Socio-ethical Principles of Personnel Demotivation at the Enterprise as a Factor of Professional Burnout
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to substantiate methodological approaches to examining the socio-ethical principles of employee demotivation within an enterprise as a factor contributing to professional burnout. In this study, professional burnout is interpreted not merely as an individual psychological response to excessive workload or occupational stress, but as a complex multifactorial phenomenon shaped by the organizational, managerial, social, and ethical characteristics of the internal business environment. The use of digital analytics tools enabled the identification of increasing scholarly attention to the phenomenon of psychological and occupational exhaustion in interdisciplinary research and facilitated tracing the gradual institutionalization of professional burnout within both academic and public discourse. The findings indicate that the key determinants of professional burnout extend beyond work intensity and psychological overload to include unfair managerial practices, lack of trust in leadership, non-transparent reward systems, ineffective ethical communication, and violations of employee dignity and respect in workplace interactions. It is argued that the persistent influence of these factors generates moral stress, which gradually transforms initial employee demotivation into a sustained condition of emotional exhaustion, professional alienation, and declining productivity. The scientific novelty of the study lies in advancing a conceptual approach to understanding professional burnout as a consequence of socio-ethical distortions in the personnel management system, as well as in developing an integrated model for burnout prevention and mitigation based on the interconnection of an ethical organizational environment, fair managerial practices, psychological safety, and mechanisms for restoring employee resources. The practical significance of the research lies in the potential applications of the proposed model for designing HR management programs, improving corporate culture, and implementing early-stage diagnostic systems to identify and prevent professional burnout risks in enterprises.
Source: Social Economics
Authors: Svitlana Biriuchenko, Tetiana Ostapchuk
Institution: Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University
Language: English
Topic: Stress and Burnout Research
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7202355162