Sleepiness at Work: A Review and Framework of How the Physiology of Sleepiness Impacts the Workplace

Sleepiness, the biological drive to sleep, is an important construct for the organizational sciences. This physiological phenomenon has received very little attention in the organizational science literature in spite of the fact that it influences a wide variety of workplace behaviors. In this article, we develop a framework through which sleepiness can be fruitfully studied. We describe (a) what sleepiness is and how it can be differentiated conceptually from related concepts such as fatigue, (b) the physiological basis of sleepiness, (c) cognitive and affective mechanisms that transmit the effects of sleepiness, and (d) the behavioral manifestations of sleepiness in the workplace. We also describe (e) job demand characteristics that are antecedents of sleepiness and (f) individual differences that moderate the aforementioned relationships.