Validation française du School Burnout Inventory

IntroductionFirst studied in adults, the concept of burnout was recently extended to adolescents in order to evaluate the impact of school requirements on their health.ObjectiveThis study aim at assessing construct validity, reliability and concurrent validity of a French version of the School Burnout Inventory (Salmela-Aro, Kiuru, Leskinen, & Nurmi, 2009) that characterize school burnout by exhaustion linked to school demands, cynicism toward school and feelings of inadequacy as a student.MethodThree hundred and eighty-seven adolescents have filled the translated questionnaire and a confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the data.ResultsThe analysis confirmed the tridimensional structure of the scale and mainly show satisfactory psychometric qualities.ConclusionThis measurement scale should provide clinicians with a rapid and simple assessment of school burnout in adolescents. Researchers could also benefit from it in order to extend theoretical knowledge about this trouble.     

Born to burnout: A meta-analytic path model of personality, job burnout, and work outcomes

We quantitatively summarized the relationship between Five-Factor Model personality traits, job burnout dimensions (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment), and absenteeism, turnover, and job performance. All five of the Five-Factor Model personality traits had multiple true score correlations of .57 with emotional exhaustion, .46 with depersonalization, and .52 with personal accomplishment. Also, all three dimensions of job burnout had multiple correlations of .23 with absenteeism, .33 with turnover, and .36 with job performance. Meta-analytic path modeling indicated that the sequential ordering of job burnout dimensions was contingent on the focal outcome, supporting three different models of the burnout process. Finally, job burnout partially mediated the relationships between Five-Factor Model personality traits and turnover and job performance while fully mediating the relationships with absenteeism.     

Job demands and job resources as predictors of absence duration and frequency

This study among 214 nutrition production employees uses the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model to predict future company registered absenteeism. According to this model, job demands are primarily responsible for health impairment, whereas job resources lead primarily to increased motivation and attachment to work and the organization. Consistent with hypotheses derived from the JD-R model and the absenteeism literature, results of structural equation modeling analyses show that job demands are unique predictors of burnout (i.e., exhaustion and cynicism) and indirectly of absence duration, whereas job resources are unique predictors of organizational commitment, and indirectly of absence spells. These findings have implications for individual and organizational interventions aimed at reducing absenteeism.     

Doing bad through being selective in doing good: the role of within-unit variability in ethical leadership

Although it is commonly assumed that perceptions of equity at work have a significant impact on employee absenteeism, our understanding of the equity–absence relationship is limited in that (1) little is known about equity concepts other than procedural and distributive justice; and (2) for the most part, research has overlooked variables likely to mediate and moderate the impact of equity on absenteeism. Drawing from the effort–reward imbalance model (ERI; Siegrist, 1996), our study advances past research by investigating the association between status inconsistency (a situation in which there is a mismatch between, for example, a person's education and his/her income) and absenteeism, and the variables likely to account for this association. Results from a sample of 416 customer-care employees show that stress mediates the relationship between status inconsistency and absenteeism, and that HRM practices attenuate this relationship. Moderated mediation analyses further reveal that HRM practices moderate the indirect effect of status inconsistency on absenteeism via stress.     

Group norms and excessive absenteeism: The role of peer referent others

Drawing from social identity and social influence theory, we propose that the absence-related norms of an individual’s work-based referent others will have a significant effect on the likelihood of excessive absence behavior. We then develop and test a model of the social mechanisms potentially underlying the relationship between referent absence norms and the likelihood of excessive absence behavior. Our findings indicate that referent group norms significantly explain excessive absence behavior, even when taking into account the absence norms associated with the formal organizational units within which these referent groups are often nested. They also indicate that permissive referent group norms are likely to have a greater impact on the probability of target excessive absence when the target has a more conformist disposition. Finally, post-hoc findings suggest that the more negative targets’ perceptions of the consequences of absenteeism, the more attenuated the impact of permissive group norms on excessive absence behavior.     

Exploring the black box of the contingent reward leadership–performance relationship: The role of perceived justice and emotional exhaustion

Using data collected from three different sources (N = 294), we examined a model in which perceived organizational justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) and emotional exhaustion mediate the relationship between contingent reward leadership (CRL) and two performance indicators, namely organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) and absenteeism. We found that procedural justice mediates the negative relationship between CRL and emotional exhaustion while controlling for work overload and transformational leadership. We also found that emotional exhaustion plays a mediating role in the relationship between two dimensions of justice (procedural and interactional) and both OCB and absenteeism. Interactional justice and distributive justice were also directly linked to OCB. Implications of these findings for research on leadership, psychological health, and organizational justice are discussed.     

But we’re here to help! Positive buffers of the relationship between outsider incivility and employee outcomes

Incivility from sources outside the organization (e.g., customers, patients) is increasingly recognized as an important workplace stressor, having been linked to a variety of negative outcomes. It is therefore becoming more important to understand not only the negative effects of outsider incivility, but also potential buffers of these negative effects. As such, the current study sought to explore the impact of outsider incivility directed towards emergency workers (called “victim” incivility) and to identify and test potential positive psychological buffers of the relationship between victim incivility and burnout, physical symptoms and objective absenteeism. Specifically, utilizing a resource perspective, we sought to determine whether work engagement and empathy buffered these negative effects. Survey data from 208 firefighters at two time points showed that victim incivility predicted burnout, physical symptoms and absenteeism, and that both engagement and empathy ameliorated some negative outcomes of victim incivility, including burnout and physical symptoms. Theoretical and practical implications of the research are discussed and areas for future research are proposed.