SOCIAL RESOURCES AND EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION: THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Abstract

Communication is an element that permeates the life of individuals, from birth to death. Through it, it is possible to create new shared meanings, relationships and social networks. The importance of the communication process emerges in different contexts, one of which is undoubtedly the work context: several types of research have affirmed that an efficient organisational communication produces positive outcomes at the level of workers and organisations, such as increased work commitment, satisfaction and reduction of phenomena as emotional exhaustion and cynicism. Starting from the theoretical framework of the Job Demands-Job Resources model, which divides the characteristics of each work context according to two general categories, namely job demands (representing workers' efforts in performing their job tasks) and job resources (facilitating aspects of work that can provide opportunities for personal growth), the aim of the research is to explore the role of communication with colleagues and superiors in the relationship between a job resource (increased social resources) and a negative outcome, such as emotional exhaustion, by means of a non-parametric structural equation model (PLS-SEM), in a sample of 479 workers. Reliable structural and measurement models yielded excellent fit indices of the hypothesized latent variables. The results show that for workers, enhancing social resources by asking for feedback from colleagues and bosses, does not protect against emotional exhaustion risks, but in fact it improves communication. The exclusive use of social resources at work does not have a significant impact on the risk of emotional exhaustion if it is not accompanied by perceived communication appropriate to the circumstances and contexts. Communication, therefore, fully mediates the relationship between increased social resources and emotional exhaustion and stands out as a crucial protective factor.