When does job burnout not hurt employee behaviours?

Purpose The purpose of this study was to describe and explain the relationship between job burnout (JB), organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) and counterproductive workplace behaviours (CWBs). The job demands-resources theory was applied to test the moderating role of perceived organisational support (POS) in the relationship shared by JB, OCBs and CWBs. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted anonymously on a group of 253 telephone customer support services employees from companies operating in Poland. Moderation analyses for statistical verification were conducted with macro PROCESS version 3.3. Findings The research confirmed a significant statistical relationship between JB and all the studied variables: POS, OCBs and CWBs. It may be concluded that JB increases the probability of CWBs and decreases employee readiness for OCBs. When employees experienced POS, a reduction in tendency for counterproductive behaviours was observed, while citizenship behaviours remained unchanged. Thus, it might be concluded that POS levels off the intensity of the influence of JB on employees’ organisational behaviours. Practical implications Individuals who lack enough social resources to perform their job tasks limit their citizenship activity in the workplace within their behavioural strategy (helping, initiative, etc.). In order to protect their resources, they may also display strategies that are destructive for their organisational environment, e.g. incivility or production deviance. In the situations when the organisation and superiors provide employees with support and demonstrate concern for providing comfortable working conditions, such persons, even in the case of perceived emotional exhaustion, maintain a high level of job activity. Originality/value The combination of variables presented in the research model explains the significance of the chosen determinants of behaviours that are key from the perspective of the organisation’s effectiveness and market competitiveness. This research extends knowledge pertaining to the relationship between JB and organisational behaviours.