Perfectionism and Burnout in R&D Teams

We evaluated whether previously reported latent profiles of burnout among health-care workers (Leiter & Maslach, 2016) would generalize to a new sample of research and development (R&D) workers. We also extended recent reviews (e.g., Harari, Swider, Steed, & Breidenthal, 2018) by using a multilevel approach to the study of perfectionism and burnout in R&D teams in Taiwanese companies. Following a stress-generation model, we examined the association between perfectionistic strivings, perfectionistic concerns, and burnout based on data collected from 760 R&D employees and their 195 team leaders. The latent profiles that emerged differed more by level than kind; therefore, we implemented more parsimonious latent-variable modeling to test worker-level models involving perfectionistic strivings, concerns, and their interaction in predicting 3 dimensions of worker burnout. The latent interaction was significant only in the prediction of cynicism and revealed a general buffering effect of strivings on the negative effects of concerns. However, multilevel analyses that included leader perfectionism as a cross-level predictor revealed only conditional effects and no significant interactions. Overall, perfectionistic strivings had positive effects in association with lower levels of burnout, and perfectionistic concerns had negative effects and seemed to be a strong risk factor for burnout. High levels of perfectionistic concerns from leaders further increased the risk for 2 of the 3 dimensions of worker burnout. The results are discussed in light of theoretical and practical implications and future research into work-related contextual considerations, including culture and work environment, that might increase or decrease the effects of perfectionism on important outcomes.