One Road to Turnover: An Examination of Work Exhaustion in Technology Professionals

The concept of work exhaustion (or job burnout) from the management and psychology research literature is examined in the context of technology professionals. Data were collected from 270 IT professionals and managers in various industries across the United States. Through structural equation modeling, work exhaustion was shown to partially mediate the effects of workplace factors on turnover intention. In addition, the results of the study revealed that: (1) technology professionals experiencing higher levels of exhaustion reported higher intentions to leave the job and, (2) of the variables expected to influence exhausRobert Zmud was the accepting senior editor for this paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1998 ACM SIGCPR Conference. tion (work overload, role ambiguity and conflict, lack of autonomy and lack of rewards), work overload was the strongest contributor to exhaustion in the technology workers. Moreover, exhausted IT professionals identified insufficient staff and resources as a primary cause of work overload and exhaustion. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.