Sara Jansen Perry

How do stressors lead to burnout? The mediating role of motivation.

We extend existing stressor-strain theoretical models by including intrinsic motivation as a mediator between well-established job stressors and burnout. Though the link between situational stressors and burnout is well established, little is known about mechanisms behind this relationship. With a sample of 284 self-employed individuals, we examined motivation as a mediator to explain why situational factors impact 3 dimensions of burnout: emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. Motivation is an explanatory mechanism that drives human behavior and thought, and thus may have an impact on important well-being outcomes. As expected, intrinsic motivation was a full mediator for the effect of perceived fit on the inefficacy dimension of burnout. Unexpectedly, neither perceived fit nor motivation was related to the other 2 dimensions of burnout, and role ambiguity had only a direct effect on the inefficacy dimension; it was also unrelated to exhaustion and cynicism. We discuss implications of these findings for researchers as well as for practitioners.

The Downside of Goal-Focused Leadership: The Role of Personality in Subordinate Exhaustion

Exhaustion has a significant impact on employees and organizations, and leader behavior may affect it. We applied Conservation of Resources Theory to test propositions regarding the joint effects of goal-focused leadership (GFL) and personality on employee exhaustion. We proposed that the relationship between GFL and exhaustion depends on employees’ standing on both conscientiousness and emotional stability. Specifically, we expected that high-conscientiousness subordinates experience greater compatibility with a goal-focused leader because of their predisposition to direct resources toward achievement and goal-setting, resulting in lower exhaustion under such a leader than among low-conscientiousness employees. Furthermore, high emotional stability may compensate for GFL incompatibility among low-conscientiousness employees by providing additional resources to manage GFL. In contrast, employees low on both traits likely experience greater exhaustion under a goal-focused leader compared to other employees. Results revealed a three-way interaction in two independent samples and were generally supportive of our predictions. GFL was associated with heightened exhaustion among individuals in the low-emotional stability, low-conscientiousness group, but not among workers having any other trait combination.

Service Employees Give as They Get: Internal Service as a Moderator of the Service Climate―Service Outcomes Link

We lend theoretical insight to the service climate literature by exploring the joint effects of branch service climate and the internal service provided to the branch (the service received from corporate units to support external service delivery) on customer-rated service quality. We hypothesized that service climate is related to service quality most strongly when the internal service quality received is high, providing front-line employees with the capability to deliver what the service climate motivates them to do. We studied 619 employees and 1,973 customers in 36 retail branches of a bank. We aggregated employee perceptions of the internal service quality received from corporate units and the local service climate and external customer perceptions of service quality to the branch level of analysis. Findings were consistent with the hypothesis that high-quality internal service is necessary for branch service climate to yield superior external customer service quality.

All you need is … resources: The effects of justice and support on burnout and turnover

We propose and test a comprehensive model of burnout, as influenced by justice and support, and as it impacts the turnover process. Deriving our conceptual model from conservation of resources theory, augmented by several domain-specific theories, we investigate three forms of justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice) and two sources of support (from organizations and supervisors) as they influence the development of three dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished accomplishment) and subsequent forms of attitudinal withdrawal (organizational commitment and turnover intentions) and behavioral withdrawal (turnover). In a study of 343 social workers, our theoretical path model was well-supported, providing increased understanding of the distinct roles of each form of justice and support in the development of burnout and the subsequent turnover process. Theoretical contributions and implications in the areas of justice, burnout, and turnover are discussed.

Demand-control-person: integrating the demand-control and conservation of resources models to test an expanded stressor-strain model.

We propose an expanded stressor-strain model that explicitly incorporates person characteristics, the Demand-Control-Person model. This model integrates Karaseks traditional Demand-Control model with Hobfolls (1989) Conservation of Resources theory. With participants from two organizations, we tested the moderating role of emotional stability in conjunction with two job demands (i.e., uncertainty and time pressure) and control (i.e., decision latitude) in predicting two forms of strain (i.e., job dissatisfaction and disengagement). Our findings support the expanded Demand-Control-Person model, such that a significant three-way interaction emerged for uncertainty and time pressure. As predicted, the traditional Demand-Control model only held among individuals high in emotional stability, such that low-emotional stability individuals did either not benefit as readily from decision latitude or were more susceptible to job demands when they had decision latitude. Thus, the Demand-Control-Person model may provide a more comprehensive model and consistent prediction of the effect of stressors on strain as determined by individual characteristics.

P = f (Conscientiousness × Ability): Examining the Facets of Conscientiousness

We posited that the form of the joint effects of motivation and ability in traditional performance models are interactive because motivation triggers the use of energy resources required to deploy ability at work. Moreover, we posited that achievement might best represent motivation compared to five other facets of Conscientiousness or global Conscientiousness. In two samples of customer service representatives, achievement interacted with general mental ability (GMA) in predicting task performance, whereas global Conscientiousness and the other five facets did not. This suggests that researchers examining the motivational aspects of Conscientiousness might uncover a more consistent pattern of results for task performance if they focus on the achievement facet. Furthermore, managers might see the highest levels of task performance in certain contexts when hiring individuals based on both achievement and GMA.

When Is Empowerment Effective? The Role of Leader-Leader Exchange in Empowering Leadership, Cynicism, and Time Theft

Applying arguments from social exchange theory, we theoretically derive and empirically test a multilevel model that informs theory on leadership, cynicism, and deviant withdrawal. Namely, we examine the moderating effect of the upward exchange relationship of a leader on empowering leadership behaviors as they affect subordinate psychological empowerment, cynicism, and time theft. In a sample of 161 employees across 37 direct supervisors, empowering leadership was associated with reduced employee cynicism both directly and indirectly through employee psychological empowerment. The positive relationship between empowering leadership and employee psychological empowerment, however, was significant only when the leader enjoyed a high-quality relationship with his or her own boss. In turn, cynicism was associated with increased time theft, suggesting that employees may reciprocate frustrating experiences by withdrawing in minor, yet impactful and deviant, ways in efforts to balance their exchange with the organization.

When Does Virtuality Really “Work”? Examining the Role of Work–Family and Virtuality in Social Loafing

We sought to clarify the relationship between virtuality and social loafing by exploring two work–family moderators—family responsibility and dissimilarity in terms of family responsibility—and two mediators—cohesion and psychological obligation—in two studies. We expected that “busy teams” (i.e., comprising similar individuals with many family responsibilities) would exhibit the strongest positive virtuality–social loafing relationship, and teams comprising similar individuals with few family responsibilities would experience a weaker virtuality–social loafing relationship. We expected that individuals working with dissimilar others would report consistently high levels of social loafing regardless of virtuality. Furthermore, we expected cohesion and psychological obligation to one’s teammates would mediate these effects. Similar individuals in teams indeed exhibited different virtuality–social loafing relationships in both studies, suggesting that the flexibility provided by virtuality might be more effective in teams comprising similar people with few family responsibilities. Study 2 further revealed that cohesion and obligation may mediate these effects, such that high levels of these mediators were associated with low levels of social loafing in similar teams comprising people with few family responsibilities. We discuss contributions to the virtual work and social loafing literatures, as well as the work–family and team literatures. We also suggest several specific actions managers can take on the basis of these findings, including for employees with few versus many family responsibilities.

The exhausted short-timer: Leveraging autonomy to engage in production deviance

This article explores the conditions under which autonomy may lead to production deviance (unsanctioned, non-task-focused behavior) rather than acting as a motivational job characteristic. In a study of 260 manual laborers, we applied Conservation of Resources Theory to propose an interaction among autonomy, emotional exhaustion and employment opportunity in predicting production deviance. We suggest that employees who experience emotional exhaustion may leverage autonomy to engage in production deviance in efforts to conserve and protect remaining energy reserves, particularly when they feel they can secure ‘better’ opportunities than their current job. Results of hierarchical moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that workers reporting high levels of autonomy, emotional exhaustion and employment opportunity also manifested the highest levels of production deviance.

Political skill as a moderator of the relationship between subordinate perceptions of interactional justice and supervisor ratings of interpersonal facilitation

Purpose - – Based on social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, interactional justice has been proposed to be an important construct in explaining individual performance. However, meta-analytic results have noted the relationship is modest at best. The present study extends the understanding of the justice-performance relationship by empirically examining how interactional justice and political skill interactively influence contextual job performance. Focusing on interpersonal aspects of justice and performance, the paper proposes that the existence of interactional justice will only lead to improvements in interpersonally facilitative behavior if employees recognize this situation as an opportunity to invest their skill-related assets into the organization. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach - – Integrating research on political skill with social exchange theory, the current study contends that interactional justice stemming from the supervisor will likely lead to employees feeling obligated and/or wanting to help, cooperate, and consider others in the workplace. However, only employees with political skill will be able to recognize the conditions and act appropriately on these conditions. As such, this paper investigates the moderating role of political skill in the interactional justice-performance relationship. The paper used multi-source survey methodology and applied hierarchical moderated multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses. Findings - – Results from 189 respondents indicated that interactional justice was more strongly related to supervisor-rated interpersonal facilitation when employees possessed higher levels of political skill. This suggests that when both interactional justice and political skill are high, the potential for interpersonal facilitation is also high. Conversely, when one or both are low, interpersonal facilitation is less likely. Originality/value - – Previous articulations and evaluations of the relationship between interactional justice, political skill, and interpersonal facilitation have omitted either situational determinants of motivation or individual differences in job-related skills. With the current study, the paper sought to address these omissions by exploring the interactive effects of interactional justice and political skill on interpersonal facilitation.