Organizational commitment

Organizational behavior and human resources

Context (archaeology)

Organizational theory

Biology

Resource dependence theory

Social psychology

Centrality

Conservation of resources theory

Organization development

Organizational behavior

Economics

Computer science

Management science

Paleontology

Burnout

Psychology

Mathematics

Management

Organizational studies

Combinatorics

Clinical psychology

Knowledge management

Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior

Over the past 30 years, conservation of resources (COR) theory has become one of the most widely cited theories in organizational psychology and organizational behavior. COR theory has been adopted across the many areas of the stress spectrum, from burnout to traumatic stress. Further attesting to the theory's centrality, COR theory is largely the basis for the more work-specific leading theory of organizational stress, namely the job demands-resources model. One of the major advantages of COR theory is its ability to make a wide range of specific hypotheses that are much broader than those offered by theories that focus on a single central resource, such as control, or that speak about resources in general. In this article, we will revisit the principles and corollaries of COR theory that inform those more specific hypotheses and will review research in organizational behavior that has relied on the theory.

Conservation of Resources in the Organizational Context: The Reality of Resources and Their Consequences