Insights into the Nexus of Organizational Identification, Workaholism, and Burnout: Qualitative Study

This study investigates the complex relationship between organizational identification, workaholism, and burnout. While organizational identification enhances employees’ commitment and engagement, it can also foster workaholic tendencies characterized by excessive work involvement. Contrarily, burnout is primarily driven by chronic work-related stress and is influenced by organizational factors such as workload and lack of control. Utilizing a qualitative grounded theory approach, this research analyzed 147 articles from the Web of Science and Scopus databases to identify key factors influencing these relationships. The findings reveal that organization-related factors like job demands, social support, job autonomy, and organizational culture significantly impact organizational identification and burnout. Encouraging these positive organizational factors can boost organizational identification while lowering the risk of burnout. Conversely, workaholism is predominantly driven by person-related factors such as perfectionism, low self-esteem, and family background. These insights suggest that fostering a supportive work environment characterized by manageable job demands, autonomy, an engaging culture, and robust social support can mitigate the harmful effects of workaholism and prevent burnout. This research contributes to developing strategies to promote employee well-being and productivity in organizations. Such an approach holds promise in reducing the risk of burnout, even among individuals with personality traits such as perfectionism and neuroticism.