The Relationships Between Burnout, Motivation and Job
Satisfaction: A Job Demands-Resources Perspective
Haijing Luo
School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
Keywords: Burnout, Motivation, Job Satisfaction.
Abstract: Issues related to employee well-being have become more and more prominent. The impacts of job demands
and resources on workers' mental and emotional health—specifically, burnout, motivation, and job
satisfaction—has been the subject of recent research. This study provides an overall analysis of how these
factors interrelate and lead to organizational outcomes. Excessive job demands and inadequate resources have
been linked to burnout, which lowers motivation and job satisfaction. However, intrinsic motivation is
especially crucial for mitigating the effects of job resources on job satisfaction and burnout. Both job resources
and motivation have positive correlations with job satisfaction, while burnout tends to undermine it. Moreover,
intrinsic motivation play a key role in how job resources and demands work, usually through individual factors
such as evaluation of stress. The study emphasizes using job resources, supporting motivation, and managing
stress evaluation to prevent burnout and boost job satisfaction.
1 INTRODUCTION
As the work stress and burden increase, employees
are prone to exhaustion and burnout, which reduces
their work enthusiasm and has a negative impact on
job performance. More and more organizations have
begun to pay attention to employee health and take
measures to stimulate employees' motivation and
potential. Therefore, as important factors affecting
employees’ mental health and performance, burnout,
motivation and job satisfaction have become
important research topics in the field of
organizational management.
One popular work psychology theory that offers a
framework for comprehending the relationship
between job-related stress, motivation, and
satisfaction is the Job Demands-Resources theory
(JD-R theory). According to the hypothesis, burnout,
motivation, and job satisfaction are regulated by job
resources and demands. Most studies analyze the
status of employees of a certain occupation with JD-
R theory, such as medical workers and teachers. Few
studies have given overall description of the
relationships between those important factors
affecting employee well-being and organization
performance. Additionally, the studies lack full
discussion on personal factors and instead put more
emphasis on the moderating influence of external
resources.
This review's goal is to explore, using JD-R
theory, the connections among work satisfaction,
motivation, and burnout. By reviewing the existing
research literature, the study aims to systematically
analyze the ways in which work demands and
resources impact workers' motivation and burnout,
thereby affect job satisfaction. Furthermore, the study
will specifically analyze the interactions among
burnout, motivation and job satisfaction. In addition,
the factors that moderate these relationships will be
identified, especially personal traits. This discussion
aims to offer helpful recommendations for
organization management in addition to a fresh
viewpoint for theoretical advancement.
2 DEFINITION
2.1 Job Demands-Resources Theory
A robust framework for identifying the connection
between job features, employee well-being, and
organizational outcomes is offered by the JD-R
theory. Job demands and job resources are the two
main categories into which job characteristics can be
Luo, H.
The Relationships Between Burnout, Motivation and Job Satisfaction: A Job Demands-Resources Perspective.
DOI: 10.5220/0014001300004916
Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication (PRMC 2025), pages 675-681
ISBN: 978-989-758-778-8
Proceedings Copyright © 2025 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda.
675

separated. The term "job demands" describes the
detrimental elements that consume energy, such as
workloads, time pressure, role conflicts, job
uncertainty, and so forth. Job resources are positive
factors which promote the achievement of work
objectives, such as organizational support, thus
reducing related psychological and physical costs and
contributing to individual growth and development.
According to the JD-R theory, there are two ways
that job demands and resources affect workers'
performance and well-being independently and
interactively. High job demand can cause stress which
increases burnout levels, whereas job resources
improve motivation and engagement, result in positive
outcomes. Furthermore, work resources act as a buffer
to mitigate the detrimental effects that work demands
on employees. Instead of making linear assumptions,
later research proposed the dynamic nature of job
demands and resources, emphasizing that their effects
on employees depend on variables like duration and
intensity (Bakker et al., 2023). Recent research has
further shown that job resources will experience
diminishing returns as job demands rise, indicating
that the ability to mitigate the negative consequences
starts to weaken (Li et al., 2025).
2.2 Burnout
Burnout syndrome is an individual response to stress
caused by high job demands, which develops
gradually and can ultimately become chronic, result
in health problems (Ed ú -Valsania et al., 2022).
Specifically, employee’s energy continues to be
depleted when high job demands are not compensated
by job resources. From a psychological point of view,
the symptoms include emotional exhaustion,
depersonalization, diminished personal
accomplishment, which translates into negative
behaviour towards work (Edú-Valsania et al., 2022).
2.3 Motivation
A psychological condition known as motivation,
describes a collection of internal and external factors
that influence behaviors linked to job performance.
According to Self-Determination Theory, intrinsic
motivation refers to fulfilling the basic demands of
autonomy, competence and relatedness. In addition,
extrinsic motivation refers to external forces, such as
regulation, rewards and punishments, which can be
internalized to intrinsic motivation (Altintas et al.,
2023). This paper mainly focuses on intrinsic
motivation and how it relates to burnout and
satisfaction.
2.4 Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is a psychological state that an
individual feels content with their work and all of its
associated elements, such as their workplace, position,
challenges, relationships with coworkers, prospects
for advancement, etc. It is associated with favorable
results like increased productivity, innovation and
employee retention rate (Aljumah, 2023). Hence,
improving employee satisfaction is always what
managers and leaders strive for.
3 MOTIVATION AND BURNOUT
In different industry contexts, work demands and
resources result in changes in burnout levels by
influencing certain types of motivation. According to
the JD-R theory, faced with stress caused by work
demands, burnout levels increase. Job resources can
stimulate employees' motivation, reduce burnout and
improve engagement. In order to investigate how
scaling affects employee burnout and job satisfaction,
10,908 employees from 6324 newly registered
Swedish businesses were chosen as the research
subject (Genedy er al., 2024). The study collected data
about job burnout and satisfaction from the Swedish
Work Environment Survey, which were gathered in
ways of phone interview and questionnaire. Using
personnel growth as a metric, scaling was
operationalized as the divergence in the venture's
growth trajectory. Besides, the data of managerial
position and prior experience were collected in public
databases, which could define occupational positions
and backtrack the work history of respondents. This
study adopted least squares (OLS) regression to
analyse the data.
The results proved that while scaling had a
negative correlation with job satisfaction, it had a
positive correlation with burnout. Additionally,
managerial position and prior experience mitigated
these adverse impacts of scaling. The study further
explained that managers experienced lower burnout,
which was due to their greater control over work. It
could be deemed as job resource to better handle the
dynamic, ever-changing, and evolving nature of
scaling, giving managers more freedom to change
work methods and adjust work flows. This resource
improved employee motivation through satisfying the
internal need of autonomy. Non-managerial staff, on
the other hand, could feel trapped in a demanding
workplace with limited flexibility to adjust to their
needs. Employees who have previously worked on
new projects were always assured of their capacity to
PRMC 2025 - International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication
676

management. Their motivation improved through
satisfying the internal need of competence. This study
is constrained by its use of cross-sectional data instead
of longitudinal data, which may ignore changes in
burnout levels as the venture scales. When job
demands continue to reach higher levels, job resources
may have diminishing returns on burnout levels.
A study exploring the relationship between
emotional labor and burnout indicated that salon
workers are expected to deliver care and assistance to
customers that surpass the scope of their official job
roles. (Page et al., 2024). In the face of high emotional
demands from clients, emotional labor could lead to
job burnout, especially when salon workers lacked
skills and were unfairly remunerated. Specifically,
employees lacked motivation and did not believe in
their abilities to accomplish challenging tasks, whose
internal needs of competence were not satisfied.
What’s worse, with the intense emotional demands
from customers, salon workers’ efforts and rewards
were not proportional, and could not perceive the
significance of their work. Consequently, lack of both
extrinsic and intrinsic motivation contributed to
increased burnout levels. Research on burnout
demonstrated that the pressures associated with
information and communication technologies (ICTs)
have a substantial adverse effect on burnout, where
work-family balance acts as a mediator (Ninaus et al.,
2021). It concluded that increasing ICTs resources
may not reduce employee burnout levels. It’s more
critical to adjust their perceptions of ICTs, and
introduce effective ways of dealing with them,
increasing sense of challenge and self-efficacy, then
ICTs are no longer perceived as a source of stress.
Under those circumstances, intrinsic motivation is the
key to reducing burnout compared to direct extrinsic
motivation.
From the micro-perspective, appraisal and self-
regulation towards stress are important factors
affecting burnout level. A study of the appraisal of job
demands and employee burnout, selected a random
sample of 631 employees in Upper Austria, which
included a wide range of occupations (Gerich &
Weber, 2019). The mean age of respondents was
around 45 years old and mean tenure was around 15
years. The majority of respondents were experienced
workers, with 48.1% professionals and 21.5%
managers. This study conducted separate analyses for
burnout and satisfaction. The outcomes demonstrated
that all challenge appraisals are inversely related to
burnout, while hindrance appraisals are the opposite.
The more employees appraised job demands as being
threatening, the more they would report pressure,
which decreased motivation levels. It further
concluded that job control and social support can
reshape perceptions of high demands, transforming
them from stressors into motivators, thus reducing
burnout levels. This highlights the importance of
fostering supportive work environments and
empowering employees to manage demands
effectively. The limitation of this study is that it
ignores employees’ personal traits and other boundary
conditions in the organizational environment, which
refer to task-related and organizational characteristics.
Other boundary conditions such as leadership and
regulation, also may be influential factors in stressor
appraisal.
Most of the previous studies have used burnout as
an outcome variable without mentioning the impact of
burnout in turn on motivation. A study of
psychological need satisfaction and burnout indicated
that burnout is negatively correlated with basic
psychological need satisfaction (Maunz & Glaser,
2024). Employees who suffer increased burnout may
find themselves lacking the energy to make decisions,
and distance themselves from work. It indicates that
their motivation to achieve autonomy, competence,
and relatedness has diminished.
In summary, these studies have demonstrated the
role of motivation and illustrated a negative
correlation between motivation and burnout. The
differences lie in the perspectives and directions of
research, with some focusing on superficial behaviors,
some on individual appraisals, and some on reverse
impact pathways. It can be concluded that resources
are the antidote to stress-generated burnout, and that
external resources promote intrinsic motivation such
as autonomy and self-efficacy, which is often the key
to alleviating effects. Limitation is that they all
emphasized the positive impacts of organizational
resources on burnout through enhancing motivation.
The role of critical personal resources, like emotional
intelligence and proactive personality, is not fully
discussed.
4 MOTIVATION AND JOB
SATISFACTION
Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation play a critical
role in enhancing job satisfaction. A study focusing on
this relationship selected 306 managers from Saudi
Arabian enterprises of different scales (Aljumah,
2023). The study collected data by a survey
questionnaire, and the sample was largely composed
of male individuals in managerial roles. It covered
four types of positions, with 32% managers, 22%
The Relationships Between Burnout, Motivation and Job Satisfaction: A Job Demands-Resources Perspective
677

senior managers, 27% heads of department and 19%
chief executive officers. Partial least squares
structural equation modeling was employed to
investigate the multifaceted relationships among the
studied variables.
The study concluded that both extrinsic and
intrinsic motivation were positively correlated with
job satisfaction, whereas the latter had a more
significant impact on satisfaction than the former. In
addition, the study indicated that performance-based
incentives and compensation satisfaction were vital
determinants in enhancing external motivation.
Besides, employee recognition significantly enhances
intrinsic motivation by boosting self-confidence and
self-worth, reinforcing employees' sense of
responsibility and value within the organization. As a
result, employees were more energized and engaged
in their work, which contributed to higher job
satisfaction levels. However, this study fails to
investigate the interaction between extrinsic
motivation and intrinsic motivation. Besides, the fact
that this research sample is predominantly male will
also affect the generalization of the conclusions.
Some studies indicate the mediational role of
burnout between extrinsic motivation and job
satisfaction. A study about high performance work
systems concluded that economic incentives and high-
performance remuneration, which were components
of extrinsic motivation, indirectly enhanced job
satisfaction through burnout reduction (Dorta-Afonso
et al., 2023). Additionally, practices intended for
developing employee knowledge, skills and abilities
required to perform well, such training, had a positive
effect on job satisfaction directly. The practices
contributed to stimulating intrinsic motivation, which
could satisfy the internal need of competence.
The enhancement of employee motivation and
engagement through job resources results in increased
job satisfaction. Prior studies concluded that
managers' satisfaction levels increased when the
venture was scaling, which were consistently higher
than those of non-managers (Genedy er al., 2024).
Greater resources and control motivated managers to
actively tackle workplace challenges, while intrinsic
factors like autonomy and competence helped them
manage stress and sustain satisfaction. Job resources
can help employees better stimulate intrinsic
motivation, improve work engagement, and thus
enhance job satisfaction.
When faced with high job demands, the positive
impacts of job resources on job satisfaction is not
direct, but more likely by changing perceptions toward
demands. The study of the appraisal of job demands
and satisfaction concluded that challenge appraisals
were positively associated with higher work
satisfaction (Gerich & Weber, 2019). When
employees saw the stress of work demands as
challenges, it provided them with stimulation and a
positive attitude toward work. Under challenge
appraisals, self-efficacy as a motivator was
strengthened, leading to increased job satisfaction.
However, challenge appraisals declined after the
stress exceeded a certain level. Overload could cause
boredom and burnout, thereby reducing the positive
impacts of challenge appraisals on job satisfaction.
Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation contribute
to enhancing employee satisfaction. Intrinsic
motivation is particularly crucial for job satisfaction
because it promotes employees' deep satisfaction with
their work. Moreover, the impact of extrinsic
motivation on satisfaction is often indirect. Job
resources and other factors, can enhance job
satisfaction by improving employees' motivation and
engagement.
5 BURNOUT AND
SATISFACTION
Increased burnout levels are linked to reduced job
satisfaction. The main reason is that burnout directly
affects employees' emotional and cognitive states,
reducing their positive evaluations of their work.
From the characteristics of burnout, emotional
exhaustion is negatively correlated with job
satisfaction, which is particularly evident in a high
workload environment (Bakker et al., 2023).
Employees tend to lose interest and engagement in
their work. Similarly, reduced personal achievement
occurs when employees feel their work is
meaningless or that they cannot achieve success, thus
reducing job satisfaction.
The negative link between burnout and
satisfaction is moderated by various factors, such as
job resources and individual characteristics. High
social support contributed to reducing burnout and
increasing employee satisfaction (Gerich & Weber,
2019). Social care and career training could enhance
employees’ sense of belonging and self-efficacy,
thereby improving job satisfaction. Research
involving foreign language teachers from universities,
secondary schools, and primary schools, revealed a
strong inverse relationship between burnout and job
satisfaction, emphasizing the need for interventions to
address burnout in this profession. (Wang et al., 2024).
The relationship between burnout and job satisfaction
was further moderated by factors like educational
PRMC 2025 - International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication
678

setting, with public school teachers representing a
stronger negative correlation compared to those in
mixed or private settings. What’s more, some
personal traits such as personality and psychological
capital play an important moderating role in the
relationship between job burnout and job satisfaction.
For instance, extroverted and optimistic employees
may maintain a higher positive attitude in stressful
environments, thereby alleviating the negative
impacts of burnout.
Other moderators such as work-family balance,
can achieve a similar effect. Recent studies have
shown that work-family balance increases job
satisfaction through burnout reduction (Ninaus et al.,
2021). By fostering a harmonious integration of work
and personal life, employees are better equipped to
manage stress, maintain motivation, and increase
productivity, ultimately benefiting both individual
and organizational outcomes.
Burnout and job satisfaction share a complex,
interactive relationship. As indicated by the studies
discussed, burnout often correlates with reduced job
satisfaction. The further research focus on different
aspects, including indirect affect and mitigating
factors. Job burnout not only directly affects job
satisfaction, but may also affect employees' work
attitudes through various mediating mechanisms,
such as work engagement and psychological capital.
Additionally, factors like job resources and personal
traits can alleviate the adverse effects of burnout and
enhance satisfaction. Limitation is that there is
insufficient comparison between the negative impacts
of job demands on burnout and the positive impacts
of resources on satisfaction, which is important for
considering employee overall well-being. Given that
the mitigating effect of job resources will be
weakened under high-pressure environments, it is
more important to find the optimal level at which job
resources function. Moreover, it is beneficial to
identify job resources that can directly exert a more
positive effect on job satisfaction. Besides, future
research should pay more attention to the
heterogeneity of employees, such as different cultural
backgrounds.
6 DISCUSSION AND
SUGGESTION
6.1 Discussion
Under the JD-R theoretical framework, job burnout,
motivation and job satisfaction interact and influence
each other. The relationships among them are
moderated by job demands and job resources, which
present different patterns in different contexts. Job
burnout is usually associated with excessive job
demands and insufficient job resources. In such
situations, employees are more inclined to perceive
job demands as obstacles. Their psychological
resources will be exhausted when they feel stressed,
leading to energy depletion and burnout, which in
turn weakens their motivation.
In reality, job resources possess inherent
motivational properties that produce positive effects
on employees’ well-being, in the form of extrinsic
motivation or by stimulating intrinsic motivation.
Motivation can help employees recover from burnout,
especially when there are sufficient job resources.
When employees are highly motivated, they can
alleviate burnout through adaptive coping strategies,
such as time management. Additionally, employees
tend to appraise job demands as challenges,
contributing to a high level of work engagement even
when facing greater work pressure. High job
motivation and engagement increase the likelihood
that employees will feel accomplished in their roles,
therefore showing higher job satisfaction. Moreover,
the provision of work resources can enhance
motivation, thereby improving employee job
satisfaction. Further studies reveal that job resources
and other moderating factors indirectly improve job
satisfaction by reducing burnout. Therefore,
preventing burnout and finding the resources that can
exert a direct and positive effect on job satisfaction
are especially important.
However, the dynamics of how job resources
moderate burnout and job satisfaction need to be
considered. Before a certain level of job demands,
higher social support strengthens its beneficial impact
on alleviating burnout and improving satisfaction as
demands increase (Gerich & Weber, 2019).
Nevertheless, when it exceeds the certain level, the
positive impacts will be weakened. For the overall
impacts on employees’ well-being, it is helpful to
identify the optimal level of job demands, where job
resources can function well.
6.2 Suggestion
Comprehending the interplay among burnout,
motivation, and job satisfaction carries practical
significance for optimizing the work environment,
improving employees’ well-being and organizational
effectiveness. Organizations should make full use of
the natural motivational characteristics of work
resources. Additionally, it is important to test
The Relationships Between Burnout, Motivation and Job Satisfaction: A Job Demands-Resources Perspective
679

employees' tolerance for work stress and adjust the
ratio between job demands and resources reasonably,
thus reducing employee burnout levels and improving
satisfaction. In view of the key role of intrinsic
motivation, managers should pay more attention to
employees’ personal traits, monitoring their burnout
levels and designing tailor-made plans. It is crucial to
take measures that can change their evaluation of
work demands, so that they will reduce their
resistance to work and regard it as an adventure.
6.3 Future Research
Future research should adopt a longitudinal approach
to examine the overall effects of job resources and
demands on employee well-being. Additionally, the
moderating role of individual differences among
employees in the above relationships have rarely been
discussed, such as personality traits and
psychological capital. As intrinsic motivation acts
like a key role at the crossroads, future research
should start with employees themselves rather than
external resources. The possible outcomes depend on
the level of intrinsic motivation, which can be
avoiding burnout, improving satisfaction or trapping
in a vicious circle. In addition, their evaluation of job
demands significantly influences the functioning of
intrinsic motivation, potentially affected by
environmental and personal factors. Like the study
mentioned before, changing the perception of ICTs,
not appraising it as a stressful demand, can contribute
to improving employee well-being (Ninaus et al.,
2021). Besides, with the changes in the work
environment, especially the popularity of remote
work and flexible work arrangements, researchers
should pay attention to the potential impact of these
new work models on the relationship between job
burnout, motivation, and job satisfaction.
7 CONCLUSION
In summary, job burnout, motivation, and job
satisfaction present a complex interrelationship under
the JD-R theoretical framework. Job burnout usually
has a negative impact on motivation and job
satisfaction, whereas job resources can enhance
employees’ motivation and effectively alleviate this
impact, thereby improving employees' job
satisfaction. Specifically, job demands and job
resources serve as moderators in these relationships,
which is dynamic and interactive. In addition, the key
role of intrinsic motivation cannot be ignored, which
functions through individual appraisals toward job
demands. Consequently, organizations should make
full use of the natural motivational characteristics of
work resources, developing suitable ratio between job
demands and resources. Moreover, managers should
emphasize the importance of employees’ personal
traits and take measures that can affect employees’
evaluation of work demands. Job burnout, motivation
and job satisfaction are important factors affecting
employees' mental health and work performance.
Comprehending the relationships between them can
help improve employee well-being and
organizational effectiveness. Hence, the long-term
competitive advantages can be established in the
fierce market competition.
REFERENCES
Aljumah A. 2023. The impact of extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation on job satisfaction: The mediating role of
transactional leadership. Cogent Business and
Management 10 3.
Altintas, E., Karaca, Y., Berjot, S., El Haj, M., &
Boudoukha, A. H. (2023). Work stress and motivation
in psychologists in the hospital setting: the role of
primary cognitive appraisal. Psychology, Health &
Medicine, 28 4:1039-1048.
Bakker A. B., Demerouti E., Sanz-Vergel A. 2023. Job
Demands–Resources Theory: Ten Years Later. Annual
Review of Organizational Psychology and
Organizational Behavior 10 1:25–53.
Dorta-Afonso D., Romero-Domínguez L., Benítez-Núñez
C. 2023. It’s worth it! High performance work systems
for employee job satisfaction: The mediational role of
burnout. International Journal of Hospitality
Management 108 103364.
Edú-Valsania, S., Laguía, A., & Moriano, J. A. 2022.
Burnout: A review of theory and measurement.
International journal of environmental research and
public health, 19 3:1780.
Genedy M., Hellerstedt K., Naldi L., Wiklund J. 2024.
Growing pains in scale-ups: How scaling affects new
venture employee burnout and job satisfaction. Journal
of Business Venturing 39 2:106367.
Gerich J., Weber C. 2019. The ambivalent appraisal of job
demands and the moderating role of job control and
social support for burnout and job satisfaction. Social
Indicators Research 148 1:251-280.
Li Y., Chen C., Yuan Y. 2025. Evolving the job demands-
resources framework to JD-R 3.0: The impact of after-
hours connectivity and organizational support on
employee psychological distress. Acta Psychologica
253 104710.
Maunz L. A., Glaser J. 2024. Longitudinal dynamics of
psychological need satisfaction, meaning in work, and
burnout. Journal of Vocational Behavior 150 103971.
Ninaus K., Diehl S., Terlutter R. 2021. Employee
perceptions of information and communication
PRMC 2025 - International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication
680

technologies in work life, perceived burnout, job
satisfaction and the role of work-family balance.
Journal of Business Research 136 652-666.
Page S. M., Chur-Hansen A., Delfabbro P. 2024. Emotional
labour and burnout in the hair and beauty industry: A
narrative review. Social Sciences & Humanities Open
10 101078.
Wang Q., Gao Y., Wang X. 2024. The Relationships
Between Burnout, Job Satisfaction, and Emotion
Regulation Among Foreign Language Teachers: A
Meta-Analytic Review. Acta Psychologica 250 104545.
The Relationships Between Burnout, Motivation and Job Satisfaction: A Job Demands-Resources Perspective
681