Search results

This chapter evaluates a model of the organizational context of burnout with direct reference to a new measure, the Areas of Worklife Scale (AWS). The model proposes a structured framework for considering six areas of worklife – workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values – that have resonated through the literature on burnout over the previous two decades. The chapter presents extensive data on the AWS, testing a model of the six areas’ interrelationships as well as their overall relationship to the three aspects of burnout. The results of these analyses are discussed in reference to the psychometric qualities of the measure and the implications of a structured approach to work environments for future development of research on burnout. Implications for developing workplace interventions are also considered.

Neal M. Ashkanasy has a Ph.D. in Social and Organizational Psychology from the University of Queensland, and has research interests in leadership, organizational culture, and business ethics. In recent years, his research has focused on the role of emotions in organizational life. He has published his work in journals such as the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Executive, and the Journal of Management, and is co-editor of three books: The Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate (Sage) and Emotions in the Workplace; Theory, Research, and Practice (Quorum); Managing Emotions in the Workplace (ME Sharpe). He is a past Chair of the Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division of the Academy of Management.Claire E. Ashton-James is completing an Honors degree in Business Management through the University of Queensland Business School. Her undergraduate degree majors were in philosophy, music, and psychology. Her present research interest is in the role of the impact of cognitive information processing capacity on emotion regulation and social functioning.Cary L. Cooper is Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University. He is the author of over 80 books and over 300 academic journal articles. He is Founding Editor, Journal of Organizational Behavior; Co-Editor, medical journal Stress & Health; and former Co-Editor, International Journal of Management Review. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, The Royal Society of Arts, The Royal Society of Medicine, The Royal Society of Health, and an Academician of the Academy for the Social Sciences. He is President of the British Academy of Management and a Companion of the (British) Institute of Management. He is a Fellow of the (American) Academy of Management and recipient of its 1998 Distinguished Service Award. Professor Cooper was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his contribution to health.Russell Cropanzano is Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Department of Management and Policy of the University of Arizona. Dr. Cropanzano is a member of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Society, and the Society of Organizational Behavior. He is a fellow in the Society of Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Dr. Cropanzano is also active internationally, having given talks in Australia, France, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. His research interests include workplace emotions and organizational justice.Achim Elfering is research fellow for the psychology of work and organizations at the University of Berne, Switzerland. He graduated with a Masters degree in psychology from the University of Wuerzburg, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in general psychology at the University of Frankfurt, Germany. His research interests include job stress, physiological stress responses, and in particular associations between psychosocial work factors and low back pain. His other research interests include personality, social support, job satisfaction, socialization and selection. In 2001, he received the 3rd Annual SPINE Journal Young Investigator Research Award.Steven M. Elias is an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Western Carolina University. Dr. Elias is a member of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. Currently, Dr. Elias publishes empirical research in several areas related to perceived self-efficacy and social power.Joanne H. Gavin is Assistant Professor in the School of Management, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the recipient of the Otto Alois Faust Doctoral Fellowship in Character and Health (2000–2002) and earned her Ph.D. in organizational behavior at the University of Texas at Arlington. Ms. Gavin earned her M.B.A. and B.S. in Business Administration at the University of New Orleans. Her research interest is in the area of personal character, decision making and executive health. She is co-author of articles appearing in the Academy of Management Executive, Applied Psychology: International Review and the Academy of Management Journal. Dr. Gavin is also co-author of several chapters in books such as International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Psychology Builds a Healthy World. In 2001, she presented a paper entitled “Transcendent decision-making: Defining the role of virtue-based character in the decision-making process” at the Society for Business Ethics.Simone Grebner is senior research fellow for the psychology of work and organizations at the University of Berne, Switzerland. She graduated with a Master’s degree in psychology from the University of Wuerzburg, Germany. She earned her Ph.D. in work psychology from the University of Berne. Her primary research interests include job stress, job analysis, emotion work, and well-being, with a particual emphasis on psychoneuroendocrine and cardiovascular stress responses.Wayne A. Hochwarter is Associate Professor of Management at Florida State University. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Hochwarter was on the faculty at Mississippi State University and the University of Alabama. He has published over 70 articles and book chapters in the areas that include organizational politics, social influence, job stress, and dispositional factors. His work has appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management. Dr. Hochwarter’s current research interests include social influence in organizations, accountability, and the attitudinal consequences of job insecurity of layoff survivors.Peter J. Jordan is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management at Griffith University, Australia. He gained his Ph.D. in management at the University of Queensland. Peter’s current research interests include emotional intelligence, emotions in organizations, team performance and conflict. He has published in a range of international journals including the Academy of Management Review, Human Resource Management Review, and Advances in Developing Human Resources. He has also been invited to deliver presentations to a number of business groups across South East Asia. Prior to entering academia he worked in strategic and operational planning for the Australian Government.Michael P. Leiter is Professor of Psychology and Vice President (Academic) of Acadia University in Canada. He is Director of the Center for Organizational Research & Development that applies high quality research methods to human resource issues confronting organizations. He received degrees in Psychology from Duke University (BA), Vanderbilt University (MA), and the University of Oregon (Ph.D.). He teaches courses on organizational psychology and on stress at Acadia University. The research center provides a lively bridge between university studies and organizational consultation for himself and his students. Dr. Leiter has received ongoing research funding for 20 years from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as from international foundations. He is actively involved as a consultant on occupational issues in Canada, the USA, and Europe. The primary focus of his research and consulting work is the relationships that people develop with their work. This work addresses strategies for preventing dysfunctional relationships, such as burnout, as well as for building productive engagement with work.David A. Mack is Assistant Dean for Program Development at the University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. from UT Arlington in May 2000. Dr. Mack earned an MBA in Entrepreneurship from DePaul University in 1993. Dr. Mack has published a number of articles and book chapters on job stress, workplace violence, and small business. His Organizational Dynamics article “EDS: An Inside View of a Corporate Life Cycle Transition” examined the spin-off of EDS from General Motors Corporation. He has had extensive management experience in the insurance industry and is co-owner, with his wife, of a financial services marketing/management business in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Dr. Mack teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at UT Arlington and has taught graduate business courses at both DePaul University and Texas Wesleyan University.Christina Maslach is Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. She received her A.B. in Social Relations from Harvard-Radcliffe College, and her Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University. She has conducted research in a number of areas within social and health psychology. However, she is best known as one of the pioneering researchers on job burnout, and the author of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the most widely used research measure in the burnout field. In addition to numerous articles, she has written several books on this topic. She has also received numerous teaching awards, and in 1997 she received national recognition from the Carnegie Foundation as “Professor of the Year.”Debra L. Nelson, Ph.D. is The CBA Associates Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Management at Oklahoma State University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Nelson’s research has been published in the Academy of Management Executive, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and other journals. Her books include Stress and Challenge at the Top: The Paradox of the Successful Executive, Advancing Women in Management, Preventive Stress Management in Organizations, Gender, Work Stress and Health, and Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Realities, Challenges among others. Her primary research interests are workplace stress and gender issues at work.James Campbell (Jim) Quick is Professor of Organizational Behavior and Director, Doctoral Program in Business Administration, The University of Texas at Arlington. The American Psychological Foundation honored him with the 2002 Harry and Miriam Levinson Award as an outstanding consulting psychologist. He is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Institute of Stress, and was awarded a 2001 APA Presidential Citation. He was Founding Editor of APA’s Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and was APA’s stress expert to the National Academy of Sciences (1990). He is co-author with Debra L. Nelson of Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Realities, and Challenges, 4th Edition (Thompson/Southwestern). He is listed in Who’s Who in the World (7th Edition). He was awarded The Maroon Citation by the Colgate University Alumni Corporation, and The Legion of Merit by the U.S. Air Force. He is married to the former Sheri Grimes Schember.Jonathan D. Quick is Director, Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy (EDM) for the World Health Organization, Geneva. EDM works to ensure for people everywhere access to safe, effective, good quality essential drugs that are prescribed and used rationally. He joined WHO in 1995 after 20 years in international health, serving in Pakistan, Kenya, and over 18 other countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He has authored or edited ten books, including as senior editor of Managing Drug Supply (1997/1978), and over 40 articles and chapters on essential drugs, public health, and stress management. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Family Practice, and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Medicine (UK) and the American College of Preventive Medicine. He earned an A.B. degree magna cum laude from Harvard University and a M.D. degree with distinction in research and a M.P.H. from the University of Rochester.Norbert Semmer is professor for the psychology of work and organizations at the University of Berne, Switzerland. He earned his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Berlin and worked for the Technical University of Berlin, and the German Federal Health Office in Berlin before moving to Berne. He has a long standing interest in stress at work and its relationship to health, in recent years with a special emphasis on low back pain. He has also published about job satisfaction, the development of efficient strategies in groups, on human error, and on the transition of young people into work. He is a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, the Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie, and the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health, and he served as Associate Editor for Applied Psychology. An International Review from 1992 to 1998, and for the Psychologische Rundschau from 1995 to 1998.Arie Shirom is Professor of Organizational Behavior and Health Care Management at the Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published several reviews on burnout, burnout and health, organization development, and the impact of stress on employee health, each including a section describing his past research in the respective area. These reviews are downloadable from his internet site at Tel Aviv University. He is currently funded by the Israel Science Foundation to conduct a large scale, four-year study on the effects of positive emotions, including vigor, on employee health.Bret L. Simmons is Assistant Professor of Management in the College of Business at North Dakota State University. He received his Ph.D. in Management from Oklahoma State University. Dr. Simmons is a member of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. His research interests include eustress and positive psychology at work.Tores Theorell, M.D., Ph.D. is a world-renowned lecturer and widely published pioneer in psychosocial factors research. He is Director of the National Institute for Psychosocial Factors and Health and Professor of Psychosocial Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. His research interests include psychosocial factors, health, and occupational stress.Howard M. Weiss is Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. He is also co-director of Purdue’s Military Family Research Institute, which is funded by the Department of Defense and dedicated to studying the relationships between quality of life and job satisfaction, retention and performance. He received his Ph.D. from New York University. His research interests focus on the emotions in the workplace and on job attitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the career of the burnout concept itself, rather than reviewing research findings on burnout.

The paper presents an overview of the concept of burnout.

The roots of the burnout concept seem to be embedded within broad social, economic, and cultural developments that took place in the last quarter of the past century and signify the rapid and profound transformation from an industrial society into a service economy. This social transformation goes along with psychological pressures that may translate into burnout. After the turn of the century, burnout is increasingly considered as an erosion of a positive psychological state. Although burnout seems to be a global phenomenon, the meaning of the concept differs between countries. For instance, in some countries burnout is used as a medical diagnosis, whereas in other countries it is a non‐medical, socially accepted label that carries a minimum stigma in terms of a psychiatric diagnosis.

The paper documents that the exact meaning of the concept of burnout varies with its context and the intentions of those using the term.

Burnout syndrome is characterized by exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. Considered a work–stress-related condition, burnout first described professional activities that provide a direct service to people, such as the health and teaching professions. Recent scholarship, however, points to the existence of burnout in any kind of work and at any level of the organization. Some have noted a high prevalence of burnout in the general population, and especially increased prevalence among healthcare professionals. This chapter thus aims to analyze burnout syndrome, including its detection and prevention in organizations. It will proceed by reviewing classic and recent scientific literature on burnout, and its impact on the individual and the organization. It also evaluates organizational interventions meant to prevent burnout and help employees, as well as assess some coping strategies employees can take up to develop a healthier relationship with their jobs.

It may be argued that some shared psychological mechanisms (attribution) and structures (schemas) are likely to play a role in how individuals perceive stress. This paper seeks to propose and test some hypothesised relationships between stress attribution domains and burnout dimensions.

The participants were 416 classroom teachers in 38 randomly selected high schools in New South Wales, Australia. Two established instruments, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and the Teachers' Attribution of Responsibility for Stress Scale were employed in a postal survey. Data were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel modelling.

Most variance was at the individual level, supporting the view that the stress and burnout were overwhelmingly psychological phenomena. Findings suggest the centrality of stress attributed to student misbehaviour in predicting each of the three dimensions of burnout: depersonalisation, emotional exhaustion, and personal accomplishment. Occupational stress attributed to personal failings also negatively predicted personal accomplishment.

The principal implication for practice is that greater emphasis should be placed on effective management of student behaviour when assisting teachers at risk of burnout.

This original study provides new insights into attribution schemas to assist understanding teachers' perceptions and reporting of their occupational stress and burnout in an education system.

This paper aims to take a look at police‐specific factors of stress – police stressors – and to assess the effects of these factors on police officer burnout. The paper also seeks to test the linearity of these effects.

The study focuses on four stressors: defective leadership, role conflicts, threat of violence, and time pressure. As a measure of burnout, Bergen Burnout Indicator 15 is used. The data are cross‐section in nature and come from the Police Personnel Barometer (PPB) conducted in Finland in 2008. The PPB‐survey targeted the entire police administration in Finland. The response rate was 67.2 percent (n=6,871). The current paper uses a sub‐sample of police officers (constable rank) from three functional areas of policing (n=2,821).

Controlling for age, gender, education, shift work, tenure and the function of the police officer, the effects of the different stressors on burnout were all statistically significant. Statistically significant and robust nonlinear effects of the stressors on burnout were also found.

The study introduces a new measure of stress to analyze police work. It takes a preliminary look at the reliability and validity of the measure. The study considers linear as well as nonlinear effects of the stressors on burnout and suggests that the effects under scrutiny are essentially nonlinear.

Burn‐out is a costly and distressing phenomenon, which damages both individuals and organizations. Employees feel undervalued and frustrated, the quality of their work deteriorates, and ultimately they may leave the organization. If companies could recognize the signs and causes of burn‐out, it might be possible to intervene to prevent it. Recent research has identified some factors which might be involved and offers some practical steps to prevent the loss of valuable staff through burn‐out.

This study introduces emotional labor into an analysis of multiple dimensions of burnout in sworn and civilian employees across three law enforcement agencies.

Using data from a survey of law enforcement employees in a metropolitan police department, a full-service sheriff's department, and a state corrections agency located in the western United States (n = 1,921), we test the explanatory power of an emotional labor-based model of burnout.

Results partially confirm the lone prior study to examine civilian and sworn personnel. Sworn and civilian employees experience variant levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, though the underlying emotional labor correlates are significantly related to burnout for both groups. Further, we extend prior results by capturing multiple facets of burnout as well as contributing an emotional labor explanation for burnout, while controlling for individual demographic characteristics and agency type.

Law enforcement agencies rely upon non-sworn employees to support their missions. The experience of non-sworn law enforcement personnel is under-researched in both the emotional labor and law enforcement organizational literature. Burnout is a phenomenon that has high costs for both employees and organizations, particularly in the law enforcement context. Investigating the emotional labor experience of employees is critical for practitioners who are tasked with effectively managing both groups.

One previous study has investigated the emotional labor of civilians in law enforcement and used community-level predictions for burnout. This study builds on those findings by capturing two facets of burnout rather than the lone gauge of burnout used in the previous study. Furthermore, we use an emotional labor model to investigate emotional exhaustion and depersonalization reported by sworn and civilian personnel.