new perspective on job burnout

8/12/2019 New Perspective on Job Burnout

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Psychological Reports,2012, 110, 3, 801-819. Psychological Reports 2012

NEW PERSPECTIVE ON JOB BURNOUT: EXPLORING THE ROOTCAUSE BEYOND GENERAL ANTECEDENTS ANALYSIS1, 2

HONG CHEN, PENG WU, AND WEI WEI

China University of Mining and Technology

Summary.Previous studies of job burnout are discussed and three types of jobburnout are presented and compared. Various studies of job burnout were reviewedin terms of participants, burnout situation, and root cause. Next, the framework ofjob burnout antecedents was reformulated, including characteristics of organizations,work, and individuals. Three types of job burnoutorganizational weakness-caused burnout, work weakness-caused burnout, and individual characteristic-caused burnoutwere posited based on the root causes contributing to job burnout.Finally, the three subcomponents of job burnout were compared on availability,concealment, universality, severity, duration, diusibility, and changeability. Rootcauses of job burnout should be attended to in job burnout research and interventionprograms.

Job burnout has been a serious problem in the workforces in modernsocieties. Leiter and Maslach (2001) pointed out that both white and blue-collar workers face psychological problems, including feeling stressedout, insecure, undervalued, and alienated in their workplaces. Lindb-lom, Linton, Fedeli, and Bryngelsson (2006) conducted a study of 3,000participants ages 20 to 60 in Sweden and found that 81% of the partici-pants experienced burnout. In 2008, ChinaHRD.net published a report onChinese employees job burnout rate, in which 10.8% of the participantsscored high on all three symptoms of burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, andreduced personal accomplishment) and 43.2% of the participants scoredin the intermediate range on two symptoms simultaneously.3In the cur-rent research literature, job burnout has not been observed on a large scalein some organizations. Even in the human services occupations, such asteaching, in which job burnout occurs frequently and seriously, a 25% rateis considered among the highest observed rates (Friedman & Farber, 1992).

Many scholars, including psychologists and sociologists, have workedto dene job burnout and to identify its causes (e.g., Freudenberger, 1974;Maslach, 1976; Schaufeli & Buunk, 2003). The symptoms of job burnoutare multi-dimensional, encompassing psychosomatic, somatic, and social1Address correspondence to Hong Chen, Room A506, School of Management, ChinaUniversity of Mining and Technology, South Sanhuan Road, Xuzhou, China, 221116 or e-mail([email protected]).2

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.70671101, No. 71173217) and Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry ofEducation of China (No. 10YJA630010) awarded to Hong Chen.3Chi H R D l t N t k (2008) R t Chi t f b t


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H. CHEN, ET AL.802

disorders (Weber & Jaekel-Reinhard, 2000), and the factors that contributeto job burnout are varied. It is dicult to get a clear picture of job burn -

out from a global and structural perspective. This lack of clarity in deni-tion, antecedents, and types presents an obstacle in the path of practicalresearch on job burnout. The purpose of this paper is to examine the gen-eral antecedents framework of job burnout from a new perspective basedon dierent sets of factors including organization characteristics, workcharacteristics, and individual characteristics, in order to explore the rootcauses of job burnout theoretically, and to present a root cause-based clas-sication of job burnout. The antecedents framework and classicationsmay be would be important and useful for organizations in establishing

eective intervention strategies for dierent types of job burnout in orga-nizational or work groups in particular industries or among people withspecic characteristics.

This paper is organized in four parts. Firstly, the previous literaturein job burnout is summarized. Secondly, the general framework of jobburnout antecedents with three relative contribution factors is assessed.Thirdly, the three typesof job burnout are positedorganizational weak-ness-caused burnout, work weakness-caused burnout, and characteristic-caused burnoutand contrasted with respect to seven characteristics of

burnout. Finally, some suggestions for research and possible applicationsare presented.

The initial articles about burnout were written by Freudenberger in1974 and Maslach in 1976. Subsequently, many scholars have contributedto the research in job burnout and have promoted various denitions. Bycomparing the studies carried out by dierent scholars, three fundamen-tals of job burnout were noted: participants characteristics, burnout situ-ation, and root cause. Participants characteristics refer to the personal as-pects of those studied suering from job burnout, i.e., discrete individuals

or individuals in specied groups. Burnout situation refers to the situa-tion in which job burnout occurs. Root cause indicates the primary factorsleading to burnout. Table 1 lists these fundamentals of job burnout.

Based on typical studies of job burnout listed in Table 1, three pointscan be summarized. (1) The participants in job burnout studies have beenselected from many organizations, including businesses, social services,bureaucratic systems, and especially from among the sta of helping oc-cupations like clinic sta, teachers, and policemen. (2) Job burnout is relat-ed to intense and excessive emotional demand, job stressors and strains,

interpersonal stressors, and dysfunction of the work conditions. (3) Someresearchers have identied causes of job burnout, such as workload and


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H. CHEN, ET AL.804

these can be gleaned clues about root factors that cause job burnout. Forexample, mist of relation between employees and work requirements

means that there may be specic individual characteristics (e.g., person-ality factors) or work weaknesses (e.g., work design problems). However,the root causes leading to burnout situations have not been recognized ex-plicitly.

Based on the above denition and summary, job burnout as studiedin previous research is induced by the mist between individual person-ality and work or organizational characteristics. The exhaustion, cynicism,reduced personal accomplishment, and other negative work attitudesand behaviors will appear when the resources, owned by individuals or

gained from organization, cannot meet the work demand (Freudenberger,1974; Maslach & Jackson, 1981; Pines & Aronson, 1988). Some employeesshow job burnout symptoms much more often than others do in the samework situation due to their particular personality traits. In this instance,individual characteristics play a key role in causing job burnout. Somescholars have pointed out external situation factors as the root cause of jobburnout (Brill, 1984), but whether organizational weakness or work weak-ness can by themselves induce burnout has not been studied in detail.

In a questionnaire survey of 432 professional safety managers em-

ployed by Chinese coal mines, 77% of them showed commonly-suered4job burnout symptoms that have no relation to personality traits (Qi, 2010).Because the working environment and mining process have their ownspecial features, safety of coal mines is a public concern which requires ev-eryones eort. Professional safety managers cannot reach expected per-formance without the cooperation of others, no matter how many eortsthey make. As a result, they often feel helpless, and burnout symptomsappear. The job burnout induced by lack of co-workers support and oth-ers behavioral feedback is related to the environment of the organization

and work characteristics. This kind of job burnout, experienced by mostof the workers in a particular job across an industry, is somewhat dierentfrom traditionally understood job burnout and is an example of an orga-nizational weakness-caused burnout.

From what has been discussed above, some questions can be posed.There are no systematic theoretical frameworks for the antecedents ofjob burnout; dierent antecedent factors of job burnout mentioned by re-searchers have not been discussed in an integrated conceptual system.On the other hand, there is a trend for researchers to combine concepts

in empirical examinations of job burnout (Hellesy, Grnhaug, & Kvi-tastein, 2000). Although the construct of job burnout proposed by some


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NEW PERSPECTIVE ON JOB BURNOUT 805

scholars (Maslach & Jackson, 1981; Pines, Aronson, & Kafry, 1981; Demer-outi, Bakker, Vardakou, & Kantas, 2002; Kristensen, Borritz, Villadsen,

& Christensen, 2005) has been carefully studied, dierences in job burn-out pathology may be obscured by common supercial symptoms likeemotional, mental, and physical exhaustion. Without a clear mechanismfor the development of job burnout, the conclusions of researchers maybe less useful to broad, practical applications like job burnout assessmentand intervention. To identify mechanisms of job burnout occurrence, an-tecedent factors should be examined thoroughly.

ANALYSISOFJOBBURNOUTANTECEDENTS

Understanding the factors that may contribute to workers job burn-out is the focus of prior research in a stage model of burnout (Lewandows-ki, 2003). Some antecedents of job burnout, including characteristics of or-ganizations, work, and individuals, have been mentioned and examinedin the burnout literature. The characteristics of these three sets of job burn-out antecedents will be assessed in the following section.

Work Characteristics

Many researchers have investigated the work variables contributingto job burnout. Maslach and Schaufeli (1993) declared that job factors are

the key predictors of the occurrence of emotional exhaustion. Schaufeliand Buunk (2003) specically pointed out the possible reasons of job burn-out included quantitative job demands, role problems, lack of social sup-port, lack of self-regulatory activity, and client-related demands.

Theoretical and empirical studies are summarized for three categoriesof work characteristics identied as factors contributing to job burnout.The rst work factor is job characteristics. Hackman and Oldham (1980)proposed a model of job characteristics. This paper adopts their modeland hypothesizes that the job characteristics which may aect job burn-out include ve core characteristics: skill variety, task identity, task signi-cance, autonomy, and feedback. The rst three factors are related to the ex-perienced psychological meaningfulness of work. Skill variety is denedas the variety of talents and skills of the individuals required by the workactivities. Task identity is dened as the explicit job from beginning to endand includes both the entire work and its parts. Task signicance refersto the eect of the job on peoples lives and work, both inside and out-side of the organization. Autonomy encompasses the responsibility andis dened as the independence, freedom, and discretion of a person in theprocess of carrying out the work. Feedback is about the knowledge of re-sults, which is dened as learning from the activities and consequences ofwork. All of the ve characteristics of a job are correlated with the indi -


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The second work characteristic is workload, which includes quanti-tative and qualitative demands. Quantitative workload is related to the

total amount of tasks required in the job; qualitative workload is relatedto the complexity of work required for an arranged quantitative work-load (Shaw & Weekly, 1985). Quantitative workload is aected by a lackof physical strength and energy to do ones work in the allotted time, andqualitative workload is aected by a lack of the basic skills or talents foreective performance (Kahn, 1978; Pines & Maslach, 1978). Kouvonen,Toppinen-Tanner, Kivist, Huuhtanen, and Kalimos study (2005) showedthat higher quantitative overload was associated with higher exhaustionin a sample size of 115 participants ranging from 49 to 61 years old.

Role characteristic is the third important factor in job burnout andcomprises role conict and role ambiguity. Role conict means that oneis in a situation in which multiple and incompatible expectations exist(Kahn, 1978). Role ambiguity results from the lack of sucient informa-tion about performance of required job activities (Fimian & Blanton, 1987).Schaufeli and Buunk (2003) pointed out that both role conict and roleambiguity contribute signicantly to job burnout.

Organizational Characteristics

The concept of job burnout was embedded within the environmentof U.S. society, economy, and culture of the 1960s (Schaufeli, Leiter, &Maslach, 2009). Job burnout has been a social problem in economic global-ization. Organizations are all inuenced by the external macroscopic cul-ture and regulations, but also have unique features.

Many scholars have studied the relation of work characteristics withjob burnout, but the reality is that work inevitably occurs within some or-ganizational structure. Organizations have hierarchies, operational rules,and allocation of resources; these features of work should not be ignored.

Other scholars have extended their research into organizational and man-agement environments which induce job burnout. Maslach and Leitersstudy (1997) showed that the structure and processes of organizationswere moderately to highly correlated with job burnout. In those cases,burnout was much more a symptom of an organizations dysfunctionalstructure or process rather than that of the employed individual (Leiter &Maslach, 2001).

Organizational characteristics comprise multiple dimensions includ-ing systems, contexts, and resources. System characteristics of organiza-tions that may aect the job burnout include organizational size, structure,and ownership. Moos (1986) argued that the larger an organization is, the


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ly formalized policies and procedures in a large corporation may reduceexibility in dealing with employees individual needs. Vallen (1993) ex-

amined the correlation of job burnout and organizational structure in thehealthcare industry and found that employees of organizations with un-cooperative teams, employee distrust, and strongly held command exhib-ited signicantly much more job burnout.

As to the relation of organizational ownership with job burnout, thereis some empirical evidence in the study of Hansen, Sverke, and Nswall(2009) which showed that nurses at private and for-prot hospitals havehigher job burnout scores, compared to nurses at publicly administeredhospitals.

Context includes values and fairness. Schaufeli, et al.(2009) consid-ered the conict between stated and actual values between employees andan organization, as well as between organizations, was a reason for jobburnout. There are dierent types of value conicts, such as conict be-tween the job ethics and personal values, between personal aspirations fora career and the values of an organization. Furthermore, fairness indicatesa culture of respect and conrms employees self-esteem within the orga-nization. Maslach, et al.(2001) argued that lack of fairness exacerbates jobburnout in two ways: severe emotional upset and exhaustion, which can

lead to a deep sense of cynicism. Li and Shi (2003) explored the relation oforganizational fairness with job burnout of medical care personnel in Chi-na and concluded that it explained the 37% variance of emotional exhaus-tion, 18% variance of depersonalization, and 12% variance of personal ac-complishment respectively.

Organizational resources include the social support and salary paysystem. Lee and Ashforth (1996) studied the association of job demandsand resources, showing that lack of support from supervisors or co-work-ers can cause job burnout to dierent extents. Yeh, Cheng, and Chen (2009)

proved that employees earning performance-based and piece-rated paysystems suered greater burnout, while those who were given xed sala-ries showed less burnout.

In addition, some other important organizational weaknesses lead-ing to job burnout have been identied in the Chinese coal mining indus-try. Safety of coal mines is a less important target of the organization com-pared to economic targets. Therefore, there is an apparent conict betweensafety and economic goals. Nearly 80% of professional safety managersreported job burnout caused by the failure of cooperation and coordina-

tion and the structural weakness of the work system. Coal mine safety, asan important organizational output depending on the whole employees


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H. CHEN, ET AL.808

Individual Characteristics

It is not surprising that a majority of studies about job burnout havefocused on occupation-related characteristics, since burnout is dened asa job-related mental state (Maslach, et al., 2001). However, dierent em-ployees may show dierening severities of job burnout within the sameoccupation. Maslach, et al. (2001) argued that job burnout is not merelya product of the work environment, but also is aected by individualsunique qualities operating in the work. Maslach and Jackson (1981) in-cluded demographics as individual dierences in job burnout (e.g., age)specically as important determinants of emotional exhaustion. In addi-tion, a limited number of personality characteristics have been studied

(Zellars, Perrew, & Hochwarter, 2000). The consideration of personalityin relation to job burnout has not been comprehensive.

In current research, individual factors of interest comprise demo-graphic characteristics, personality attributes, and substance use. Demo-graphic variables have included sex, age, marital status, educational back-ground, and years of work; however, there is still some argument aboutthe relation of demographic characteristics with job burnout. Etzion andPines (1986) claimed that women reported greater burnout than men, butBurke and Greenglass (1989) found that male teachers reported greater job

burnout than female teachers. When personality characteristics are ana-lyzed, traits, behavioral characteristics, personal expectations, and workattitudes are mentioned frequently.

What is certain is that in the same organization or professional en-vironment, the number of individuals suering job burnout is typicallyrather small. This implies that personal characteristics are a major deter-minant of job burnout.

Substance use including alcohol and smoking also has a high corre-lation with job burnout. Cunradi, Chen, and Lipton (2009) explored this

relation in a survey of transit operators in the San Francisco MunicipalRailway (MUNI). In their study, substance use was measured by smok-ing status and alcohol consumption, both in the past and present periodof participators. Rubington (1984) studied the job burnout of recoveredalcoholic sta employed by an alcohol detoxication center. They foundthat if this type of person was employed as a counselor, they were at muchhigher risk of suering from burnout than other employees in the detoxi-cation center.

THREETYPESOFJOBBURNOUTBASEDONROOTCAUSES

The framework of job burnout antecedents comprises three sets of fac-tors: organizational characteristics (e.g., systems, context, and resource),


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on these, we propose that job burnout has three subcomponents: workweakness-caused burnout, organizational weakness-caused burnout, and

individual characteristic-caused burnout.Work Weakness-caused Burnout

Work weakness-caused burnout is prolonged physical and psycholog-ical symptoms experienced as a result of the persons work characteristics.Work weakness-caused burnout is not only related to the helping profes-sions, but also can occur in other occupational sectors. The relation of jobburnout to work context has been examined in several studies. Skaalvikand Skaalvik (2009) conrmed the relation of perception of the school con-

text with teachers job burnout, which is caused by time pressures. Maslachand Jackson(1981) showed that the workload quantity, role ambiguity, andother work situations aected individuals emotional, physical and men-tal exhaustion. Maslach(2003) regarded interpersonal dynamics and job-person t as dominating work factors that contribute to job burnout. Thecombination of organizational arrangement (e.g., workload and training)and individual eort (e.g., work schedules, skills, and position in the orga-nization) may alleviate the work weakness-caused burnout.

Organizational Weakness-caused Burnout

Organizational weakness-caused burnout is related to the stressorsin the organizational environment; particularly, the mist between theemployee and organization.5 Tracy (2000) considered job burnout to belargely an organizational issue associated with long hours, supervisionand other factors. Organizational weakness-caused burnout was aectedby characteristics such as systems, context and resources, and is associat-ed with symptoms like lower organizational commitment, demotivation,service-sabotage behaviors, and high turnover. It should be noted that or-ganizational weakness-caused burnout is very destructive. It can aect

everyone in the organization and harm the organizations eectiveness.When there are signs of job burnout symptoms, the organization shouldlook for the stressors in the organizational situation and remedy the prob-lems immediately. Without general organizational support and assistance,individuals are unable to alleviate the organizational weakness-causedburnout themselves.

Individual Characteristic-caused Burnout

Individual characteristic-caused burnout is unrelated to other people

5Person-job t is the relation of the employee to assignments or tasks that are implementedat work, and person-organization t means the compatibility between individuals andentire organizations (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson 2005). Although the individual


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orexternal factors in the workplace; rather, it is based on stressors relat -ed to individual characteristics, such as personality and lifestyle. Fischer

(1983) conceived that job burnout is primarily an intrapsychic phenome-non. Employees with certain characteristics are more likely to experienceburnout than others in the same working situations. In specic, Maslach(2005) conrmed that people who score high on neuroticism are proneto psychological distress, which means that such people may be more atrisk in suering job burnout. Thus, individual characteristic-caused burn-out can be related to job burnout and is rooted in specic personal char-acteristics. It stands to reason that although job burnout is experiencedand is usually studied in the work environment, individual characteristic-

caused burnout would be found in non-work environments as well (e.g.,in students, stay-at-home mothers, early-retired individuals, etc.).

The three types of job burnout: work weakness-caused burnout, or-ganizational weakness-caused burnout, and individual characteristic-caused burnout connecting to the framework of antecedents includingwork, organization, and individual characteristics are shown in Fig. 1.

COMPARISONOFTHREETYPESOFJOBBURNOUT

For a better understanding of the meaning of three types of job burn-

out, organizational weakness-caused burnout, work weakness-causedburnout, and individual characteristic-caused burnout are discussed interms of seven aspects according to the process of burnout development.The process includes occurrence, intrinsic quality, eect, and diculty ofdealing with job burnout.

Occurrence of job burnout describes the initial stage in which burnoutbegins. From a view of dierent root causes, availabilityrefers to the statusof individuals with dierent psychological characteristics, which show re-sistance or susceptibility to job burnout. Intrinsic quality of job burnout

describes the key dierences of three types of job burnout, including con-cealmentand universality.Eects of job burnout describes the possible in-uence on individual and interpersonal status. Severity, duration, and dif-fusibility are used todescribe the eects of burnout. As the end phase ofthe process, changeability isused to reect the diculty of alleviating jobburnout by dealing with the root causes. In Fig. 2, the three types of jobburnout are compared in detail with respect to these seven aspects andwithin the context of the development of job burnout.

Availability

Availability is dened as the resistance to or susceptibility to burnout,which is connected with the characteristics of the work, organization, and


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Work

characteristics

Job burnout

Organizational weakness-caused burnout

Individualcharacteristics

System

characteristics

organizational size

organizational structure

Context

characteristics

Resource

characteristics

Fairness

Social support

Pay system

organizational ownership

Value

Demographic

characteristics

sex, age, marital status, education

working years,wage,duty

Personality

characteristics

Substance use

working attitude

smoking

alcohol

personality traits

behavior characteristics

personal expectation

Broad social, economic, and cultural environme

Mechanism

weakness

Work

design

weakness

Work weakness-caused burnout

Individual characteristics-caused burnout

organizational multi-targets

Personal

characteristics

Organizationalcharacteristics

FIG. 1. Theoretical connections among job burnout types an


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Job burnout

Availability

Concealment Universality

Effec

job bu

Severity Durati

Occurrence of

job burnout

Intrinsic quality of job burnout

FIG. 2. Seven aspects in relation to the development of


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tional characteristics (objective and perceived organizational support).The participants were 112 clerical sta coming from isolated business or-

ganizations with less than 500 employees. The results of empirical stud-ies showed that workforce size was positively correlation with role of con-ict (r= .25) and ambiguity (r= .31). Workforce size exhibited a substantialpositive association with objective support (r= .58) and negative associa-tion with subjective consciousness of organizational support (r = .31). Itshowed that job burnout related more directly to work activities than toorganizational policy. The aspect typical of work weakness-caused burn-out is quantitative overload. Maslach, et al. (2001) proposed that job burn-out is a symptom of a dysfunctional organization and much more related

to the workplace environment than the specic employees. Lee and Ash-forths study (1996) examined the correlations of work demands, individ-ual behaviors and attitudes, and organizational factors to the three dimen-sions of burnout in a sample of 61 studies reviewed using a meta-analysis.The results showed that ve of eight job stressors were strongly (rcs > .50)connected with emotional exhaustion. Only two of 18 organizational re-sources factors showed relatively strong correlations (community bond,.48; unmet expectations, .53) with job burnout. As to individual factors,three of six behavioral and attitudinal outcomes were correlative to job

burnout (rcs < .45). This indicates that individuals are most likely to expe-rience work weakness-caused burnout, while organizational weakness-caused burnout and individual characteristic-caused burnout are the leastlikely to be experienced.

Concealment

Concealment refers to how easily job burnout can be detected in aparticular group or organization. According to Etzion (1987), continuous,barely recognizable, and for the most part denied, mist between personal

and environmental characteristics is the source of a slow and hidden pro-cess of psychological erosion. Unlike other stressful phenomena, the ministressors of mist do not cause alarm and are rarely subject to any copingeorts. Thus, the process of erosion can go on for a long time without be-ing detected (pp. 16-17). In contrast, work weakness-caused burnout ismuch easier to detect since it is caused by the content of work that can beobserved clearly. Individual characteristic-caused burnout is the most dif-cult to detect, or perhaps has not been studied eectively as a predictordue to lack of theory or structure for hypotheses of complex interactions

between personality and work or organization.Universality


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H. CHEN, ET AL.814

examining the organization as the basic unit, organizational weakness-caused burnout is due to the organizational environment and policies,

which aect all employees of the organization. When the focus is workweakness-caused burnout, typical causes are poorly conceived job de-scriptions and duties as arranged by the organization, so this kind of jobburnout is seen in only the proportion of employees aected by such jobdescriptions and expectations.

Universality is not only related to the scope of burnout causes, but alsoto the job burnout availability. The proportion of people experiencing in-dividual characteristic-caused burnout should be smaller than those expe-riencing the other two types of job burnout. From a view of the denition

and theoretical explanation, the universality of work weakness-causedburnout with segmental features is smaller than that of organizationalweakness-caused burnout with holistic features. The universality of or-ganizational weakness-caused burnout is common in Chinese coal mines,as noted by Qi (2010). It is the consequence of organizational design andsafety regulation failure. The accurate comparison on universality of thesethree types of burnout may need more empirical research in other employ-ment scenarios and among employees of various backgrounds.

SeveritySeverity refers to the extent and consequences of job burnout. Somescholars have explored the consequences of job burnout. Maslach, et al.(2001) showed that job burnout was not only associated with variousforms of withdrawal but also associated with individual employees men-tal health. Specically, individuals experiencing job burnout may suerfrom physical illnesses, sleep disturbances, work and family conict, orsubstance abuse. Organizations are also aected by employees job burn-out, which is likely to result in increased turnover, absenteeism, a decreas-

ing client base, and reduced job performance (Swider & Zimmerman,2010). There is no doubt that job burnout is harmful to individuals andorganizations simultaneously. Individual characteristic-caused burnoutis the most serious matter and should be reduced by psychological andbehavioral intervention. Organizational weakness-caused burnout mayhave higher severity than work weakness-caused burnout because it is re-lated to organizational culture and values. For the organization, this is themost serious problem, followed by work weakness-caused burnout andindividual characteristic-caused burnout.

DurationDuration refers to how long job burnout symptoms last. Because of


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al weakness-caused burnout is associated with organizational culture orpolicies, so it may last for a long time without organizational reform (van

Dierendonck, Schaufeli, & Buunk, 1998). Work weakness-caused burnoutis associated with specic duties or tasks and potentially has the shortestduration. Westman and Etzion (2001) examined the inuence of job pres-sure and vacation on tension in a sample of 87 blue-collar workers in anindustrial rm in central Israel. The results showed that burnout symp-toms diminished after the holiday and returned to the previous level fourweeks later.

Difusibility

The individuals burnout-related behaviors have wide-reaching ef-fects on those in the environment, such as cooperating employees, clients,etc. According to Maslach,et al. (2001), job burnout can spread among in-dividuals through personal conicts, disruption of tasks, and so on. Gen-erally, individuals within the same organizational environment are morelikely to be aected by organizational weakness-caused burnout and dif-fusibility is therefore high. Because individual characteristics are veryresistant to change, the diusibility of individual characteristic-causedburnout is low. Work weakness-caused burnout is related to work charac-

teristics and appears only in similar jobs, so diusibility should be inter-mediate compared to the other two job burnout types.

Changeability

Changeability refers to the diculty of recovering from job burnout ifthe external context changes. Brill (1984) claimed that if there were no ex-ternal assistance or organizational restructuring, recovery from job burn-out would not occur. If this is true, then given the stability of an individ-uals characteristics, individual characteristic-caused burnout would notbe dealt with easily even when the environment changes. Organizational

weakness-caused burnout is more about the mist between the organiza-tion (e.g., culture and values) and the individual. Typically, the organiza-tional culture and values are stable and dicult to change, so employeesorganizational weakness-caused burnout would be impossible to changeaccording to Brill (1984). In contrast, work weakness-caused burnout isrelated directly to job content, so when job demands decrease and job re-sources increase, the employees work weakness-caused burnout shouldbe easily relieved. Thus, work weakness-caused burnout can be changedmost easily, and individual characteristic-caused burnout would be the

most dicult to change; organizational weakness-caused job burnoutmay be impossible to resolve at all. The comparison of the three types of


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H. CHEN, ET AL.816

FURTHERSTUDYANDLIMITATIONS

Implications for Further Study

It is important and essential to distinguish the root causes of burnout.The three types of burnout can be classied by root causes, especially byorganizational weakness and work weakness, and thus contribute to fur-ther research on job burnout.

In conclusion, the proposals herein will make study on job burnout

more systematic and specic. The systematic analysis framework of burn-out antecedents can be used as a foundation for further empirical studies.It also can be used as the guide and principle of research design. The sevenaspects oer a new perspective on job burnout, which make it possible tostudy and analyze the process of burnout more deeply.

Limitations

One limitation is that the conclusions in this paper mainly comefrom the theoretical and logical deduction based on literature reviewed.Although these conclusions are empirically supported in the collectivist

Chinese culture and particularly in the coal mining industry in China, itshould be applied and veried in cross-cultural studies and various in-

TABLE 2

COMPARISONOFTHREETYPESOFJOBBURNOUTONSEVENASPECTS

Aspects OrganizationalWeakness-

caused Burnout

Work Weak-ness-caused

Burnout

IndividualCharacteristic-

caused Burnout

Availability: the resistance to burnout orsusceptibility to it. medium strong weak

Concealment: how easily job burnout canbe detected in a particular group ororganization. medium weak strong

Universality: the proportions of peopleexperiencing job burnout in the workingpopulation studied. strong medium weak

Severity: the extent and consequences of job burnout.Individual medium medium strongOrganizational strong medium weak

Duration: how long job burnoutsymptoms last. medium medium strong

Diusibility: impact of job burnout onthose in the environment, such ascooperating employees, clients, etc. strong medium weak

Changeability:the degree of dicultyof recovering from job burnout if the

external contexts change. medium strong weak


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work context; a wide scope of studies concerning the relation of familyand social variables should be undertaken. That is one of the directions

and tasks of further research.

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Accepted April 23, 2012.


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