AREAS OF WORKLIFE: A STRUCTURED APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONAL PREDICTORS OF JOB BURNOUT

By Michael Leiter, C. Maslach. 2003

817 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This chapter evaluates a model of the organizational context of burnout with direct reference to a new measure, the Areas of Worklife Scale (AWS). The model proposes a structured framework for considering six areas of worklife – workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values – that have resonated through the literature on burnout over the previous two decades. The chapter presents extensive data on the AWS, testing a model of the six areas’ interrelationships as well as their overall relationship to the three aspects of burnout. The results of these analyses are discussed in reference to the psychometric qualities of the measure and the implications of a structured approach to work environments for future development of research on burnout. Implications for developing workplace interventions are also considered.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/55335c26d3ca7a150033d5697efd5c494dc70c07

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In General Health Professions

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Citations in the corpus

Attachment styles at work: Measurement, collegial relationships, and burnout (2015, methodology): “Manageable workload Manageable workload was measured using the Areas of Worklife Scale (AWS; Leiter & Maslach, 2004).”
A Meta-analysis of the Impact of Social and Emotional Learning Interventions on Teachers’ Burnout Symptoms (2021, background): “…lack of job resources, respectively (Demerouti et al., 2001; Schaufeli & Taris, 2014), none of the addressed interventions was designed at an organizational level or consigned the promotion of job-related resources (e.g., social support from colleagues and/or supervisors) (Leiter & Maslach, 2003).”
Burnout in Organizational Life (2004, neutral): “Basing their ideas on early models of person–environment fit in the context of stress (e.g., French, Rodgers & Cobb, 1974), Maslach and Leiter (1997;Leiter & Maslach, 2001, 2004) proposed that the greater the mismatch between an employee and his or her job, the greater the likelihood of burnout.”
Transformational leadership and optimal functioning at work: On the mediating role of employees' perceived job characteristics and motivation (2015, methodology): “Job demands were assessed using the work overload subscale of the Areas of Work Life Scale (AWS; Leiter & Maslach, 2004).”
Early predictors of job burnout and engagement. (2008, methodology): “…within the six key domains of the workplace environment (the Areas of Worklife Scale) was developed as part of this model, and subsequent research has supported the hypothesized relationship between these six areas and the experience of burnout or engagement (Leiter & Maslach, 2004, 2005).”
FINDING SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF BURNOUT (2017, methodology): “Third, the overall findings from several decades of burnout research have found that situational and environmental factors seem to be as important for understanding burnout as are personal variables (Leiter & Maslach, 2004).”
School Leadership Burnout and Job-Related Stress: Recommendations for District Administrators and Principals (2021, background): “Leiter and Maslach (2003) identified six domains that are organizational correlates of burnout: (a) workload: too much work in too little time; (b) control: perceptions of one’s ability to influence decisions that impact their work; (c) reward: monetary, social, and intrinsic rewards that provide…”