The changing psychological contract at work and employee burnout

Today we stand in a vortex of technological, economic, and cultural changes that altered dramatically the world of labor and with it the psychological contract between employers and employees. While the effects of the changed contract at work are usually addressed from an organizational, social or economic perspective, the current article addresses it from a psychological perspective from which one noteworthy cost of the changed psychological contract is employee burnout. The article describes burnout, differentiates it from stress, and proposes an existential perspective to explain its underlying dynamic, using the results of a cross-cultural study of Israeli and American managers as an example. Recent studies on gender differences in management are used to point in the recommended for preventing employee burnout, despite the new psychological contract, namely--a democratic, egalitarian management style.