Antecedents of Work-Related Depression among

The purpose of this thesis is to develop and test a research model that examines burnout as a full mediator of the effects of customer verbal aggression and perceptions of organizational politics on work-related depression. Data were collected from service employees (i.e., employees with intense face-to-face or voice-to-voice interactions with customers) in the four- and five-star hotels in Iran. Such data were collected with a one-week time lag. These relationships were tested using LISREL 8.30 through path analysis. According to the results, customer verbal aggression and perceptions of organizational politics exacerbated burnout (i.e., exhaustion and disengagement). The results demonstrated that exhaustion did not have any significant effects on depression. However, the results showed that disengagement triggered depression. The results of this study revealed that disengagement fully mediated the effects of customer verbal aggression and perceptions of organizational politics on depression. Based on the study findings, implications for management and limitations and implications for future studies are also presented in this thesis. KeyWords: Burnout, Customer Verbal Aggression, Employees’ Perceptions of Organizational Politics, Iran, Work-Related Depression.