Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of the present study is to examine the general and travel-specific job exhaustion of international business travelers (IBTs). The study employs a JD-R model to explain general and travel-specific job exhaustion (IBTExh) through international business travel as demand and leadership (LMX) as a resource buffering the demands of international business travel.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted among Finnish service company employees who had taken at least one international business trip during the previous year. The data (N = 569), collected in 2015, were analyzed with path models.FindingsThe results suggest that a higher number of international business travel days is related to a higher level of job exhaustion, especially the exhaustion related to international business travel. Moreover, a high-quality LMX was found to be linked to lower levels of both types of exhaustion. Interestingly, for those IBTs' with a low-quality LMX, even a high number of long-haul international business travel days was not connected with IBTExhOriginality/valueThe contribution of our study is threefold. First, this study contributes to JD-R theory and the ill-health process by focusing on a job-specific well-being indicator, IBTExh, in addition to general exhaustion. Second, specific job demands related to international business travel, particularly the duration of business travel spent in short-haul and long-haul destinations, contributes to the literature on global mobility. This study sheds light on the potential effects on IBTs of different types of business travel. Third, our study contributes to the leadership literature and the importance of acknowledging the context in which LMX occurs.
Highlights
The internationalization of business has increased enormously in recent decades owing to advances in communication technology, falling trade barriers and highly developed transportation (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2015; Economist, 2015)
In light of job demands-resources (JD-R) theory (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007; Demerouti et al, 2001) that holds that job demands and job resources exert individual effects on work well-being, but job resources can potentially buffer the negative effects of job demands, we study if leader-member exchange theory (LMX) is a job resource with the potential to buffer the negative effects of the duration of international business travel to short-haul and long-haul destinations
The current study examined both job exhaustion and exhaustion related to international business travel (IBTExh) among international business travelers (IBTs)
Summary
The internationalization of business has increased enormously in recent decades owing to advances in communication technology, falling trade barriers and highly developed transportation (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2015; Economist, 2015). International business travel typically involves long working hours, time spent in airports and on airplanes, and operating in stressful and risk-laden work environments (Gustafson, 2014; M€akel€a and Kinnunen, 2016). The intensity of business travel seems to be one critical factor affecting the exhaustion of IBTs. Studies focusing on business travel intensity have typically addressed either the number of business trips (Bergbom et al, 2011a; Dimberg et al, 2002; Espino et al, 2002; Jensen, 2013; Jensen and Knudsen, 2017; Niessen et al, 2018; Westman et al, 2009) or the total number of international business travel days (Bergstr€om, 2010; Espino et al, 2002; M€akel€a et al, 2014; Rundle et al, 2018), but the aspect of how far they need to travel and how long they need to stay before affecting outcomes has rarely been studied
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