Date of Award

Summer 2026

Language

English

Embargo Period

4-30-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology

Program

Counseling Psychology

First Advisor

Dolores Cimini

Committee Members

Dolores Cimini, Kimberly Colvin, Kevin Williams

Keywords

employee well-being, job demands-resources model, occupational health psychology, organizational psychology

Subject Categories

Counseling Psychology

Abstract

The present study examined the impact of workload, burnout, and flexible work practices (FWPs) on the well-being of higher education employees from the perspective of Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory. A moderated mediation model was hypothesized, wherein workload would be associated with well-being through burnout, and that this association would be attenuated by the presence of FWPs. A total of 477 full-time faculty, staff, and affiliated research foundation employees from a large public university in the Northeast region and a broader range of colleges and universities across the United States of America completed a cross-sectional survey. Validated measures assessed workload (Quantitative Workload Inventory), burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory), well-being (Flourishing Scale), flexible work practices (New Ways of Working Scale), and perceived autonomy support (an exploratory covariate; Work Climate Questionnaire).

Findings partially supported the proposed model. Moderation analysis revealed no significant interaction between workload and FWPs on burnout. The moderated mediation analysis was therefore similarly unsupported. Mediation analysis revealed a significant indirect effect wherein higher workload predicted greater burnout, which in turn predicted lower well-being. The direct effect of workload on well-being was also significant, and positive, in the mediation model. Adding perceived autonomy support as a covariate slightly attenuated these pathways but did not alter their overall significance. Exploratory path analyses revealed that the addition of perceived autonomy support rendered insignificant the negative relationship between FWPs and burnout. This study’s findings contribute to existing empirical support for JD-R’s health impairment process and highlight that workload functions both as a challenge and hindrance demand. Contrary to expectations per JD-R theory’s buffering hypothesis, FWPs did not moderate the relationship between workload and burnout. Results highlight need for future research efforts to explore ways in which FWPs may serve as a job resource, as well as efforts to understand which job resources may be most salient for this population in buffering against the harmful effects of workload. Study limitations are discussed, as well as implications for research and practice.

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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