Abstract

Burnout is a psychological state that evolves from being constantly stressed and having stress reactions accumulated for a long period of time (Kwag & Kim, 2009). There are many determinants of job burnout such as, work overload and environmental stressors (Kwag & Kim, 2009). Employee burnout has negative consequences such as high rates employee’s absenteeism and turnover (Kwag & Kim, 2009). According to a study conduced by Robert Half UAE (2013), 64% of UAE organizations suffer from job burnout (Abbas, 2017). As a result, UAE businesses are experiencing employees moving from one company to another to find job opportunities where they can be in a less stressful working environment (Abbas, 2017).

The central aim of this research is to investigate possible antecedents for job burnout, such as job enlargement, job enrichment and proactive personality. Job enlargement is one of the job design approaches that increase the jobs’ responsibilities and duties, which requires wide-range of skills (Berdicchia et al., 2015, p. 321). Whereas, job enrichment is expanding the job vertically, which increases responsibility for making decisions (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Additionally, proactive personalities or proactivity is defined as the “relative stable tendency to effect environment” (Bateman & Crant, 1993, p. 103; Vrise, Wawoe & Holtrop, 2016, p. 179). In other words, a proactive person would recognize opportunities and show initiative to make and bring change (Bateman & Crant, 1993, p. 103; Vrise et al., 2016, p. 179).

The research method used in this study is a quantitative method. 58 completed questionnairs were collected from employees working at public and private companies in Abu Dhabi. The questionnare included four scales: A three-item scale was used to assess job enlargement (Berdicchia, Nicolli & Masino, 2015); A six-item scale was used to assess job enrichment (Parker, 1998); A twenty three-item scale was used to assess job burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1981); and a six-item scale was used to assess proactive personality (Tims, Bakker & Derks, 2012).

Results indicate a negative relationship between job enlargement and employee burnout. In addition, results show that job enrichment and burnout are negatively related. Finally, results reveal no relationship between proactive personality and burnout; however, proactivity has a moderate effect on the relation between job enrichment and burnout. The results of this research can help UAE organizations to work towards creating a less stressful work environment, which will lead to higher employee satisfaction and performance, that in turn results in creating a competitive knowledge-based economy in the UAE, which is one of the National Agenda of the country’s 2021 vision (AlGhurair, 2017).