The Role of Job Resources in Employee Burnout and Work Engagement: Evidence from Pakistani and European Work Contexts
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The challenge of employee burnout and work engagement has become a priority issue of organisations that have started to work in a more complicated and challenging workplace. Based on the Job Demands Resources (JD-R) model, this paper will discuss how job resources contribute to employee burnout and work engagement in two different geographical settings; Europe and Pakistan. The study is based on a quantitative, deductive research design, which will integrate secondary data (the European Working Conditions Survey 2021, 36 countries) and primary survey data, collected among employees working in different industries in Pakistan. Burnout is theorised as a multidimensional variable (physical and emotional exhaustion), whereas employee engagement is one of the motivational outcomes. These findings suggest both the universal motivation value of job resources in the promotion of engagement and also indicate that the protective nature of job resources in preventing burnout is culturally and context-specific. The study contributes to the JD-R literature by differentiating between burnout dimensions and by providing comparative evidence from Western and South Asian work environments. Practical implications emphasize the need for organisations to design culturally sensitive resource strategies that promote engagement while addressing context-specific sources of burnout.
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