Facing career shocks: The role of personal characteristics and organizational support in reducing burnout

The objective of this master thesis is to understand the impact of career shocks on the risk of burnout. We study how individual resources and social support can increase or alleviate these impacts. To this aim, we analyze data from a novel survey of Italian professionals and managers, collected at a particularly stressful time, that is in March 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic. We find evidence that increased burnout levels are indeed associated with shocks. This occurs for either shocks suffered by the worker in relation to her/his own job position or to her/his perception of the shock suffered by the employer. We also investigate the direct effect of several resources on burnout risk, and their moderator effect in the relationship between shocks and burnout. One of these resources, resilience, is associated with higher burnout symptoms, at least in our surveyed population; at the same time, resilience is key to diminishing the effects of shocks on burnout. Optimism alleviates burnout, but, as moderator, it increases the effect of shocks. Support from personal bonds outside the workplace helps in reducing the effects of shocks on burnout, while, surprisingly, support from colleagues appears to increase it. Support from superiors is associated to lower burnout levels and also buffer the effects of shocks. Intriguingly, the significance of these direct or mediated interactions changes between job-related and employer-related shocks. All in all, our analysis suggests that burnout is the product of the complex relationship between distinct types of shocks, the workplace and the worker’s personal resources. Thus, this study reveals that the work environment and personal resources operate as an integrated ecosystem, whose imbalances may buffer or worsen the risks of burnout. As such, we pinpoint to several routes of intervention for policy leaders and organization to leverage on this network of tied variables to establish a healthy workplace.