Emotion work and job stressors and their effects on burnout

Abstract

This article reports research on emotion work, organizational as well as social variables as predictors of job burnout. In burnout research, high emotional demands resulting from interactions with clients are seen as a core characteristic of service jobs. However, these emotional demands were seldom measured in a direct manner. It was only recently that emotional demands were included in studies on burnout referring to the concept of emotion work (emotional labor). Emotion work is defined as the requirement to display organizationally desired emotions. A multi-dimensional concept of emotion work was used to analyze the relations of emotion work variables with organizational and social variables and their joint effect on burnout in five samples including employees working in children's homes, kindergartens, hotels, banks and call centers. Emotion work variables correlated with organizational stressors and resources. However, hierarchical multiple regression showed a unique contribution of emotion work variables in the prediction of burnout. Moreover, the analysis of interaction effects of emotional dissonance and organizational and social stressors showed that for service professionals, the coincidence of these stressors led to exaggerated levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.     

Job Conditions,Coping and Wellness/Health Outcomes in Spanish Secondary School Teachers

This cross-sectional study is part of EUROTEACH; a project aimed at examining the possible relationships between job conditions and wellness/ health outcomes in teachers from 11 European countries. The Spanish sample consists of 198 (53% female) teachers working in mixed public secondary schools in Alicante. The Job Demand-Control-Social Support (JDCS) model (Johnson and Hall, <citeref rid="bib18">1988</citeref>; Karasek and Theorell, <citeref rid="bib22">1990</citeref>) provides the theoretical framework for the study and specific instruments measuring additional job conditions and coping are applied to investigate these variables in the teaching profession. Moreover, the relationships between the variables are studied to clarify their possible interaction. Results confirm the expected relationship between job conditions and wellness/health effects, and also show the presence of an interaction between coping and the variables in the JDCS model. The need to perform further research on the role of coping, as well as considering other individual variables that might influence teacher occupational stress, is pointed out.     

Does longer job tenure help or hinder job performance?

There are two competing theoretical perspectives on how job tenure might affect job performance. Human capital theory suggests that as knowledge and skill increase with greater tenure, job performance will improve as well. In contrast, the literature on job design suggests that as job tenure increases, employees are likely to become more bored and less motivated at work. Consequently, the gains from human capital acquisition might be offset by losses of motivation. To examine these competing perspectives, we conducted meta-analyses on the relationships of job tenure with four types of job performance: core task performance, citizenship behavior, creativity and innovative behavior, and counterproductive work behavior. The results support the second perspective, as both the linear and curvilinear relationships of job tenure with the four types of job performance are weak. Further, the results do not change in strength across type of research design, job industry, age, or gender.     

The role of teammate relationships,communication and self-efficacy in predicting athlete flow experience

This study aimed at testing a structural model of athlete flow in a sample of South African students. A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was implemented. Participants completed self-report measures at pre-arranged times that were in close proximity to the completion of athletic activity. Student athletes (n = 235) participating in South Africa's two major sports, football and rugby, were surveyed. The instruments utilised in this study included the Short Flow State Scale-2, the Questionnaire on Experience and Assessment of Work, and the Generalised Self-Efficacy Scale. The results indicated positive relationships between the variables and established predictor paths. Teammate relationships and self-efficacy were established to as the best predictors of flow experiences of athletes.     

A job characteristics approach to explain workplace bullying

This article analyses job characteristics as antecedents of workplace bullying, in line with the early Scandinavian research tradition. Research thus far suggests a large variety of possible job related antecedents. Recent review findings and methodological criticism, however, suggests that these findings need to be treated with caution. Warr's Vitamin model is used to summarize relevant job-related antecedents of workplace bullying. All relationships are tested simultaneously in a hierarchical regression analysis, controlling for covariates. A large and heterogeneous sample of Belgian workers is used to test the hypotheses (n = 6175). The results show that task autonomy is not significantly related to bullying. In line with earlier research, role conflicts and role ambiguity are the most important antecedents. Also (lack of) participation in decision making, (lack of) skill utilization, workload, cognitive demands, changes in the job, job insecurity, and (lack of) task-related feedback are found to be directly related to workplace bullying. These findings are discussed in the light of the literature and some suggestions for practice are formulated.     

Team change climate: A group-level analysis of the relationships among change information and change participation,role stressors,and well-being

We explored whether teams develop shared perceptions regarding the quantity and quality of information and the extent of participation in decision making provided in an environment of continuous change. In addition, we examined whether change climate strength moderated relationships between change climate level and team outcomes. We examined relationships among aggregated change information and change participation and aggregated team outcomes, including two role stressors (i.e., role ambiguity and role overload) and two indicators of well-being (i.e., quality of worklife and distress). Questionnaires were distributed in an Australian law enforcement agency and data were used from 178 teams. Structural equation modelling analyses, controlling for a marker variable, were conducted to examine the main effects of aggregated change information and aggregated change participation on aggregated team outcomes. Results provided support for a model that included method effects due to a marker variable. In this model, change information climate was significantly negatively associated with role ambiguity, role overload, and distress, and significantly positively associated with quality of worklife. Change participation climate was significantly positively associated with quality of worklife. Change climate strength did not moderate relationships among change climate level and team outcomes.     

Not all job demands are equal: Differentiating job hindrances and job challenges in the Job Demands–Resources model

This study aimed to integrate the differentiation between two types of job demands, as made in previous studies, in the Job–Demands Resources (JD-R) model. Specifically, this study aimed to examine empirically whether the differentiation between job hindrances and job challenges, next to the category of job resources, accounts for the unexpected positive relationships between particular types of job demands (e.g., workload) and employees' work engagement. Results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the differentiation between the three categories of job characteristics in two samples (N ₁ = 261 and N ₂ = 441). Further, structural equation modelling confirmed the hypotheses that job hindrances associate positively with exhaustion (i.e., the main component of burnout) and negatively with vigour (i.e., the main component of work engagement). Job resources displayed the reversed pattern of relations. Job challenges were positively related to vigour. Rather unexpectedly, they were unrelated to exhaustion. Based on these findings, we discuss the importance of the differentiation between different types of job demands in the JD-R model for both theory and practice.     

Demands,resources, and work ability: A cross-national examination of health care workers

Understanding work ability, with the goal of promoting it, is important for individuals as well as organizations. It is especially important to study work ability in health care workers, who face many work-related challenges that may threaten work ability. We studied various job demands, job resources, and interactions of demands and resources relating to work ability using the Job Demands–Resources model as a framework. Acute care health care workers from six nations (US, Australia, UK, Brazil, Croatia, and Poland) completed a survey. Role demands related to work ability in the Australia sample only, and supervisor support related to work ability in the Australia sample only. Yet, high levels of supervisor support significantly moderated (buffered) negative relationships between physical demands and work ability in the US sample, along with negative relationships between role demands and work ability in both the Croatia and UK samples. Skill discretion related to work ability in every nation sample, and therefore appears to be particularly important to work ability perceptions. In addition, skill discretion moderated (buffered) a negative relationship between role demands and work ability in the Australia sample. We therefore recommend that interventions to help preserve or improve work ability target this important job resource.     

Do core self-evaluations and coping style influence the perception of job insecurity?

Over the last few decades, increased flexibility and lack of stability in employment has made job insecurity a work stressor that affects more and more employees. Since worrying about potential job loss (quantitative job insecurity) or possible loss of valued job features (qualitative job insecurity) constitutes a subjective perception, it has been claimed that personality factors may be decisive for job insecurity perceptions. Furthermore, the perception of a stressor, in this case job insecurity, could be argued to be dependent on appraisals of available coping resources. This study investigates whether core self-evaluations predict job insecurity perceptions, and whether coping mediates this relationship, in a two-wave data set from a Swedish sample of white-collar workers (N = 425). The results show that core self-evaluations had a negative total effect on both qualitative and quantitative job insecurity. Core self-evaluations were positively related to problem-focused coping but not to emotion-focused coping. However, there was no mediating effect of coping style on the association between core self-evaluations and job insecurity.     

The third dimension: Value‐oriented contents in psychological contracts

We propose value-oriented content of psychological contracts as being distinct from transactional and relational content, which we affirm using confirmatory factor analysis for employee, as well as organizational obligations. In a sample of 171 German parish volunteers, value-oriented volunteer and relational organizational obligations are significantly and positively related to job satisfaction as well as to time spent volunteering. The distinctive role of value-oriented content is reinforced by the finding that its associated employee obligations were the only ones that were significantly and positively related to both outcomes. Thus, value-oriented obligations may foster favourable work relationships and may even have the potential to stabilize work relationships during crises if obligations regarding an organization's core values are fulfilled. Examining the generalizability of these findings to nonvolunteer samples in future research is recommended.