Burnout and engagement: A comparative analysis using the Big Five personality dimensions

This study focuses on job burnout, job engagement, and their relationships with the Big Five personality dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. The data were collected from employees (managerial/supervisory positions and non-supervisory positions) working for quick-service restaurants. Engagement, the emerging new concept, is perceived to be situated at the opposite end of the continuum of burnout, but the results of this study indicate they may be, rather, two distinctive concepts driven by different personality dimensions. The most critical personality trait affecting burnout is neuroticism and the most eminent traits predicting engagement are conscientiousness and neuroticism. This study does not validate the effects of positive personality traits such as extraversion and agreeableness on burnout and they are found to be weakly related to employees’ work engagement, as well.