How job demands, resources, and burnout predict objective performance: A constructive replication

• Published in: Anxiety, stress, and coping Vol. 21; no. 3; pp. 309 - 324
• Main Authors: Bakker, Arnold B., Van Emmerik, Hetty, Van Riet, Pim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis Group 01.07.2008; Taylor and Francis
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Burnout; Burnout, Professional - psychology; Efficiency, Organizational; Employment - psychology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Group Processes; Humans; Job Demands-Resources model; Likelihood Functions; Male; Middle Aged; Models, Psychological; Multivariate Analysis; objective performance; Occupational psychology; Psychology, Industrial; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Social Support; Work condition. Job performance. Stress; Human; Burnout; objective performance; Attitude; Job Demands-Resources model; Stress; Occupational burnout; Employee; Theoretical model; Interimistic work; Work team; Job performance; Working condition; Predictive factor
• ISSN: 1061-5806; 1477-2205
• DOI: 10.1080/10615800801958637

The present study uses the Job Demands-Resources model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) to examine how job characteristics and burnout (exhaustion and cynicism) contribute to explaining variance in objective team performance. A central assumption in the model is that working characteristics evoke two psychologically different processes. In the first process, job demands lead to constant psychological overtaxing and in the long run to exhaustion. In the second process, a lack of job resources precludes actual goal accomplishment, leading to cynicism. In the present study these two processes were used to predict objective team performance. A total of 176 employees from a temporary employment agency completed questionnaires on job characteristics and burnout. These self-reports were linked to information from the company's management information system about teams' (N=71) objective sales performance (actual sales divided by the stated objectives) during the 3 months after the questionnaire data collection period. The results of structural equation modeling analyses did not support the hypothesis that exhaustion mediates the relationship between job demands and performance, but confirmed that cynicism mediates the relationship between job resources and performance suggesting that work conditions influence performance particularly through the attitudinal component of burnout.