Work engagement and burnout: real, redundant, or both? A further examination using a bifactor modelling approach (original) (raw)
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Burnout and work engagement: A thorough investigation of the independency of both constructs.
2010
Abstract 1. This study among 528 South African employees working in the construction industry examined the dimensionality of burnout and work engagement, using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey, the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. On the basis of the literature, we predicted that cynicism and dedication are opposite ends of one underlying attitude dimension (called “identification”), and that exhaustion and vigor are opposite ends of one “energy” dimension.
Burnout and work engagement: Independent factors or opposite poles?
Journal of Vocational …, 2006
Burnout researchers have proposed that the conceptual opposites of emotional exhaustion and cynicism (the core dimensions of burnout) are vigor and dedication (the core dimensions of engagement), respectively . We tested this proposition by ascertaining whether two sets of items, exhaustion-vigor and cynicism-dedication, were scalable on two distinct underlying bipolar dimensions (i.e., energy and identification, respectively). The results obtained by means of the non-parametric Mokken scaling method in three different samples (Ns = 477, 507, and 381) supported our proposal: the core burnout and engagement dimensions can be seen as opposites of each other along two distinct bipolar dimensions dubbed energy and identification.
AB: Burnout and work engagement: a thorough investigation of the independency of both constructs
2014
This study among 528 South African employees working in the construction industry examined the dimensionality of burnout and work engagement, using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey, the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. On the basis of the literature, we predicted that cynicism and dedication are opposite ends of one underlying attitude dimension (called “identification”), and that exhaustion and vigor are opposite ends of one “energy ” dimension. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that while the attitude constructs represent opposite ends of one continuum, the energy constructs do not—although they are highly correlated. These findings are also supported by the pattern of relationships between burnout and work engagement on the one hand, and predictors (i.e., work pressure, autonomy) and outcomes (i.e., organizational commitment, mental health) on the other hand. Implications for the measurement and conceptualization of burnout and wor...
Burnout and work engagement: Do individual differences make a difference?
Personality and …, 2006
The central aim of the present study among 572 Dutch employees was to examine whether burnout and its positive antipode-work engagement-could be differentiated on the basis of personality and temperament. We expected burnout to be characterized by high neuroticism and low extraversion, and engagement by low neuroticism and high extraversion. Additionally, we predicted that burnout would correlate negatively with the temperament traits (strength of excitation, strength of inhibition, and mobility), whereas work engagement would correlate positively. Discriminant analyses were used to distinguish burned-out and engaged employees from their non-burned-out and non-engaged counterparts, respectively. Results showed that high neuroticism is the core characteristic of burnout, whereas work engagement is characterized by low neuroticism in combination with high extraversion and high levels of mobility. Thus, personality and temperament make a difference as far as burnout and work engagement are concerned.
This study aimed to investigate the interplay between burnout and work engagement. More specifically, we examined the energy and identification continua theorized to underlie the relationship between burnout and work engagement by simultaneously evaluating the factorial structure of the Maslach Burnout Inventory–General Survey (MBI–GS) and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Results from Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) offered little support for these continua, suggesting that burnout and work engagement are not diametrical counterparts. Moreover, ESEM significantly altered the relationships burnout and work engagement hold with job demands and resources (i.e., work overload, job autonomy, and recognition), as well as health-related (i.e., psychological distress) and moti-vational (i.e., turnover intention) outcomes. These findings shed new light on the health-impairment and motivational processes theorized by the JD-R model.
Work engagement and burnout: testing the robustness of the Job Demands-Resources model
The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2009
This study focuses on burnout and its positive antipode, work engagement, as well as their antecedents and consequences. According to the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model two different processes have to be distinguished: an energetic process that links job demands and health complaints via the mediating role of burnout and a motivational process that links job resources with turnover intention through work engagement. The robustness of the JD-R model was tested in a heterogeneous occupational sample (N = 956). Structural equation modeling analyses led to a slightly modified model with only exhaustion being indicative of burnout and vigor, dedication, absorption along with professional efficacy being indicative of engagement. The results provide evidence for the dipartite structure of the JD-R model. The mediating role of burnout and work engagement is, however, only partially confirmed because job demands and job resources directly affect health complaints and turnover intention. Multi-group analyses reveal the JD-R model to be invariant across age, gender and occupational level, underscoring the robustness of the model.
The present study investigated in a sample of 587 telecom managers whether workaholism, burnout, and work engagement-the supposed antipode of burnout-can be distinguished empirically. These three concepts were measured with existing, validated multi-dimensional questionnaires. Structural equation modeling revealed that a slightly modified version of the hypothesised model that assumed three distinct yet correlated constructs-burnout, engagement, and workaholism-fitted the data best. Multiple regression analyses revealed that these three concepts retained unique hypothesised patterns of relationships with variables from five clusters representing (1) long working hours, (2) job characteristics, (3) work outcomes, (4) quality of social relationships, and (5) perceived health, respectively. In sum, our analyses provided converging evidence that workaholism, burnout, and engagement are three different kinds of employee well-being rather than three of a kind.
International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management
This study examines the factor structure and invariance of the instruments measuring burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory -General Survey / MBI-GS) and work engagement (Utrecht Work Engagement Scale / UWES) in a sample of Dutch (N = 162) and Greek (N = 206) employees. Confirmatory factor analyses in both samples supported the superiority of the proposed three-factor structure of both the MBI-GS (exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy) and the UWES (vigor, dedication, and absorption). Alternative two-factor and one-factor models did not show a better fit to the data. In addition, results of multigroup analyses partly supported the invariance of the three-factor model of the MBI-GS, and fully supported the invariance of the three-factor model of the UWES across the two national samples. These results suggest that the MBI-GS and the UWES are not only valid instruments for testing burnout and engagement but also allow comparisons across countries.
The measurement of Burnout and Work Engagement: A Comparison of Greece and The Netherlands
This study examines the factor structure and invariance of the instruments measuring burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory -General Survey / MBI-GS) and work engagement (Utrecht Work Engagement Scale / UWES) in a sample of Dutch (N = 162) and Greek (N = 206) employees. Confirmatory factor analyses in both samples supported the superiority of the proposed three-factor structure of both the MBI-GS (exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy) and the UWES (vigor, dedication, and absorption). Alternative two-factor and one-factor models did not show a better fit to the data. In addition, results of multigroup analyses partly supported the invariance of the three-factor model of the MBI-GS, and fully supported the invariance of the three-factor model of the UWES across the two national samples. These results suggest that the MBI-GS and the UWES are not only valid instruments for testing burnout and engagement but also allow comparisons across countries.
Does work engagement burn out? The person-job fit and levels of burnout and engagement in work
This research (N=943) examines the relationship between burnout, work engagement, and organizational factors that play an important role in the strain process (development of burnout), and in the motivational process (work engagement). The aim of the study is to test the relationships of burnout and work engagement, on the one hand, and organizational factors—job demands (workload) and job resources (control, relations with co-workers and superiors, rewards, fairness, and values)—on the other. The results of the analysis call into doubt whether burnout and work engagement are opposite poles of the same dimension, or whether they are independent, though correlated, constructs. Exhaustion and vigour are not the extremes of the same energy dimension, but in the case of cynicism and dedication, the situation is not so clear. It can be said that we are not dealing with the burnout of engagement, but rather with a change in attitude to work (increasing cynicism) on the part of people not suited to their jobs.