The role of emotional contagion and affective commitment on the effect of workload on burnout: A research in the call center sector

The call centers achieved a serious growth both at national and global level during the development period that they have accelerated with the 2000s. In particular, technological developments have increased the importance of call centers over time. This development has made significant contributions in terms of personnel employment and many white-collar employees have started working in call centers. In this workforce development phase, the fact that call centers do business with the goal of Tayloristic production and productivity requirements/concerns brought with it a natural workload. This situation, namely the necessity to work with excessive workload, has led to an increase in the workforce turn over of call centers, especially with a young staff. The main effects of workload on the employee are feelings of stress and burnout. Individuals with high affective commitment continue their career in the organization they work for because they want and show high performance to contribute to the success of the organization. Emotional contagion also manifests itself in the form of copying positive and negative emotions from individual to individual through interaction. Emotion-oriented approaches provide organizations with the opportunity to manage dynamics with negative consequences such as workload and burnout at work. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effect of workload on burnout at work, and the mediating role of emotional contagion and the moderating role of affective commitment in the relationship between burnout and workload. Moreover, it is aimed to contribute to the practitioners with suggestions on interventions, developments and improvements towards these elements. Within the scope of the research, a theoretical model was developed and these relationships were examined. To test the hypotheses, 850 people working in call centers operating in Istanbul and Anatolian provinces were surveyed. By analyzing the responses of the participants statistically, it was seen that all formulated hypotheses were supported. Accordingly, emotional contagion has a mediator and affective commitment has a moderating role in the relationship between workload and burnout. Managerial and theoretical implications, and suggestions for future research were also provided. Keywords: Workload, Burnout, Emotional Contagion, Affective Commitment, Social Change Theory, Stress Concept, Taylorism