(How) are emotionally exhausted employees harmful?

Abstract

Previous research has not considered potential mediating mechanisms (e.g., employee attitudes) through which emotional exhaustion influences counterproductive work behaviors (CWB) targeted at individual stakeholders (CWB-I) and the organization (CWB-O). Drawing upon the stressor-emotion model of CWB and social exchange theory, we examine organizational commitment as a mediator between emotional exhaustion and CWB. Onehundred and 13 general employees in a large, South Korean banking company, completed surveys along with their supervisors. Results show that organizational commitment fully mediates the relation between emotional exhaustion and both CWB-I and CWB-O; the 95% confidence intervals for the indirect effect through organizational commitment do not include zero for both CWB-I (.02, .21) and CWB-O (.01, .22). These empirical findings indicate that emotional exhaustion leads to CWB through a decline in the commitment of an employee, which consequently makes the occurrence of CWB more likely. We discuss the implications for the function of organizational commitment in the stressor-emotion model of CWB and implications for reducing stress in the workplace.