Jumping into the abyss: an exploration of the concept of Organizational Burnout

Whilst the primary focus concerning burnout at work has been at individual and job level (Maslach, Demeteriou, Leiter, Schaufeli), very little academic literature or research has addressed the concept of “organization level burnout”. Within the context of continuous organizational change and heightening competitiveness at work, it could be argued that there is a greater propensity for individuals to be working within teams, divisions and possibly organizations which are suffering from burnout. This paper explores the concept of organizational burnout by outlining traditional definitions of burnout, analysing the differing levels of burnout and how these are measured at individual and job level, then extrapolating from that to an organizational level of analysis. Following that, suggestions for further research and understanding of organizational level burnout will be explored together with providing some practical managerial interventions.