title: The association between workers' employability and burnout in a reorganization context: longitudinal evidence building upon the conservation of resources theory.
abstract: This longitudinal study probes the relationship between employability and burnout among employees from a company undergoing reorganization. We advanced employability as a personal resource that relates negatively to burnout. We expected that this hypothesis would hold for different operationalizations of employability, including (1) job-related and (2) transferable skills, (3) willingness to change jobs and (4) to develop competences, (5) opportunity awareness, (6) self-esteem, and (7) self-perceived employability (i.e., perceived employment opportunities). In a similar vein, we expected that the hypothesis would hold for the different dimensions of burnout; namely emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. We used longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to test our hypotheses. Employees from a Swiss company undergoing a major reorganization were surveyed at three times with a total time lag of 19 months (Time 1: N = 287; Time 2: N = 128; Time 3: N = 107). Our results indicate that particularly self-esteem, but also job-related and transferable skills as indicators of one's employability were important predictors of burnout, with all relationships being negative.
authors.affiliation: Research Group for Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. nele.decuyper@ppw.kuleuven.be
authors.forename: Nele
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: De Cuyper
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Raeder
authors.forename: Beatrice I J M
authors.initials: BI
authors.lastname: Van der Heijden
authors.forename: Anette
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wittekind
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000523:psychology*; D003861:Depersonalization / Q000523:psychology; D004651:Employment / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D020415:Personnel Downsizing / Q000523:psychology; D010559:Personnel Management; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012649:Self Concept; D013192:Staff Development; D013557:Switzerland; D055815:Young Adult