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ABSTRACT
The burnout condition of employees is a well-known phenomenon in psychology and several applied business disciplines. Despite some degree of recognition in the practice community, little explicit recognition of this topic appears to exist in the accounting literature. This paper develops the burnout construct for the accounting occupation, in part by showing that it has not been captured by other concepts in the literature. In addition to showing that burnout is directly related to several of the familiar behavioral and attitudinal outcomes in public accounting practice, this paper proposes that burnout is a key mediator of the impact of role stressors on critical outcomes. Within a national sample of accountants, the burnout condition is found to partially mediate the influence of role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload on satisfaction, performance, and turnover intentions. To some extent, burnout is capable of separating the functional and dysfunctional aspects of the role stressors on these job outcomes. In order to provide greater direction for future research, a separate treatment of each of the three dimensions of burnout is provided.
INTRODUCTION
Many articles over the last two decades have drawn attention to the potential for severe stress and burnout in a wide set of occupations and professions. This literature has also identified the rather extreme consequences of these conditions. Accountants have not been exempted. For instance, it is reported that burnout symptoms occur in public accounting (Rose 1983; Sanders 1998), internal auditing (Kusel and Deyoub 1983) and management accounting (Journal of Accountancy 1984; Figler 1980). Accountants are also included among the providers of financial services, a group identified as among the top ten most stressful positions in America (Miller et al. 1988).
Academic treatments of issues indirectly related to accountant burnout and directly to role stress (i.e., conflict, ambiguity, overload) have also escalated in the last ten years. The motivation to study role conflict and ambiguity in public accounting has been articulated in many articles. In short, a connection is believed to exist between these conditions and outcomes such as career success, personal health, and organizational withdrawal (Senatra 1980; Collins and Killough 1992; Haskins et al. 1990). These studies however only vaguely capture the idea of burnout and its effects. Only two primarily descriptive...