Job resources and exhaustion at work: the mediating role of global meaning

During the past three decades, many studies have shown that unfavourable job characteristics may have a negative impact on stress and burnout. Influenced by dominant work psychological models, like Karasek’s demand-control model (JD-C; Karasek, 1979), the research on this topic attributes employee well-being to the balance between job demand and job control (Van Yperen & Snjiders, 2000). More recently Demereouti et al. (Demereouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001) extended the JD-C model with the job demands-resources (JD-R) model. The central hypothesis of the model is that well-being is the result of a balance between job demands and resources and that different job resources may buffer the impact of job demands on stress reactions (Bakker, Demerouti, & Euwema, 2005). The JD-R model assumes that several different job and personal resources are relevant to promote employees’ well-being. The specific job and personal resources examined in a particular organization differ from time to time and partly depend on the specific job characteristics that prevail (Bakker et al., 2005). More recently, the model has been expanded by examining how personal resources operate in determining employees’ adaptation to work environment (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2007). In line with this approach, the present study investigates the joint contribution of both external (organizational and social) and internal (psychological) resources in promoting health in the work setting. Job and personal resources are selected using insight from Positive Human Health Theory (Ryff & Singer, 1998) which describes the main features of positive well-being and health