An Examination of the Roles of Career Uncertainty, Flexibility, and Control in Predicting Emotional Exhaustion

Abstract The present study employs an uncertainty framework to develop a career stress model in which career control mediates the effects of career stressors on emotional exhaustion. This model is tested through the use of structural equation modeling with data obtained from 204 government workers. Results indicate that a model which includes career control as a mediator of the effects of career flexibility and dependence on emotional exhaustion demonstrates a better fit with the data than a nested model in which job context factors, the traditional predictors of emotional exhaustion, solely predict emotional exhaustion.

[1]  Michael P. Leiter,et al.  Burnout as a developmental process: Consideration of models. , 1993 .

[2]  Karl E. Weick,et al.  Handbook of career theory: Career improvisation in self-designing organizations , 1989 .

[3]  J. S. Tanaka,et al.  A fit index for covariance structure models under arbitrary GLS estimation , 1985 .

[4]  B. Byrne.  The Maslach Burnout Inventory: Testing for factorial validity and invariance across elementary, intermediate and secondary teachers , 1993 .

[5]  C. Perrow.  A FRAMEWORK FOR THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ORGANIZATIONS , 1967 .

[6]  John P. Meyer,et al.  Commitment to organizations and occupations: Extension and test of a three-component conceptualization. , 1993 .

[7]  Dwight D. Frink,et al.  Perceptions of Organizational Politics: Prediction, Stress-Related Implications, and Outcomes , 1996 .

[8]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences , 1979 .

[9]  J. Quick,et al.  Work Stress: Health Care Systems in the Workplace. , 1988 .

[10]  Angelo J. Kinicki,et al.  AN INTEGRATIVE PROCESS MODEL OF COPING WITH JOB LOSS , 1995 .

[11]  M. Arthur,et al.  Intelligent enterprise, intelligent careers , 1995 .

[12]  M. L. Cooper,et al.  Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict: testing a model of the work-family interface. , 1992, The Journal of applied psychology.

[13]  C. Cherniss.  Long-term consequences of burnout: An exploratory study , 1992 .

[14]  L. Tucker,et al.  A reliability coefficient for maximum likelihood factor analysis , 1973 .

[15]  C. Maslach,et al.  The Truth about Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do about It , 1997 .

[16]  A. V. D. Ven,et al.  Determinants of Coordination Modes within Organizations , 1976 .

[17]  S. Parker,et al.  The demands—control model of job strain: A more specific test , 1996 .

[18]  Jack K. Ito,et al.  Effects of Task Difficulty and Interunit Interdependence on Information Processing Systems , 1986 .

[19]  Stan Malos.  An options-based model of career mobility in professional service firms: Theoretical development and empirical testing in a sample of large law firms , 1995 .

[20]  D. Clark,et al.  Distinct Models of Burnout and Commitment among Men and Women in the Military , 1994 .

[21]  Blake E. Ashforth,et al.  A meta-analytic examination of the correlates of the three dimensions of job burnout. , 1996, The Journal of applied psychology.

[22]  Manuel London,et al.  Relationships between career motivation, empowerment and support for career development , 1993 .

[23]  Douglas R. Wholey,et al.  Determinants of Firm Internal Labor Markets in Large Law Firms. , 1985 .

[24]  R. Golembiewski.  Handbook of Organizational Behavior , 2001 .

[25]  M. Aiken,et al.  Relationship of centralization to other structural properties. , 1967 .

[26]  John P. Meyer,et al.  Testing the "Side-Bet Theory" of Organizational Commitment: Some Methodological Considerations , 1984 .

[27]  Marian N. Ruderman,et al.  Assessing the developmental components of managerial jobs. , 1994 .

[28]  Blake E. Ashforth,et al.  A Longitudinal Study of Burnout among Supervisors and Managers: Comparisons between the Leiter and Maslach (1988) and Golembiewski et al. (1986) Models , 1993 .

[29]  J. Barney,et al.  Handbook of career theory: Pin stripes, power ties, and personal relationships: the economics of career strategy , 1989 .

[30]  David J. Klein,et al.  Autonomic feedback in stressful environments: How do individual differences in autonomic feedback relate to burnout, job performance, and job attitudes in salespeople? , 1999 .

[31]  Allen C. Bluedorn,et al.  Men and Women of the Corporation , 1978 .

[32]  Wilmar B. Schaufeli,et al.  Active coping and need for control as moderators of the job demand-control model : effects on burnout , 1998 .

[33]  Robert Karasek,et al.  Job decision latitude and mental strain: Implications for job redesign , 1979 .

[34]  Marian N. Ruderman,et al.  Gender Differences in Managers' Developmental Job Experiences , 1994 .

[35]  R. Burke,et al.  A Longitudinal Study of Psychological Burnout in Teachers , 1995 .

[36]  A. V. D. Ven,et al.  A Task Contingent Model of Work-Unit Structure. , 1974 .

[37]  Joseph J. Hurrell,et al.  Occupational stress : issues and developments in research , 1988 .

[38]  D. Jacobson,et al.  Job Insecurity: Coping with Jobs at Risk , 1991 .

[39]  M. Arthur,et al.  The boundaryless career: a competency- based perspective , 1994 .

[40]  T. A. Wright,et al.  Emotional exhaustion as a predictor of job performance and voluntary turnover. , 1998, The Journal of applied psychology.

[41]  C. Schriesheim.  Causal Analysis: Assumptions, Models, and Data , 1982 .

[42]  A. Bedeian,et al.  Development and construct validation of a career entrenchment measure , 1995 .

[43]  James C. Anderson,et al.  STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING IN PRACTICE: A REVIEW AND RECOMMENDED TWO-STEP APPROACH , 1988 .

[44]  Robert L. Kahn,et al.  Stress in organizations. , 1992 .

[45]  Robert C. Ford,et al.  Two (or more?) dimensions of organizational commitment: Reexamination of the affective and continuance commitment scales. , 1987 .

[46]  Peter B. Doeringer.  Determinants of the Structure of Industrial Type Internal Labor Markets , 1967 .

[47]  J. Brockner.  Managing the Effects of Layoffs on Survivors , 1992 .

[48]  M. Leiter.  Coping patterns as predictors of burnout: the function of control and escapist coping patterns , 1991 .

[49]  J. Barney.  Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage , 1991 .

[50]  A. Pazy,et al.  The threat of professional obsolescence: How do professionals at different career stages experience it and cope with it? , 1990 .

[51]  P. Bentler,et al.  Comparative fit indexes in structural models. , 1990, Psychological bulletin.

[52]  Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld,et al.  Staffing Policy as a Strategic Response: A Typology of Career Systems , 1988 .

[53]  W. S. Paine.  Job Stress and Burnout: Research, Theory, and Intervention Perspectives , 1982 .

[54]  Manuel London,et al.  Toward a Theory of Career Motivation , 1983 .

[55]  Zehava Rosenblatt,et al.  Job Insecurity: Toward Conceptual Clarity , 1984 .

[56]  Karen S. Markel,et al.  Developing and Testing an Integrative Model of the Work–Family Interface , 1997 .

[57]  R. Moos.  Work environment scale manual , 1986 .

[58]  S. Folkman,et al.  Stress, appraisal, and coping , 1974 .

[59]  S. Hershberger,et al.  Genetic and environmental influences on perceptions of organizational climate , 1994 .

[60]  Mark W. Johnston,et al.  Analysis of role conflict and role ambiguity in a structural equations framework , 1990 .

[61]  J. Rotter.  Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. , 1966, Psychological monographs.

[62]  Robert Karasek,et al.  Healthy Work : Stress, Productivity, and the Reconstruction of Working Life , 1990 .

[63]  J. C. Latack,et al.  Career transitions within organizations: an exploratory study of work, nonwork, and coping strategies. , 1984, Organizational behavior and human performance.

[64]  J. C. Latack.  Handbook of career theory: Work, stress, and careers: a preventive approach to maintaining organizational health , 1989 .

[65]  L. Perry.  Least-cost alternatives to layoffs in declining industries , 1986 .

[66]  Cynthia L. Cordes,et al.  A Review and an Integration of Research on Job Burnout , 1993 .

[67]  R. H. Waterman,et al.  Toward a career-resilient workforce , 1994 .

[68]  P. Cappelli.  The new deal at work , 1999 .

[69]  B. Evans,et al.  The nature of burnout: a study of the three-factor model of burnout in human service and non-human service samples , 1993 .