No abstract

Employee burnout remains a legitimate concern for organizations because of its links to costly outcomes, including increased absenteeism, turnover, and reduced employee productivity. An emerging stream of research has provided initial evidence that burnout can be highly contagious (i.e., transferable) between employees, suggesting that it may be a meaningful dyadic construct. These initial findings suggest that if organizations do not undertake efforts to curb burnout, it could spread among employees and result in detrimental consequences. However, the existing burnout contagion literature has been plagued by methodological problems and has focused primarily on main effects, revealing little about the causal processes underlying dyadic burnout. To date, several scholars have cited the importance of the role of the supervisor in providing employees with key resources enabling them to effectively cope with job demands, thereby reducing the risk of burnout. However, although literature continues to cite the importance of supervisory behavior as a factor contributing to subordinate burnout, a model detailing the role of the supervisor in the subordinate burnout process has yet to be articulated. Drawing on a sample of 103 supervisor-subordinate dyads, this paper articulates and tests a model of dyadic burnout with a specific focus on how supervisor burnout affects subordinate burnout, both directly and through their leader-member exchange relationship. Results and implications for theory and practice are discussed.