The Influence Mechanisms Of Ethical Conflicts On The Job Burnout Of Construction Project Managers

Construction industry is regarded as a risky,high-working demands and highpressure industry.Construction project managers(CPMs)play an important role in construction project tasks implementation.Therefore,CPMs are under great stress and encounter a high-level job burnout.Job burnout is a chronic psychological syndrome and harms CPMs’ health and performance.Previous studies have demonstrated the effect of ethical conflicts on CPMs’ job burnout.However,there is still a lack of research on the effect mechanisms between ethical conflicts and job burnout of CPMs.Therefore,drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory and conservation of resources theory,this dissertation aims to explore the mechanisms between different types of ethical conflicts and job burnout from a psychological cognitive perspective.First,this dissertation investigates the effect of compliance-based ethical conflict on job burnout from a psychological cognitive perspective.This dissertation investigates the mediating effect of moral dissonance between compliance-based ethical conflict and CPMs’ job burnout.The moderating effect of project complexity was also examined.To test the theoretical hypotheses,a scenario-based experiment and a two-wave questionnaire survey with a one-month time lag were adopted.Survey data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.The results show that both compliance-based ethical conflict and moral dissonance will lead to CPMs’ job burnout.The moral dissonance of CPMs mediates the effect of compliance-based ethical conflict on job burnout.In addition,project complexity moderates the relationship between compliance-based ethical conflict and moral dissonance.Besides,this dissertation investigates how role ethical conflict influences CPMs’ moral stress and triggers job burnout.This dissertation examines the mediating effect of CPMs’ moral stress between role ethical conflict and job burnout.The moderating effects of project complexity between role ethical conflict and moral stress as well as job burnout were also investigated.A two-wave questionnaire survey with a one-month time lag was adopted and the structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.The results show that both role ethical conflict and moral stress are the antecedents of CPMs’ job burnout.Besides,moral stress mediates the effect of role ethical conflict on CPMs’ job burnout.In addition,project complexity moderates the relationship between role ethical conflict and moral dissonance as well as job burnout.In addition,this dissertation explores the mechanism between both compliancebased ethical conflict and role ethical conflict on CPMs’ job burnout.The mediating effect of CPMs’ organizational commitment and the moderating effect of leader-leader exchange were examined by questionnaire survey data.The results show that CPMs’ organizational commitment will decrease job burnout,and both the two types of ethical conflicts have negative effects on organizational commitment.Besides,leader-leader exchange moderates the relationship between role ethical conflict and job burnout.Leader-leader exchange also moderates the indirect effect of role ethical conflict on job burnout through CPMs’ organizational commitment.Based on the above results,this dissertation examines the interaction effects of ethical conflicts,psychological cognitive factors,project factors and organizational factors,and explores the configuration effects of these factors on CPMs’ job burnout.This dissertation adopted semi-structured interviews to collect data and used fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to test hypotheses.The results reveal the equifinal configurations sufficient to job burnout,and further affirm the key role of psychological cognitive factors in the relationship between ethical conflicts and CPMs’ job burnout.The mechanism between ethical conflicts and job burnout has been further improved by investigating the configuration effects of these factors on CPMs’ job burnout.The main contributions are as follows:(1)This dissertation reveals the effect mechanism between compliance-based ethical conflict and job burnout by investigating the mediating effect of CPMs’ moral dissonance.(2)This dissertation investigates the mediating effect of moral stress between role ethical conflict and job burnout of CPMs,and it reveals the psychological mechanism between role ethical conflict and CPMs’ job burnout.(3)This dissertation examines the mediating effect of organizational commitment between the two types of ethical conflicts and job burnout.It enriches the research on the mechanisms between ethical conflicts and job burnout.(4)This dissertation investigates the configuration effects of the ethical factors as mentioned above on CPMs’ job burnout,and reveals the causal complexity behind the formation of CPMs’ burnout.Overall,it contributes to the literature on CPMs’ job burnout and also provides practice suggestions for CPMs in reducing job burnout.