Perceptions of school administration trustworthiness, teacher burnout/job stress and trust: the contribution of morale and participative decision-making

Abstract

Job burnout was first described by Freudenberger (1975) as an almost inexorable response to competing and continuing stressors on the job. Freudenberger saw the human service professional as a person caught in a three-way squeeze with their own needs competing with the needs of clients and administrative personnel. This results in personnel unable to perform to their optimum level due to internal conflict and stress. Individuals experience burnout in many workplaces and the condition has its basis in relationships (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). Because of the interpersonal nature of the job, burnout has long been regarded as an occupational hazard of teaching (Dorman, 2003; Friedman, 2000; Hughes 2001). In spite of a large documentary literature, research has been repetitive in that many stressors have been identified (see Dorman, 2003; Friedman, 2000); and unsystematic, in that individual approaches or interventions were advanced before consideration of organisational practices that could have contributed to the development of burnout (see Dworkin, 2001; Leiter & Maslach,1999).