Beyond the brink: STEM women and resourceful sensemaking after burnout
通过质性分析，探讨STEM领域女性在经历职业倦怠后如何通过意义建构重新协商和调整工作轨迹，揭示了三种意义建构情节线，对理解倦怠恢复过程和劳动力可持续性有理论贡献。
Summary This paper attends to the burnout recovery experiences of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and qualitatively explores how these individuals renegotiate, reorient, and recalibrate their work trajectories after burnout; an ambiguous and shocking event that has been shown to cause lingering disruption for both individuals and organizations (Salvagioni et al., 2017). We bring together conservation of resources (COR) theory and a sensemaking approach, illustrating how attention to sensemaking reveals the dynamics of resource allocation during times of disruption and loss; that is, the relational negotiation of protecting, investing, and fostering resources, including and importantly to burnout, a recognizable sense of recovery. Our rich qualitative analysis and findings reveal three sensemaking plotlines (Combative, Regenerative, and Promissory) through which rituals of resource management take place. Insights from this study provide a theoretical exposition for the post‐burnout experience, illuminating the black box between burnout and recovery. We present a number of theoretical and practical contributions in developing the scholarly vistas surrounding (post‐)burnout studies and STEM careers that better conceptualize (i) how marginalized members in highly instituted settings experience the aftermath of burnout and (ii) the broader implications this has for the sustainability of workforces.