Under the shadow of looming change: linking employees’ appraisals of organisational change as a job demand and transformational leadership to engagement and burnout

ABSTRACT Arguably burnout and engagement of employees play an important role in driving sustainable organisational change. Surprisingly little is known about how organisational change affects employee burnout and engagement. Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources model and the Conservation of Resources perspective, we utilise an integrative theoretical model proposing that the more employees appraise organisational change as a job demand the more burnout and less engagement they will display. We further argue transformational leadership, a change-oriented leadership style, is a resource that moderates these effects buffering against burnout and maintaining engagement. We tested our model with a cross-lagged design and collected data at two time points (six months interval) from 623 employees in a hospital in Malta that was facing a major change. Results show that the more employees appraise organisational change as a job demand at Time 1 the more burnout and less engagement they display at Time 2 but not vice versa, and transformational leadership maintained engagement but did not buffer against burnout. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as avenues for future research are discussed.