Abstract
Background: Workplace resources are found to play a major role in the stress–strain relationship. However, usually different types of resources are investigated, whereas investigating different facets of stress (“stressors”) receive less attention in research about the relationship between stress, strain and resources. Based upon recent research, we expected that workplace resources moderate the relationship between stressors (operationalized with the areas of worklife) and long-term strain (operationalized with three dimensions of burnout) in the sense that workplace resources buffer the negative effects of stressors on strain.Method: Hypotheses were tested in a longitudinal sample of 141 Austrian workers, who participated two times in an online study over a period of 6 months. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to test the proposed relationships.Results: The results imply that workload and reward seem to be the most important predictors for burnout. Workload is important for emotional exhaustion, whereas reward is important for cynicism. Value-fit at the workplace plays a significant role for cynicism, but only if resources at the workplace are high. Further moderating effects of resources were found for the outcome personal accomplishment. More specifically, results indicate that having high resources in a high workload environment increases personal accomplishment after a time interval of 6 months. In addition, employees experiencing high levels of control but low workplace resources show less personal accomplishment.Conclusion: Despite the limiting aspects of the relatively short period of time we can see that resources can buffer workload effects. This should be taken into consideration when doing risk assessments in practice as work design should focus on resources even more when high workload can be found.
Highlights
Workplace resources have an essential influence on the stress–strain relationship
Our study focuses on this complex subject and investigates the effects of different facets of stress and their interaction with workplace resources on strain
We investigated which stressors are linked to burnout and if resources are able to buffer the negative effect of stress facets on burnout
Summary
Previous studies on buffering effect of resources on the stress–strain relationship mainly used a summarized factor of stress (e.g., high job demands) to predict negative work-related outcomes such as strain. This more global view of stress only scratches the surface in research on the stress–strain relationship. Conclusion: Despite the limiting aspects of the relatively short period of time we can see that resources can buffer workload effects. This should be taken into consideration when doing risk assessments in practice as work design should focus on resources even more when high workload can be found
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