European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies
ISSN: 2501 - 9988
ISSN-L: 2501 - 9988
Available on-line at: http://www.oapub.org/soc
Volume 2 │ Issue 1 │ 2017
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.264096
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JOB MAIN DIMENSIONS AND
GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES STAFF BURNOUT
Farshad Yeganeh, Shahram Salavatii
1
Department of Education Management, Tonekabon Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon, Iran
2
Department of Business Administration, Tonekabon Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon, Iran
Abstract:
This study examined how job main dimensions associated with the governmental
agencies staffs’ burnout. The Pearson correlation and the Multiple Regression employed
to analyze the collected data from 241 governmental agency employees in Iran. Two
sets of questionnaires, Job Main Dimensions and Maslach Burnout Inventory, helped
gathering the data related to job main dimensions and employee burnout. The findings
indicated that the five job main dimensions negatively associate with employees’
burnout. In addition, the outcome of the Multiple Regression analysis indicated that
skill variety has the most powerful impact in anticipating of job burnout. This can be
argued that managers should attention improving the job dimensions in order to reduce
the employee burnout. The findings suggest the decision maker considering the
employee’s knowledge and skills and the need for the intensity of promoting.
Keywords: job dimensions, job exhaustion, job burnout
1. Introduction
Issues related to Human resources have been broadly scrutinized in recent years since it
is generally to enhance an organization's performance. Human resources recognized as
the most valuable source of any organization that help the use of other sources in a
productive way and assist the organization to meet its goals and objectives
(Mohammady, Mirzaei and Sadeghi, 2013; Koc, Kiliclar & Yazicioglu, 2013).
Correspondence: email salavatish@gmail.com
Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved.
© 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group
1
Farshad Yeganeh, Shahram Salavati
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JOB MAIN DIMENSIONS AND
GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES STAFF BURNOUT
Skilled staff, who are consistent with organizational values and goals, and who
have strong motivation and tend to retain and keep on their membership within the
organization, are focal and critical needs of any organization (Savabi Esfahani, et al.,
2012 Rahimaghaee, et al, 2016). Conversely, the employees who do not have required
motivations and who are slow in movement within the organization could be the cause
of sluggish movement of the organization, and even this could be the cause of faltering
the organization (Salavati and Rahimaghaee, 2009). Managers desire to motivate
employees in order to deliver their duties productively (Rahimaghaee et al, 2015).
Motivation is expected to have effect on quality performance; employees who are
characterized by a low level of motivation show a lower work and life satisfaction
(Osabiya, 2015). Therefore, managers spend a plenty of time to find new ways in
motivating their employees and to overcome likely obstacle of motivation.
One of the elements that can intensify the sluggishness and lack of motivation
among employees of an organization is burnout due to the job condition (Torfi, Alam,
and Nikbakhsh, 2014). Job burnout has been known as one of the effective elements for
reducing organizational performance, employees’ satisfaction and the loss of human
forces (Lee, and Ok, 2012; Demerouti, 2012; Harder, Gouldthorpe & Goodwin, 2015).
During the past decades, scholar reported the negative effects of employees’ job
burnout on organizational productivity, and it has been at the center of interests and
attentions of both the researchers and managers (Hampton, 2007; Sangwan, 2015).
Previous studies stated when the adverse effects of burnout on employees have been
identified; researchers and particularly managers have shown considerable interests to
the employee job burnout. Research has shown that the increase in the intensity of work
resulted in rising organizational job burnout (Torfi, Alam, and Nikbakhsh, 2014).
The greater the inconsistency between the employees and their job demands, the
greater the risk of burnout among them. Despite the common stress factors in the
organizations, employees tend to show different reactions of burnout due to their
different personal traits such as personality and attitudes. This would make more or
less facilitate to the employees adapting to the workplace (Torfi, Alam, and Nikbakhsh,
2014; Leiter, Maslach, 2004).
The job burnout is defined as psychological disorders related to a job, which is
the cause of emotional problems, reducing the individual success and personality
disintegration. Imbalance between job demands and job skills, differences between
resources, expectations and job realities, and job stress take account as prominent
elements of the job burnout (Demerouti, 2012). Consequence of the job burnout consists
of absence of work, recess, change of the job, and injuries (Mohammady, et al., 2013;
Demir, Ulusoy, and Ulusoy, 2003). In addition, if organizations do not consider burnout
European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 1 │ 2017
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Farshad Yeganeh, Shahram Salavati
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JOB MAIN DIMENSIONS AND
GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES STAFF BURNOUT
at the right time, it may lead to the worsening of employees’ psychological and physical
health. It also can lead to insomnia, anxiety, depression, stroke, heart diseases, and
addiction to alcohol and substance abuse. In fact, it not only affects the employees’
organizational life, but also it adversely affects their personal life. In this situation,
organizations may lose their best employees due to burnout (Sangwan, 2015). The job
burnout is seen as one of the main occupational issues that imposes significant costs on
organizations. In the European Union, annually
million € has been allocated to
expenses induced by job stress and burnout. In the United States, the expenses had been
up to 350 million dollars each year. Although there is no obvious statistic about the
costs that are caused by the job burnout in other parts of the world, particularly the
developing countries, research on organizations and employees representing the
presence of high stresses and related issues in organizations (Savabi Esfahani, et al.,
2012; Lee, and Ok, 2012; Leiter, Maslach, 2004; Demerouti et al., 2005). Thus,
considering the job burnout by managers induce the progress of psychic wellbeing,
interpersonal relationship improvements, increasing the quality of service providing,
and reducing the costs that caused pre-retiring, and leaving the job.
Many studies showed that several elements could play the role in emerging the
job burnout and employees stress such as, age and work experience (Perera et al., 2015;
Mohammady, et al., 2013; Bargellini et al., 2000), the leadership style of managers
(Savabi Esfahani, et al., 2012), organizational atmosphere (Lee, and Ok, 2012), job
sentimental and job environmental elements (Torfi, Alam, and Nikbakhsh, 2014), job
demands and resources (Demerouti et al., 2005), supportive job environment and jobfamily repugnancy, organizational attitudes of turnover intentions, job satisfaction, and
organizational commitment, (Harder, et al., 2015). However, the emphasis on the main
aspects of the job is still required to be investigated. In this regard, this study evaluates
the relationship between main aspects of the job (variety of duties, meaningful duties,
importance of duties, independent and authority in duties and feedback) and job
burnout of employees. Specialy this study was interested to answer that; Is there any
relationship between employees’ job burnout and the main job dimensions? “re the
main job dimensions are a good predictor of employees’ job burnout? “nd, are there
any differences between employees’ job burnout and their work experience, age,
marriage status and educational level?
Accordingly, based on the literature, the following hypotheses were developed
and tested:
H1: There is a positive relationship between employee job burnout and the main
job dimensions.
H2: The main job dimensions are a good predictor of employees’ job burnout.
European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 1 │ 2017
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Farshad Yeganeh, Shahram Salavati
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JOB MAIN DIMENSIONS AND
GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES STAFF BURNOUT
H3: There are differences between employees’ job burnout and their work
experience, age, marriage status and educational level.
2. Method
This descriptive correlational study included all employees working in governmental
agencies of Mazandaranii in 2014. A total number of 241 employees were selected
through stratified random sampling method. The inclusion criteria were having at least
one year of working experience.
Two sets of questionnaires helped gathering the data; Job Main Dimensions
(JMD) questionnaire and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). JMD questionnaire
designed based on Hackman and Oldham (1980) Job Characteristics Model (Hackman,
and Oldham 2005), and it includes 15 questions based on a five-item Likert scale –
strongly agree=5 to strongly disagree=1 – to determine five job dimensions. MBI
questionnaire includes 22 questions on three components of emotional exhaustion,
personal
accomplishment,
and
depersonalization.
After
translation,
the
two
questionnaires were validated using content validity and were confirmed by experts
and scholars. The reliability of the both questionnaires tested by Cronbach’s “lpha
coefficient; (JMD = 0.86 and MBI = 0.84).
The collected data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistical tests
(Pearson's correlation test and Multiple Regression), after testing the normality of the
distribution.
3. Findings
With the mean age of 36.65 years (SD=6.14), and the mean work experiences of 13.75
years (SD=5.68), most of the participants were married (88%) and hold a bachelor
degree (54.8%). The results also showed lower rates of education among higher
educated participants – master or Ph.D. holder (12%).
An analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference between
the participants’ job burnout in terms level of education of, F (2,239) = 4.853, p = 0.007.
The result of T-test also showed low rates of job burnout among not-married
participants. In addition, the findings indicate higher rates of job burnout among
participants with ages between 30 and 35, and with work experiences between 10 and
15 years. As shown in Table 1, the mean value of job burnout was 3.74 (out of 5). This
figure can be argued that the targeted samples are relatively involved with job burnout.
ii
Mazandaran province is located in the north of Iran.
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Farshad Yeganeh, Shahram Salavati
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JOB MAIN DIMENSIONS AND
GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES STAFF BURNOUT
In addition, all dimensions of job among participants are around the medium; however,
although the dimension Feedback with the mean value of .
SD= .
had the
highest rate, other dimensions fall into lower part of medium.
As shown in Table 1, Pearson's correlation test revealed a strong significant
inverse association among Job main dimensions and employees’ job burnout r is near
to 0.75 or above). The strongest association was found between the variety of duties and
job burnout (rp = -0.97, n = 241, p = 0.001), and the lowest one found between duties
meaningful and employees’ job burnout r p = -0.68, n = 241, p = 0.001).
Table 1: Job main dimensions and job burnout description and correlations (n=241)
Job dimension/burnout
Mean
SD
1
Variety of duties
2.91
0.48
2
Duties meaningful
2.96
0.49
3
Importance of duties
2.81
0.55
4
Independent and authority in duties
2.96
0.65
5
Feedback
3.49
0.80
6
Job burnout
3.74
0.83
Correlations
1
2
3
4
5
6
--
0.70
0.89
0.85
0.88
-0.97
--
0.61
0.58
0.61
-0.68
--
0.77
0.83
-0.88
--
0.80
-0.82
--
-0.85
--
*All correlations are significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
An analysis
of
variance
confirmed
the
meaningfulness
of
regression test,
(F(5,236)=1019.719, P=0.001). Table 2 presents the outcome of the regression test. As shown
in this table, Variety of duties (P<0.001) and Importance of duties (P<0.05) have
significant share in predicting participants’ job burnout.
Therefore:
Job burnout = 104.035 – (6.902) Variety of duties – (0.301) Importance of duties
Table 2: Regression analysis
Model
(Constant)
Variety of duties
Duties meaningful
Importance of duties
Independent and authority in
duties
Feedback
Unstandardized
Standardized
Coefficients
Coefficients
t
Pvalue
B
Std. Error
Beta
104.035
0.636
--
163.650
0.001
-6.902
0.293
-0.982
-23.552
0.001
0.052
0.125
0.008
0.415
0.679
-0.301
0.197
-0.047
-1.532
0.027
0.125
0.176
0.019
0.709
0.479
0.191
0.203
0.028
0.941
0.348
European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 1 │ 2017
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Farshad Yeganeh, Shahram Salavati
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JOB MAIN DIMENSIONS AND
GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES STAFF BURNOUT
4. Discussion
The present study tested the existence of the relationship between the five main
dimensions of job (variety of duties, duties meaningful, importance of duties,
independent and authority in duties and feedback) and the employees’ job burnout. To
the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine job burnout associations with
job main dimensions. The results suggested negative and strong relationship between
the tested variables. According to the findings, the higher rates of the five examined job
dimensions results in the lower rates job burnout. This suggests that, for example, the
increase of the job duty varieties help reduce employees’ stress and their job burnout.
As well, the more feeling of an employee about, the more effects on decreasing the job
burnout. If the feedback and the consequence of the daily performance of employees
were comprehended, their job stress, which could be accompanied by the job burnout,
will be decreased, definitely.
As noted above, the review of previous studies shows that the relationship
between the overall job dimensions and burnout has not been tested. However, studies
examined the relationship between a few aspects of job and burnout. Rafferty, Friend
and Landbergies (2001) and Sangwan (2015) realized that low rates of authority in
organizational individual decision-making have a direct relation with job burnout. In
addition, Jesse, Abouljoud, and Eshelman (2015) in a study on physician burnout found
that decreasing in the physicians’ authority and low rate of workplace supports lead to
increase job burnout. In line with the findigs of this study, Chen, Chen, Zhu, Qi and
Long (2015) found a significant but negative association between job burnout and the
tasks of a job. In another study on the workplaces, related issues such as employees’
dissatisfaction and absence and leaving the job Kaderali, Wilson, Yazmin (2015) realized
that job enrichment though job diversification is one of the main strategies to manage
the job turnover, dissatisfaction and job burnout. Moreover, Harder et al., (2015)
identified some organizational factors in the incidence of burnout that were related to
the valuation and consideration of employees and their needs. In line with the findings
of this study, Sangwan (2015) also found that weak job feedback is a reason of the
incidence of job burnout.
Considering the results of the present study, in order to reinforce and to improve
the main aspects of the job, and to reduce the job burnout, the following suggestions are
presented:
Managers are suggested using new and up to date organizational and job
systems to make diversify of the jobs. To attain this goal, passing in-service
European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 1 │ 2017
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Farshad Yeganeh, Shahram Salavati
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JOB MAIN DIMENSIONS AND
GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES STAFF BURNOUT
training courses and participating in related workshops, seminars, and meetings
could be helpful.
To specify the roles of the personnel to meet the departments and organizational
objectives and goal by:
1. Offering the organizational perspective, the importance and value of duties.
2. Evaluating the jobs and improving them as more useful, beneficial, and
meaningful.
might specify and distinguish their jobs to realizing their job identity.
The managers should share required information with the employees. They
To increase the independence of jobs, managers can give authority to their
employees, and allow them to coordinate in organizational decision making, and
let them use innovative ideas.
Managers can reduce employees' job burnout by involving them to the feedback
and evaluating system. Self-evaluation of employees makes the opportunity to
create corrective actions by covering the weak points of the tasks, and by
improving the strength points. This provides a better insight about the jobs
identity Rahimaghaee et al., (2012).
5. Limitations and Future Studies
This study has several limitations. Using cross-sectional method has limited this study
to provide more clear interpretation and explanation of the association between job
burnout and job main aspects. However, a longitudinal method can help the future
studies to endorse the assumptions of this study. Secondly, the population in this study
includes only employees of governmental agency. Future studies can develop the
investigation to other type of organizations, private and non-profit, and compare the
results. Thirdly, testing the job burnout is a relatively novel field of study in Iran. This
study only examined the association between job burnout and job main aspects;
however, further studies are required to find out factors related to employee burnout.
Future studies are suggested to examine the effects of both the individual and
organizational factors on job burnout.
6. Conclusions
In summary, this study found a strong negative correlation between job main aspects
and job burnout. The findings from this study suggest that improvement of job aspects
and involvement of employees in the organizational activities through participating
European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 1 │ 2017
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Farshad Yeganeh, Shahram Salavati
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE JOB MAIN DIMENSIONS AND
GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES STAFF BURNOUT
them in decision-making to reduce burnout by involving of the employees in the
organizational decision-making process and suggestion system help to improve the job
characteristics that in turn, it will result in reducing employees’ stress and job burnout.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to appreciate Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon branch to
provide such a great opportunity to accomplish this study.
About the authors
Shahram Salavati is an assistant
Farshad Yeganeh is at
professor in the department of
the beginning of the
business
research highway who
administration.
He
teaches different courses related
recently
to business and marketing to
master in Educational
both
Administration
post-graduate
undergraduate
students.
and
He
Islamic
earned his PhD. from The Universiti
earned
his
at
Azad
University, Tonekabon
Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), and his research and
Branch, Iran. He is working as a manager at the
consultation interests include effective Internet use in
Islamic Azad University, Arak Branch. He is a
organizations, and innovation and IT adoption. He
talented and enthusiastic researcher who is
believes that learning goes beyond the classroom. He
preparing himself for PhD course
holds currently a position as Administrative and
Financial Deputy Dean at the Islamic Azad University,
Tonekabon Branch, Iran.
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GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES STAFF BURNOUT
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