The process of burnout in white‐collar and blue‐collar jobs: eight‐year prospective study of exhaustion

Abstract

SummaryThis study tested three contrasting theories about the sequential process of the three dimensions of burnout (i.e., exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy) as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS). The causal order of the burnout components was investigated by including job stressors as antecedents of burnout in structural equation models (LISREL). The predictive effect of exhaustion on burnout dimensions eight years later was also investigated. The longitudinal models were then tested in two occupational subgroups. The participants were 713 Finnish employees (415 white-collar and 298 blue-collar workers) from an international industry enterprise. The best fitting model of the associations between the three burnout dimensions was obtained by a path model where exhaustion predicted cynicism, and cynicism in turn predicted lack of professional efficacy. The symptoms of exhaustion were persistent over time. There were no differences between the two occupational groups in the process of burnout. Also the work-related antecedents of burnout ( job stressors) were very similar in both groups.

Investigating occupational well-being and leadership from a person-centred longitudinal approach: congruence of well-being and perceived leadership

“…Regarding level of occupational well-being, prior longitudinal research has reported fairly high values of vigour and fairly low or moderate values of exhaustion in terms of whole sample means (e.g. Dunford, Shipp, Boss, Angermeier, & Boss, 2012;Schaufeli et al, 2009;Toppinen-Tanner, Kalimo, & Mutanen, 2002). On the basis of these results, a large proportion of the sample was expected to display good occupational well-being.…”

Job Design and Innovative Work Behavior: One Size Does Not Fit All Types of Employees

“…Nevertheless, only rarely articles focus on this potential moderator effect. Studies which did distinguish between occupational groups in their analyses of the effects of job characteristics on employee outcomes are the studies of Schreurs et al (2011), Tsaur, Yen & Yang (2010 and Toppinen-Tanner, Kalimo & Mutanen (2002). Schreurs et al (2011) distinguished between white-and blue-collar employees in the relation between the job design and early retirement.…”

“…Tsaur, Yen & Yang (2010) researched the job design -employee creativity relationship in the travel agency industry and distinguished between four distinct employee categories. ToppinenTanner, Kalimo & Mutanen (2002) studied the effect of job stressors on burn-out and compared white with blue collar employee. All these studies concluded the relation between job design and employee outcomes depends on the occupational groups, but most studies only found small differences.…”

“…Second, various studies have established the fact that HR practices like reward policies (Baer, Oldham, & Cummings, 2003;Dewett, 2004) have different effects on employees, depending on their personal and group characteristics. Yet, only a few articles took these considerations into account when studying the relation between job design and employee innovativeness (Schreurs, Van Emmerik, De Cuyper, Notelaers, & De Witte, 2011;Toppinen-Tanner, Kalimo, & Mutanen, 2002;Tsaur, Yen, & Yang, 2010). Yet, the HR reality is that jobs are rarely designed in the same way for all kinds of employees in a company.…”

Transformational leadership and burnout: The role of thriving and followers’ openness to experience.

“…Its severe individual (e.g., reduced physical health) and organizational consequences (e.g., reduced job performance, increased turnover and associated costs) have been convincingly demonstrated by a plethora of research (e.g., Burke, Greenglass, & Schwarzer, 1996;Toppinen-Tanner, Kalimo, & Mutanen, 2002).…”