Role stressors, social support and burnout among university teachers: a theoretical exploration

Abstract

Burnout research identifies highly exposed occupations such as the university teacher. A profession previously perceived as low-stressfull, has changed over the past 20 years. The high expectations of students, the reform of the university, the Information and Communication Technologies, and the increasingly globalized nature of research have completely transformed this profession. As a result, the university teacher finds himself at the intersection of pressures, increasing job demands and a lack of resources. However, theoretical models dealing with the impact of demands and resources on burnout tend to tackle these effects independently. Indeed, the relationship between demands, resources, and burnout is a major concern for organizations as well as for researchers and practitioners, even if its interest and issues are more recent for the university sector.By theoretically exploring the links that may exist between role stressors, social support, political skills and burnout.Our results indicate the sequence of relationships between variables. Thus, role stressors act as independent variables in our thoeritical model, social support and political competence are moderators, and burnout is the work outcome we seek to explain. This study provides a more holistic and integrated view of the relationship between job demands, job resources, personal resources and burnout. A future research direction are presented in conclusion.

JEL Classification: I23,M12,O15

Paper type: Theoretical Research