Psychological and Organizational Welfare Climate and Burnout: A Multilevel Integration between Level and Strength Perspectives

Background: Psychological and organizational climates are crucial factors for employee wellbeing and can be directed towards various perceptual targets (e.g., justice, safety, and security). Employees' perceptions (psychological) and their socially shared component (organizational) regarding organizational policies, practices, and procedures highlighting the organization's value and concern for employees (welfare climate) may play a key role in preventing burnout. While most theoretical perspectives and research findings emphasize that higher levels of positive psychological and organizational climates enhance employee wellbeing, the findings related to the association between organizational climate strength (withinorganization variability generated from employees' responses) and employee well-being are somewhat controversial. The integration of psychological and organizational factors, operationalized in terms of both level and strength, along with their interplay, may provide new insights into how organizations can protect their employees from psychosocial well-being challenges. Drawing upon the integration of Conservation of Resources (COR) and Situational Strength theories, this study aims to propose a multilevel integrated approach to unravel the unique effects of psychological, organizational level, and organizational strength welfare climates (as well as their interplay) in explaining individual- and organizational-level components of experienced burnout. Core hypotheses include the negative effects of psychological and organizational welfare climates on burnout at both employee and organizational levels, a lower organizational strength of welfare climate (i.e., higher withinorganization variability) associated with an increase in burnout, and a significant multiplicative effect of organizational level and organizational strength of welfare climate on the organizational component of burnout (i.e., a combination of low level and low strength of organizational welfare climate is expected to increase burnout). Method: A self-reported questionnaire, including measures of welfare climate and burnout, along with other relevant socio-demographic and control variables, was administered to 3050 employees nested within 113 organizations (average cluster size = 26.99 employees) sampled from various economic and industrial sectors. Data collection adhered to commonly shared ethical guidelines and principles. After evaluating the psychometric multilevel isomorphism of the welfare climate measure, a Doubly Latent Multilevel Model (DLMM) was employed to estimate the hypothesized multilevel effects. Results: Findings largely supported the hypothesized effects, even after controlling for relevant employee- and organizational-level potential confounders. At the individual level, a significant and negative relationship was found between psychological welfare climate and burnout. At the organizational level, higher levels of socially shared perceptions of welfare climate were significantly and negatively associated with burnout, while a lower organizational strength of welfare climate increased burnout levels. Moreover, the hypothesized organizational-level interactive effect between the level and the strength of welfare climate in explaining burnout was empirically supported. Conclusion: Welfare climate may represent a crucial resource in preventing job burnout at different levels of the organizational system. Additionally, employees' agreement towards welfare perceptions may provide unique paramount information for a deeper understanding of burnout risk between organizations. Theoretical and practical implications of study results will be discussed, along with possible avenues for future research and potential improvements in current organizational practices for evaluating work-related stress risk.