The relationship of emotional exhaustion to work attitudes, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors.

TLDR

The study examined how emotional exhaustion negatively affects employees and employers, predicting lower job performance, reduced organizational citizenship behaviors, higher turnover intentions, and testing whether organizational commitment mediates these effects. Field studies confirmed that emotional exhaustion predicts poorer job performance, lower organizational citizenship behaviors, and higher turnover intentions, with effects independent of age, gender, and ethnicity.

Abstract

The authors investigated the negative consequences of emotional exhaustion for individual employees and their employers. On the basis of social exchange theory, the authors proposed that emotional exhaustion would predict job performance, 2 classes of organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover intentions. In addition, the authors posited that the relationship between emotional exhaustion and effective work behaviors would be mediated by organizational commitment. With only a few exceptions, the results of 2 field studies supported the authors' expectations. In addition, emotional exhaustion exerted an independent effect on these criterion variables beyond the impact of age, gender, and ethnicity.