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The Job Demands-Resources

model: state of the art

Arnold B. Bakker

Erasmus University Rotterdam, Institute of Psychology,

Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, Rotterdam,

The Netherlands, and

Evangelia Demerouti

Utrecht University, Department of Social and Organizational Psychology,

Utrecht, The Netherlands

The Job

Demands-

Resources model

309

Received June 2006

Revised October 2006

Accepted October 2006

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to give a state-of-the art overview of the Job

Demands-Resources (JD-R) model

Design/methodology/approach – The strengths and weaknesses of the demand-control model and

the effort-reward imbalance model regarding their predictive value for employee well being are

discussed. The paper then introduces the more ﬂexible JD-R model and discusses its basic premises.

Findings – The paper provides an overview of the studies that have been conducted with the JD-R

model. It discusses evidence for each of the model’s main propositions. The JD-R model can be used as

a tool for human resource management. A two-stage approach can highlight the strengths and

weaknesses of individuals, work groups, departments, and organizations at large.

Originality/value – This paper challenges existing stress models, and focuses on both negative and

positive indicators of employee well being. In addition, it outlines how the JD-R model can be applied to

a wide range of occupations, and be used to improve employee well being and performance.

Keywords Employees, Employee behaviour, Human resource management

Paper type Research paper

During the past three decades, many studies have shown that job characteristics can

have a profound impact on employee well being (e.g. job strain, burnout, work

engagement). For example, research has revealed that job demands such as a high

work pressure, emotional demands, and role ambiguity may lead to sleeping problems,

exhaustion, and impaired health (e.g. Doi, 2005; Halbesleben and Buckley, 2004),

whereas job resources such as social support, performance feedback, and autonomy

may instigate a motivational process leading to job-related learning, work engagement,

and organizational commitment (e.g. Demerouti et al. , 2001; Salanova et al. , 2005; Taris

and Feij, 2004). Although these previous studies have produced a long list of possible

antecedents of employee well being, theoretical progress has been limited. Many

studies have either used a laundry-list approach to predict employee well being, or they

have relied on one of two inﬂuential job stress models, namely the demand-control

model (Karasek, 1979) and the effort-reward imbalance model (Siegrist, 1996).

The present article outlines the strengths and weaknesses of both models regarding

their predictive value for employee well being. We will argue that most research on the

demand-control model and the effort-reward imbalance model has been restricted to a

given and limited set of predictor variables that may not be relevant for all job

Journal of Managerial Psychology

Vol. 22 No. 3, 2007

pp. 309-328

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0268-3946

DOI 10.1108/02683940710733115

JMP

22,3

positions. In addition, the vast majority of previous studies have focused on negative

outcome variables, including burnout, ill health, and repetitive strain. The central aim

of this article is to give an overview of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model

(Demerouti et al. , 2001a), which incorporates many possible working conditions, and

focuses on both negative and positive indicators of employee well being. The JD-R

model can be applied to a wide range of occupations, and can be used to improve

employee well being and performance.

310

Balance models of employee well being

Point of departure of several models in the occupational health literature is that job strain

is the result of a disturbance of the equilibrium between the demands employees are

exposed to and the resources they have at their disposal. For example, according to the

well-known demand-control model (DCM; Karasek, 1979, 1998), job strain is particularly

caused by the combination of high job demands (particularly work overload and time

pressure) and low job control – “the working individual’s potential control over his tasks

and his conduct during the working day” (Karasek, 1979, pp. 289-290). Thus, one basic

premise in the DCM is that employees who can decide themselves how to meet their job

demands do not experience job strain (e.g. job-related anxiety, health complaints,

exhaustion, and dissatisfaction). According to Karasek (1979), p. 287):

The individual’s decision latitude is the constraint which modulates the release or

transformation of “stress” (potential energy) into the energy of action.

There is indeed empirical evidence showing that particularly the combination of high

job demands and low job control is an important predictor of psychological strain and

illness (Karasek, 1979; Schnall et al. , 1994). Although the literature provides

considerable support for the strain hypothesis, support for the buffer hypothesis –

stating that control can moderate the negative effects of high demands on well being –

is less consistent (De Jonge and Kompier, 1997; Van der Doef and Maes, 1999). This

may suggest that job control is only partly able to buffer the impact of job demands on

employee well being. Nevertheless, the DCM has dominated the empirical research on

job stress and health over the past 20 years (see also Cordery, 1997).

An alternative model, the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model (Siegrist, 1996)

emphasizes the reward, rather than the control structure of work. The ERI-model

assumes that job strain is the result of an imbalance between effort (extrinsic job

demands and intrinsic motivation to meet these demands) and reward (in terms of salary,

esteem reward, and security/career opportunities – i.e. promotion prospects, job security

and status consistency). The basic assumption is that a lack of reciprocity between effort

and reward (i.e. high effort/low reward conditions) will lead to arousal and stress (cf.

equity theory; Walster et al. , 1978), which, in turn, may lead to cardiovascular risks and

other strain reactions. Thus, having a demanding, but unstable job, achieving at a high

level without being offered any promotion prospects, are examples of a stressful

imbalance (De Jonge et al. , 2000). The combination of high effort and low reward at work

was indeed found to be a risk factor for cardiovascular health, subjective health, mild

psychiatric disorders and burnout (for a review, see Van Vegchel et al. ,2005).Unlikethe

DCM, the ERI-model introduces a personal component in the model as well. Over

commitment is deﬁned as a set of attitudes, behaviors and emotions reﬂecting excessive

striving in combination with a strong desire of being approved and esteemed. According

to the model, over commitment may moderate the association between effort-reward

imbalance and employee well being. Thus, personality is expected to be able to further

qualify the interaction between effort and reward. Some evidence for this pattern has

indeed been reported (e.g. De Jonge et al. , 2000).

The Job

Demands-

Resources model

Strengths and weaknesses of both models

The basic assumption of both the DCM and the ERI-model is that job demands

particularly lead to job strain (and in extreme cases to burnout), when certain job

resources are lacking (autonomy in the DCM; salary, esteem reward and security/career

opportunities in the ERI-model). In general, one may argue that the strength of these

models lies in their simplicity. This can also be seen as a weakness, since the complex

reality of working organizations is reduced to only a handful of variables. This simplicity

does no justice to reality. Indeed, research on employee well being has produced a laundry

list of job demands and (lack of) job resources as potential predictors, not only including

high psychological and physical job demands (lack of) rewards, and (lack of) autonomy,

but also emotional demands, social support from colleagues, supervisory support, and

performance feedback, to name only a few (see Halbesleben and Buckley, 2004; Kahn and

Byosserie, 1992; Lee and Ashforth, 1996). This raises the question whether the DCM and

ERI-model are applicable to the universe of job positions, and whether in certain

occupations other combinations of demands and (lack of) resources than the ones

incorporated in the models may be responsible for employee well being. Some scholars

have acknowledged this in their research and included physical and emotional demands

in the DCM or ERI-model (De Jonge et al. , 1999; Van Vegchel et al. , 2002).

A related point of critique is the static character of the two models. Thus, it is

unclear why autonomy is the most important resource for employees in the DCM (and

additionally social support in the extended demand-control-support model; Johnson

and Hall, 1988). Would it not be possible that in certain work situations totally different

resources prevail (for example inspirational leadership in an internet company, or open

communication among reporters of a local TV station)? In a similar vein, the ERI-model

(Siegrist, 1996) postulates salary, esteem reward, and status control as the most

important job resources that may compensate for the impact of job demands on strain.

Why is autonomy not incorporated in this model? Are salary and status control more

important job resources than task identity and a high quality relationship with one’s

supervisor? Thus, the models do not leave room for the integration of other

work-related factors that can (and have been found to) be related to well being.

Moreover, it is unclear why work pressure or (intrinsic and extrinsic) effort should

always be the most important job demands. It seems evident that the choice of

researchers for a certain model implies one-sided attention for speciﬁc aspects of the

work environment, whereas other aspects are neglected. This is a serious draw back,

since we know that certain job demands – like emotional demands – are highly

prevalent in some speciﬁc occupations (e.g. teachers, nurses, doctors, and waitresses;

Bakker et al. , 2000c; Hochschild, 1983; Morris and Feldman, 1996), whereas they are

virtually absent in other occupations. For example, the work of control room operators

and air-trafﬁc controllers is more about the processing of information than about

working with people (Demerouti et al. , 2001a, b), and therefore mental job demands are

more important in these occupations.

Although empirical tests of Karasek (1979) DCM have primarily focused on work

overload and time pressure as indicators of job demands, and on skill discretion and

decision latitude as indicators of job control, Karasek included role conﬂict in his

original job demands measure, and stated that:

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JMP

22,3

The goal in constructing the scale of job demands is to measure the psychological stressors

involved in accomplishing the work load, stressors related to unexpected tasks, and stressors

of job-related personal conﬂict (Karasek, 1979, p. 291).

He added that:

Stressors such as fear of unemployment or occupational career problems might also

contribute to these measures (p. 291).

In a similar vein, Karasek stated:

In future research it would be desirable to discriminate between the effects of several different

aspects of decision latitude (i.e. with respect to skill, task organization, time pacing,

organizational policy inﬂuence, control over potential uncertainties, decision resources) (p. 290).

This all implies that Karasek acknowledged the relevance of a wider range of job

demands and resources. Nevertheless, most studies on the DCM and the ERI-model

have been restricted to a given and limited set of independent variables that may not be

relevant for all job positions.

312

The job demands-resources model

At the heart of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker et al. , 2003b; c;

Demerouti et al. , 2001a, b) lies the assumption that whereas every occupation may have

its own speciﬁc risk factors associated with job stress, these factors can be classiﬁed in

two general categories (i.e. job demands and job resources), thus constituting an

overarching model that may be applied to various occupational settings, irrespective of

the particular demands and resources involved. Job demands refer to those physical,

psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical

and/or psychological (cognitive and emotional) effort or skills and are therefore

associated with certain physiological and/or psychological costs. Examples are a high

work pressure, an unfavorable physical environment, and emotionally demanding

interactions with clients. Although job demands are not necessarily negative, they may

turn into job stressors when meeting those demands requires high effort from which the

employee has not adequately recovered (Meijman and Mulder, 1998).

Job resources refer to those physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects

of the job that are either/or:

. Functional in achieving work goals.

. Reduce job demands and the associated physiological and psychological costs.

. Stimulate personal growth, learning, and development.

Hence, resources are not only necessary to deal with job demands, but they also are

important in their own right. This agrees with Hackman and Oldham (1980) job

characteristics theory that emphasizes the motivational potential of job resources at the

task level, including autonomy, feedback, and task signiﬁcance. In addition, this agrees

on a more general level with conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 2001)

that states that the prime human motivation is directed towards the maintenance and

accumulation of resources. Accordingly, resources are valued in their own right or

because they are means to the achievement or protection of other valued resources. Job

resources may be located at the level of the organization at large (e.g. pay, career

opportunities, job security), the interpersonal and social relations (e.g. supervisor and

co-worker support, team climate), the organization of work (e.g. role clarity,

participation in decision making), and at the level of the task (e.g. skill variety, task

identity, task signiﬁcance, autonomy, performance feedback).

The Job

Demands-

Resources model

Dual processes

A second premise of the JD-R model is that two different underlying psychological

processes play a role in the development of job strain and motivation (see Figure 1). In

the ﬁrst, health impairment process, poorly designed jobs or chronic job demands (e.g.

work overload, emotional demands) exhaust employees’ mental and physical resources

and may therefore lead to the depletion of energy (i.e. a state of exhaustion) and to

health problems (e.g. Demerouti et al. , 2000, 2001a, b; Leiter, 1993). According to

Hockey (1993), individuals use performance-protection strategies under the inﬂuence of

environmental demands. Performance protection is achieved through the mobilization

of sympathetic activation (autonomic and endocrine) and/or increased subjective effort

(use of active control in information processing). Hence, the greater the activation

and/or effort, the greater the physiological costs for the individual. Even though the

use of this strategy makes it difﬁcult to demonstrate overt decrements in primary task

performance, according to Hockey’s theory, several different patterns of indirect

degradation may be identiﬁed. These are referred to as compensatory costs (increased

activation and/or subjective effort), strategy adjustments (narrowing of attention,

increased selectivity, redeﬁnition of task requirements), and fatigue after-effects (risky

choices, high levels of subjective fatigue). The long-term effect of such a compensatory

strategy may be a draining of an individual’s energy, eventually resulting in a

breakdown.

The second process proposed by the JD-R model is motivational in nature, whereby

it is assumed that job resources have motivational potential and lead to high work

engagement, low cynicism, and excellent performance. As follows from our deﬁnition,

job resources may play either an intrinsic motivational role because they foster

employees’ growth, learning and development, or they may play an extrinsic

motivational role because they are instrumental in achieving work goals. In the former

case, job resources fulﬁll basic human needs (Deci and Ryan, 1985), such as the needs

313

Figure 1.

The Job

Demands-Resources

model

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