Exploratory Development and Validation of a Perceptual Job Burnout Inventory: Comparison of Corporate Sector and Human Services Professionals

The present study investigated the efficacy of a scale designed to assess various aspects of burnout syndrome for use with corporate sector and human services professionals as prior research and scale development have focused solely on the latter. The scale was administered to two samples of professionals—one drawn from the corporate sector ( n = 150) and one drawn from a variety of human services organizations ( n = 237)—and the resulting data were submitted to factor analysis. A two-factor solution for perceived burnout emerged for the corporate sector employees while a five-factor solution emerged for the human services employees. The results are discussed in light of the applicability of the burnout scale for use in a wide variety of occupations.