perceptions of illegitimate tasks with territoriality and, subsequently, self-interested workplace communication. The evidence supports a statistical pattern, not a conclusion that assigning an unpleasant task directly causes employees to become selfish.
The most striking distinction was between employees with higher and lower time urgency. The relationship between perceived illegitimate tasks and defensive territoriality was considerably stronger among those who experienced time as a scarce resource. By contrast, the proposed additional role of workplace politics was not statistically supported once time urgency was included in the same model.
Why legitimacy matters beyond workload
Illegitimate tasks are not simply difficult or time-consuming assignments. In organisational psychology, the term covers work perceived as unnecessary or unreasonable relative to an employee’s occupational responsibilities. A demanding task can be legitimate when its purpose and allocation are clear. A relatively small task can feel illegitimate if it duplicates work, serves no apparent purpose or repeatedly transfers another person’s responsibilities.
This distinction is useful because workload volume alone cannot explain every conflict about assignments. Two employees may spend an additional hour on similar work and interpret it differently. One sees a reasonable contribution to a shared deadline. Another sees an avoidable demand that disregards their role or professional judgement. The researchers measured the latter perception, not whether an independent observer would agree that each assignment was unreasonable.
Their framework was conservation of resources theory. It proposes that people seek to retain valuable resources, including time, attention, energy and professional standing. An assignment seen as illegitimate may threaten more than the time it consumes: it can also challenge a person’s sense of control over their work domain. This is a theoretical explanation for the associations observed, rather than a mechanism proven by experimental manipulation.
Territoriality is not the same as taking pride in work
The researchers focused on territoriality, a defensive form of psychological ownership. It describes a perceived need to protect ideas, responsibilities and work domains against outside interference. Taking pride in a project can encourage collaboration and initiative; territoriality puts greater emphasis on guarding boundaries and preventing others from encroaching on valued resources.
Their outcome was self-interested voice, a specific kind of workplace communication. It refers to speaking up mainly about issues affecting one’s own interests, such as favourable assignments, recognition or autonomy, rather than primarily seeking organisation-wide improvements. It is important not to equate this measure with unethical conduct. Raising a legitimate complaint about an unfair workload may benefit both the employee and the team, even when the concern is personal.
The study therefore asks a narrower question than whether unreasonable managers create bad employees. It investigates whether employees’ perceptions of task legitimacy are linked to defensive feelings, and whether those feelings are linked to a particular orientation when employees speak up.
How the three-wave study was conducted
The researchers recruited full-time employees through Jishuyun, an online data-collection platform in China. They obtained 350 valid responses at the first wave, 320 at the second and 306 at the third. The final group represented 87.43% of the initial valid respondents. Unique matching codes linked questionnaires anonymously, and the platform used single-use survey links and attention checks to improve response quality.
At the first assessment, employees rated illegitimate tasks, time urgency, perceived organisational politics and demographic characteristics. Two weeks later, they reported territoriality. Two weeks after that, they reported self-interested voice. This staggered structure reduces some problems associated with measuring all variables at once, but it remains observational: participants were not randomly assigned different workloads, and all central variables were self-reported.
The average participant was 33.31 years old, and 35.62% were women. Some 82.68% reported at least a bachelor’s degree. General staff represented 38.56% of the final sample, frontline managers 40.20%, middle managers 19.93% and senior managers 1.31%. This relatively educated sample, with substantial managerial representation, should not be treated as representative of all Chinese employees or workplaces elsewhere.
The questionnaires used previously established Chinese-language measures and five-point response scales. The illegitimate-task measure contained eight items, territoriality four, self-interested voice eight, time urgency six and perceived organisational politics six. The analyses adjusted for age, gender and education, and the researchers used 5,000 bootstrap resamples to estimate uncertainty around indirect effects.
The basic association was small
On the five-point scales, illegitimate tasks averaged 2.94, territoriality 3.78, self-interested voice 3.44, time urgency 3.36 and perceived organisational politics 2.72. These are average questionnaire scores, not percentages of employees engaging in any particular behaviour.
The raw correlation between illegitimate tasks and territoriality was 0.13, a small positive association. Territoriality and self-interested voice were more strongly related, with a correlation of 0.32. The raw correlation between illegitimate tasks and self-interested voice was only 0.08 and was not marked statistically significant in the published descriptive table.
In a regression adjusting for demographics, illegitimate tasks were associated with territoriality at an unstandardised coefficient of 0.10, standard error 0.04, with p below 0.05. In a separate outcome model, territoriality was associated with self-interested voice at 0.35, standard error 0.06, with p below 0.001.
The scale of these figures matters. A coefficient of 0.10 is not a 10% increase in defensiveness. It represents a 0.10-point difference on the territoriality scale associated with a one-point difference in illegitimate-task ratings, under the model’s assumptions. Readers should not interpret these statistical estimates as predictions about any individual employee.
An indirect pathway through territoriality
The researchers then tested whether territoriality statistically linked earlier task perceptions to later self-interested voice. The estimated indirect association was 0.04, with a 95% bootstrap confidence interval from 0.01 to 0.08. Because that interval excluded zero, the result supported the proposed mediation pattern in the fitted model.
An indirect relationship can appear even when the simple correlation between the initial and final variables is weak. This suggests that an intermediate construct may capture one route through which variables are connected. It does not establish that changing territoriality would necessarily alter employees’ communication, or that no other pathways exist.
The team also examined whether the questionnaires captured distinct constructs rather than one general negative outlook. The five-factor confirmatory measurement model produced a comparative fit index of 0.910 and a root mean square error of approximation of 0.061. It fitted substantially better than a single-factor model, which had a comparative fit index of 0.470 and an RMSEA of 0.145.
These checks support the measurement structure, but cannot fully eliminate bias when all information comes from the same respondents. The authors also reported that the largest factor in a common-method check explained 26.72% of the variance, below their chosen warning threshold. That is reassuring within the study’s framework, not proof that all common-method problems have disappeared.
Time urgency changed the picture
The strongest additional result involved time urgency, a tendency to experience time as scarce and to be highly sensitive to its loss. The interaction between illegitimate tasks and time urgency was 0.24, standard error 0.05, with p below 0.001 in a model that simultaneously considered perceived organisational politics.
At high time urgency, defined as one standard deviation above the sample mean, the estimated relationship between illegitimate tasks and territoriality had a slope of 0.28, with p below 0.001. At low time urgency, one standard deviation below the mean, the slope was minus 0.05, with p equal to 0.44. The latter estimate provided no clear statistical evidence of a relationship.
The estimated indirect relationship through territoriality also differed. At high time urgency, the indirect effect was 0.10, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.04 to 0.17. At low time urgency, it was minus 0.02, with a confidence interval from minus 0.08 to 0.04. The formal index of moderated mediation was 0.08, with a confidence interval from 0.03 to 0.15.
These are comparisons at specified points on a continuous questionnaire scale, not experimentally assigned groups. The findings should not be read as evidence that deadline-conscious workers are inherently more selfish. They are consistent with a more limited interpretation: a task seen as wasteful may feel more threatening to someone who already treats time as an especially scarce resource.
Office politics did not pass the joint test
The researchers also expected perceptions of organisational politics to strengthen the connection between illegitimate tasks and territoriality. Employees who believe that decisions are driven by favouritism or informal influence might interpret questionable assignments as deliberate encroachment. A simpler analysis supported that expectation, but the more demanding joint model did not.
When time urgency and organisational politics were analysed together, the interaction involving politics was 0.06, standard error 0.04, with p equal to 0.14. The corresponding moderated-mediation index was 0.02, with a 95% confidence interval from minus 0.009 to 0.06. Because the interval included zero, the researchers did not treat the politics moderation as established.
This negative result matters. A statistically significant association in one subgroup and a non-significant association in another is not by itself evidence that the groups differ. The formal comparison of the relationships is the relevant test. The paper provides stronger evidence for the time-urgency interaction than for an independent contribution from perceived politics.
What managers can reasonably take from the findings
The study did not test any workplace intervention. Still, it provides a reason to examine not only how much work employees receive but also whether the purpose and allocation of assignments make sense. Before distributing an unusual task, a manager could ask whether it is necessary, why it belongs with that employee, what other priority should be postponed and how long the added responsibility will last.
Clear explanations and transparent allocation procedures may help employees understand exceptional requests. A manager might also provide additional support or flexibility when a necessary task creates an unexpected burden. These are plausible management responses, not remedies whose effectiveness was demonstrated by this survey.
It is equally important to avoid treating all objections as self-interested misconduct. A complaint about workload can expose a genuine organisational problem. Conversely, assuming every instance of speaking up reflects commitment to collective goals may overlook unresolved conflicts about recognition, autonomy or resources. Understanding the underlying concern is more useful than applying a label to the person raising it.
Related Research Today coverage has examined how AI support was associated with different forms of job crafting among 695 German workers. That study concerned how workers reshape their own jobs; the present research concerns reactions to tasks perceived as improperly assigned. Both point toward the importance of work design without proving a universal management formula.
What the study cannot establish
The observational design limits causal conclusions. Employees who already feel territorial may be more likely to classify assignments as unreasonable. Other conditions, including manager behaviour, team conflict or job insecurity, could influence both task perceptions and communication. Three survey waves clarify timing but do not rule out reverse causation or unmeasured confounding.
All central variables were self-reported. The researchers did not independently inspect the assignments, observe conversations or obtain supervisor assessments of voice behaviour. Their statistical checks strengthen confidence in the measurement model but cannot independently verify what employees actually did at work.
The sample came from an online platform in China, and the researchers did not collect detailed industry or organisational-size information. Cultural expectations about hierarchy and professional responsibilities may shape how task allocation is interpreted. Results should not be presumed to transfer unchanged to South African workplaces or other occupational contexts.
The models also explained a limited share of the variation. The initial territoriality model had an R-squared of 0.04, the model including the moderators had 0.14, and the self-interested voice model had 0.11. Many influences remain outside these equations. The study did not directly measure productivity, turnover, mental health, financial performance or the actual quality of employee suggestions.
The wider lesson about scarce time and respect
The findings suggest that a task can communicate more than its instructions. Employees may interpret the allocation of work as a signal about whose time is valued, which responsibilities are respected and who has control over a professional domain. The overall association with territoriality was small, but the stronger pattern among employees sensitive to time scarcity provides a potentially useful boundary condition.
For employees, the research offers a distinction between having too much work and being assigned work that seems fundamentally misplaced. For managers, it suggests that explaining a task’s purpose and negotiating priorities may matter alongside counting hours. Whether those changes would improve outcomes remains an empirical question.
The strongest conclusion is specific: in a three-wave survey of 306 Chinese employees, perceptions of illegitimate tasks preceded higher territoriality ratings, territoriality preceded more self-interested voice, and time urgency strengthened the statistical pathway. The study does not establish that an individual manager’s assignment caused an employee’s behaviour.
Source Information
Study: Qian Ruan and Cheng Liu (2026), When tasks cross the line: the mediating role of territoriality in the relationship between illegitimate tasks and self-interested voice.
Journal: Frontiers in Psychology, volume 17. Published 7 October 2026.
Research type: Peer-reviewed, observational three-wave employee survey in China, 306 complete responses, two-week intervals, regression and bootstrap mediation analysis.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1962135
Data availability: Authors state that raw data supporting their conclusions will be made available without undue reservation.
Funding and competing interests: The authors reported no financial support for the work or its publication and no commercial or financial conflicts of interest.
