Towards a fine-grained analysis of the link between borderline personality pathology and job burnout: Investigating the association with work-family conflict

Supervisor expectations regarding work-related messages: their differential effects among remote and on-site workers

Purpose

Research suggests that supervisor expectations regarding the need to respond quickly to work-related messages (SE) tend to be positively related to employees' levels of emotional exhaustion. In the present research paper, the authors examine the indirect – through emotional exhaustion – effects of these expectations on employees' levels of family satisfaction, life satisfaction and sleep quality. They also explore whether and how these associations differ between employees working on-site (n = 158) or remotely (n = 284).

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 442 employees completed an online survey that covered measures on SE, emotional exhaustion, family and life satisfaction and sleep quality.

Findings

As hypothesized, the results of the study revealed that the indirect effects of SE on family satisfaction, life satisfaction and sleep quality were significantly mediated by emotional exhaustion. Finally, the relations between SE and the mediator (emotional exhaustion) were stronger among employees working on-site than among employees working remotely.

Practical implications

SE prevention could be encouraged to decrease employees' emotional exhaustion, in turn increasing their sleep quality, family satisfaction and life satisfaction.

Originality/value

These results revealed that working remotely helped buffer the undesirable effects of SE on emotional exhaustion.

Would Organizational Climate and Job Stress Affect Wellness? An Empirical Study on the Hospitality Industry in Taiwan during COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitality employees face a tremendous amount of job stress due to the decline in revenue and close contact with people. This study has three aims: first, to analyse the status quo of organizational-climate job stress on employee wellness in the hospitality industry during COVID-19; second, to discuss the correlation between organizational-climate job stress and employee wellness in the hospitality industry; and third, to analyze the associations between of personal background and organizational climate on job stress and wellness in the hospitality industry. This research uses a survey method to examine these issues. Participants were employees of franchise hotel branches in Taipei City, which yielded 295 effective sample sizes from five chain hotels. The personal background factor questionnaire, organizational climate questionnaire, job stress questionnaire, and wellness questionnaire served as the main research tools. In this study, Factor analysis, Pearson Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis were used for sample analysis. The results revealed a significant relationship between organizational-climate job stress with wellness. Personal background factors, organizational climate, and job stress would affect the wellness of employees. As a result, the present research provides empirical evidence for the impact of organizational climate and job stress on employee wellness in the hospitality industry in Taiwan during COVID-19. The study's findings, as well as its theoretical and practical implications, are discussed. The main contribution of this study is that the results serve as a reference for hospitality business owners to design better organizational environments for their employees, plan human-resource-related strategies, and provide training for their employees during a pandemic.

Is Burnout Primarily Linked to Work-Situated Factors? A Relative Weight Analytic Study

It has often been asserted that burnout is primarily linked to occupational-context factors, and only secondarily to individual-level (e.g., personality) and non-work (or general) factors. We evaluated the validity of this view by examining the links between burnout and an array of 22 work-situated (effort-reward imbalance, unreasonable work tasks, unnecessary work tasks, weekly working hours, job autonomy, skill development, performance feedback, and support in work life), work-unrelated (sentimental accomplishment, familial accomplishment, number of child[ren], leisure activities, residential satisfaction, environmental quality, security in daily life, and support in personal life), dispositional (neuroticism, sex, age, and physical condition), and intersecting (work–non-work conflict and non-work–work conflict) variables. The study involved schoolteachers from three different countries: France (N = 4,395), Spain (N = 611), and Switzerland (N = 514). Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Educators. Most of our predictors were assessed based on widely used measures (e.g., neuroticism was assessed with the NEO-Five Factor Inventory). In order to assess sentimental accomplishment and familial accomplishment, we created two self-reported measures, namely, the Sentimental Accomplishment Inventory (SAI; 9 items) and the Familial Accomplishment Inventory (FAI; 9 items). The SAI and the FAI both showed strong reliability and high factorial validity. Exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis and Mokken scaling suggested that both instruments could be considered essentially unidimensional. The study results showed that neuroticism, job strain, skill development, security in daily life, and work–non-work conflict were consistently associated with burnout across the three samples. Sample-specific predictors of burnout included sex, age, unreasonable work tasks, weekly working hours, job autonomy, support in work life, sentimental accomplishment, leisure activities, support in personal life, and non-work–work conflict. Relative weight analysis indicated that neuroticism was the best predictor of burnout in each sample. Our findings suggest that burnout’s nomological network may not be primarily job-related. We conclude that the tendency to de-emphasize individual-level and non-work factors in burnout research is unwise. This tendency may constitute a roadblock in the development of effective interventional strategies. The implications of our findings for burnout’s conceptual status are discussed. The neuroticism-burnout link should be further examined in longitudinal studies.

The Utility of Clinical Psychology Concepts for Judgment and Decision-Making Research: The Case of Histrionic Features

This research was conducted to highlight the utility of considering clinical psychology concepts in judgment and decision research. Our overarching thesis is that the judgments and choices people make may often be influenced by clinically relevant phenomena, and that understanding these relationships can, in a reciprocal fashion, help advance our understanding of judgment and decision making as well as specific clinical diagnoses and proclivities. We focused on histrionic personality disorder and conducted four studies that show that histrionic symptomology predicts preferences and choices that facilitate grabbing others' attention, even when such choices cost more money, and are at the expense of giving up more tangible features. In addition to demonstrating a new implication of the histrionic personality, we provide insight into the process underlying this tendency and discuss implications for mental health service providers.