Organizational cynicism and job burnout: a moderated mediation model of work alienation and leader-member exchange.

BACKGROUND: In organizational management practice, understanding the intrinsic link between employees' negative perceptions of the organization and their state of emotional exhaustion, as well as identifying the transmission mechanisms and boundary conditions, has become a key issue in mitigating the risk of job burnout. However, the mechanisms through which organizational cynicism relates to work alienation and job burnout, in addition to the moderating role played by the leader-member exchange in this relationship, still lacks clear theoretical explanations and empirical tests.

METHOD: Based on Conservation of Resources theory, this study developed a moderated mediation model to systematically examine the relationships among the variables. Using convenience sampling in cross-sectional survey, this study collected valid questionnaire data from 658 employees across 27 enterprises (varying in ownership type and scale) and conducted regression analysis and moderating effect analysis using SPSS.

RESULTS: According to the results, organizational cynicism and job burnout were significantly positively correlated, and the indirect effect of organizational cynicism on job burnout via work alienation was statistically significant. The results of the moderation analysis indicated that leader-member exchange moderated the relationship between organizational cynicism and work alienation, as well as the relationship between organizational cynicism and job burnout, in a negative manner. In addition, employees' job burnout differed across groups defined by gender, age, educational background, years of working, and weekly working hours.

CONCLUSION: The research results provide theoretical basis and practical inspiration for organizations to identify high-risk groups and design stratified intervention strategies to alleviate the risk of job burnout.