Who will care? The role of work role overload and flexstyle boundary control on the relationship between job embeddedness, burnout, and the withdrawal behaviours of aged care workers

Abstract

For decades scholars have detailed the benefits of having embedded workers in the workplace. Increasing embeddedness reduces the costs workplaces incur from workers’ withdrawal behaviours. In comparison, less is known regarding the costs of high embeddedness. Drawing on conservation of resource theory, this thesis examines the negative effects of embeddedness in conjunction with work role overload on burnout and withdrawal. It further considers the impact of workers’ physical and psychological maintenance of barriers between work and life (i.e., work-life boundary control flexstyles) on the aforementioned effects. The results of two waves of survey data from 243 aged care workers, analysed using a moderated mediation framework, showed work role overload and flexstyle moderate the mediated relationship between job embeddedness, burnout, and withdrawal behaviours (lateness, absenteeism, and turnover). These results underscore the importance of workers’ experience of work overload and their work-life control flexstyles when considering the impact of embeddedness on retaining, expanding, and sustaining the aged care workforce. These findings have important implications for employees, managers, and organisations in the aged care industry.