The Influence of Emotional Exhaustion on Organizational Cynicism: The Sequential Mediating Effect of Organizational Identification and Trust in Organization

Although many scholars have investigated the influence of emotional exhaustion on an organization, there has been relatively minimal research regarding emotional exhaustion’s impacts on organizational cynicism as well as the underlying mechanisms of it. Considering the research gaps, we attempt to find underlying mechanisms that drive the relationship between emotional exhaustion and organizational cynicism in the present research. In particular, we propose a sequential mediation model that investigates the relationship between emotional exhaustion and the sub-dimensions of organizational cynicism with the sequential mediating of organizational identification and trust in the organization. In order to empirically test these links, we utilized two waves lagged study design with 465 employees working in different sectors in Turkey. Our results provide empirical support that organizational identification and trust in an organization sequentially mediate the relationship between emotional exhaustion and cognitive cynicism with affective cynicism. However, the indirect effect of emotional exhaustion on behavioral cynicism through sequential mediators was not statistically significant. This study theoretically and empirically contributes to the emotional exhaustion literature by revealing the sequential mechanisms through which employees’ perceptions of emotional exhaustion affect their cynical attitudes in organizations and offers practical implications by stressing the importance of employees’ perceptions of emotional exhaustion. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, along with limitations and future research directions.