A Resource Depletion Spiral? A Moderated Mediation Model of Emotional Exhaustion and Venting at Work

Abstract

We investigate whether, why, and when emotionally exhausted employees may engage in venting, or discharging negative feelings to others at work. Drawing on emotion regulation research, we envision that emotionally exhausted employees engage in response-focused emotion regulation, which depletes regulatory resources and leads to emotion regulation failures (i.e., venting). We further examine employees’ core self-evaluation and turnover intention as boundary conditions for different stages of the mediated relationship. Moderated mediation analysis suggests that emotional exhaustion is positively related to venting only among employees with low core self-evaluation who reluctantly stay in organizations. Implications for research and practice are discussed.