Job Burnout of Construction Project Managers: Considering the Role of Organizational Justice
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 144, Issue 11
Abstract
Construction project managers (CPMs) of contractors experience a great deal of stress. In this study, the authors used job burnout as a core indicator of the chronic psychological stress of CPMs. Based on the job demand-resource model, a theoretical framework was proposed to investigate the causal path of job burnout of CPMs, especially the role of organizational justice. A questionnaire with a presurvey was developed referencing various psychometric and organizational behavior scales. Then, in 2017, a survey was conducted throughout China through face-to-face interviews, e-mails, and an online questionnaire system. The validity of the measurement was tested with confirmatory factor analysis, and the hypothetical model was validated with structural equation modeling. Subsequently, 14 mediating effects and 2 moderating effects of organizational justice on job burnout were identified. The results showed that different organizational justice dimensions have different pathways in the causal chain of job burnout of CPMs. Temporal and spatial injustice was most prominent and led to exhaustion of CPMs. Through mediating paths, distributive justice had the most significant impact on the cynicism and low professional efficacy of CPMs, while procedural and interactional injustice resulted in their exhaustion. In addition, procedural and interactional justice buffered the impact of job stress on job burnout.
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Data Availability Statement
Data generated or analyzed during the study are available from the corresponding author by request. Information about the journal’s data-sharing policy can be found here: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001263.
Acknowledgments
The study is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51778335, 51378297, and 71301175) and the China Scholarship Council (Grant No. 201606495019).
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Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 144 • Issue 11 • November 2018
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©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 11, 2017
Accepted: Jun 4, 2018
Published online: Sep 3, 2018
Published in print: Nov 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Feb 3, 2019
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