Cognitive evaluation theory, which explains the effects of extrinsic motivators on intrinsic motivation, received some initial attention in the organizational literature. However, the simple dichotomy between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation made the theory difficult to apply to work settings. Differentiating extrinsic motivation into types that differ in their degree of autonomy led to self-determination theory, which has received widespread attention in the education, health care, and sport domains. This article describes self-determination theory as a theory of work motivation and shows its relevance to theories of organizational behavior. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Self‐determination theory and work motivation

The Social Psychology of Organizations.

Emotion and Adaptation

Psychology has increasingly turned to the study of psychosocial resources in the examination of well-being. How resources are being studied and resource models that have been proffered are consider...

Social and Psychological Resources and Adaptation

Subjective well-being (SWB), people's emotional and cognitive evaluations of their lives, includes what lay people call happiness, peace, fulfillment, and life satisfaction. Personality dispositions such as extraversion, neuroticism, and self-esteem can markedly influence levels of SWB. Although personality can explain a significant amount of the variability in SWB, life circumstances also influence long-term levels. Cultural variables explain differences in mean levels of SWB and appear to be due to objective factors such as wealth, to norms dictating appropriate feelings and how important SWB is considered to be, and to the relative approach versus avoidance tendencies of societies. Culture can also moderate which variables most influence SWB. Although it is challenging to assess SWB across societies, the measures have some degree of cross-cultural validity. Although nations can be evaluated by their levels of SWB, there are still many open questions in this area.

Personality, Culture, and Subjective Well-Being: Emotional and Cognitive Evaluations of Life

Over the past 30 years, conservation of resources (COR) theory has become one of the most widely cited theories in organizational psychology and organizational behavior. COR theory has been adopted across the many areas of the stress spectrum, from burnout to traumatic stress. Further attesting to the theory's centrality, COR theory is largely the basis for the more work-specific leading theory of organizational stress, namely the job demands-resources model. One of the major advantages of COR theory is its ability to make a wide range of specific hypotheses that are much broader than those offered by theories that focus on a single central resource, such as control, or that speak about resources in general. In this article, we will revisit the principles and corollaries of COR theory that inform those more specific hypotheses and will review research in organizational behavior that has relied on the theory.

Conservation of Resources in the Organizational Context: The Reality of Resources and Their Consequences

Getting to the “COR” Understanding the Role of Resources in Conservation of Resources Theory

Studies investigating the crossover of job stress and strain between partners have shown that job demands are transmitted from job incumbents to their partners, affecting their psychological and physical health. Based on the crossover literature and on models of job stress and the work-family interface, this study develops a comprehensive framework to integrate the literature conceptually, delineating the mechanisms that underlie the crossover process. Key constructs include job stress, life events, strain, personal attributes and interpersonal factors. The literature pertaining to each construct in the model is reviewed and summarized. Gaps in the literature are identified, recommendations for future research are proposed, and the implications for organizational theory and practice are discussed.

Stress and Strain Crossover

In a quasi-experiment designed to examine the relief from job stress and burnout afforded by a vacation respite, 76 clerks completed measures of job stress and burnout twice before a vacation, once during vacation, and twice after vacation. There was a decline in burnout during the vacation and a return to prevacation levels by the time of the second postvacation measure. Comparing the two prevacation measures indicated no anticipation effects. However, the return to work showed gradual fade-out, as burnout returned part way toward its prevacation level by 3 days after the vacation and all the way by 3 weeks after the vacation. Women and those satisfied with their vacations experienced greater relief; however, both subsamples also experienced the quickest fade-out. The respite effect and its complete fade-out were detected among all subgroups analyzed. Burnout, relief, interpersonal stress crossover, and burnout climate at work are discussed.

Effects of a respite from work on burnout: vacation relief and fade-out.

Summary The main focus of the study was the crossover of burnout and of coping resources from husbands to wives and vice versa. The study was carried out on 101 couples, male military officers and their wives, who were randomly selected by the Israel Defense Force computer. They filled out questionnaires that measured their level of burnout, job stress, work support, family support concerning work problems, and their sense of control. Findings reveal that the husbands' sense of control and burnout were positively related to the corresponding variables measured for their wives. To establish the crossover effect, the theoretical model was tested by structural equation analysis (LISREL), which showed a positive effect of wives' burnout on husbands' burnout, after controlling for the husbands' own job stress and coping resources. The husbands' burnout likewise affected their wives' burnout. Thus, a crossover of burnout was exhibited from husbands to wives and vice versa. Furthermore, for both sexes, sense of control had the highest impact on their own burnout and on their spouse's burnout, after controlling for their own job stress and resources. Thus, the spouse's sense of control was found to be an additional resistance resource working to the benefit of the other partner. The relevance of these findings to burnout prevention is discussed.

Mina Westman

Papers

Conservation of Resources in the Organizational Context: The Reality of Resources and Their Consequences

Getting to the “COR” Understanding the Role of Resources in Conservation of Resources Theory

Stress and Strain Crossover

Effects of a respite from work on burnout: vacation relief and fade-out.

Crossover of stress, strain and resources from one spouse to another'