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Exploring how grassroots civil servants’ professional group identification affects job burnout: Evidence from China
Abstract
We sought to understand better how to alleviate job burnout among grassroots civil servants. Specifically, we studied how professional group identification alleviated their sense of relative deprivation and enhanced their motivation for public service to reduce their burnout. We conducted a vignette experiment ( N = 151) and an online survey ( N = 439) on grassroots civil servants in China. In the experiment, we manipulated professional group identification to influence burnout in both experimental and control groups. In the survey, we used scales to measure the variables we were concerned about, and used the process plug-in of SPSS to analyze and compare the mediating effects. Results revealed that higher professional group identification led to lower job burnout, and public service motivation (PSM) and group relative deprivation (GRD) played mediating roles in the causal relationship. This study examined the dual pathways through which professional group identification mitigated job burnout, surpassing current understanding of the relationship between identification and job burnout. With greater validity than ever, we provide an original perspective on alleviating job burnout in public organizations.
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Teacher burnout is a worldwide problem, and discontent of the educators often leads to social action in forms of demonstrations and strikes. Studies often link teacher burnout to interpersonal and workplace factors. Social and societal factors, however, are rarely considered in the development of the symptoms. Our study aimed to reveal how the strength of teacher identity and different types of relative deprivation are associated with teacher burnout. A representative sample of 1797 Hungarian teachers participated in our survey study which aimed to measure exhaustion and disengagement as symptoms of burnout beside strength of teacher identity, working hours, egoistic and fraternalistic relative deprivation. The results of the Structural Equation Analysis showed that teacher identity is negatively linked to burnout symptoms. On the other hand, both types of relative deprivation and working hours are positively linked to burnout. The analysis of mediating paths also confirmed the Janus-faced effect of teacher identity: contrarily to its direct negative link to burnout, a positive mediating effect of teacher identity was revealed through fraternalistic relative deprivation. The findings indicate that the general judgement of teachers within society may contribute to burnout. Therefore, burnout research should focus on social comparison processes beside exploring intrapersonal and workplace factors.
Introduction
The report of the 20th Party Congress proposes to build a high-quality cadre capable of taking on the important task of national rejuvenation. Grassroots civil servants are facing great pressure and challenges, and alleviating burnout has become an important issue in the construction of grassroots civil servants. Empirically analysing the impact of psychological contract on burnout of grassroots civil servants in the Chinese context will help to build a high-quality grassroots civil service team.
Methods
Using a sample of 1824 grassroots civil servants in China, this study empirically examined the effect of the psychological contract on burnout among grassroots civil servants using the OLS methodology, conducted a robustness test by way of substituting variables and research methods, and then discussed the mediating effect of physical and mental health in the psychological contract and burnout among grassroots civil servants.
Results
The study showed that grassroots civil servants’ psychological contract had a significant negative impact on burnout; transactional psychological contract was positively related to burnout, and relational and developmental psychological contracts were negatively related to burnout in grassroots civil servants. The results of the heterogeneity analysis showed that the effect of psychological contract on burnout differed by age, gender, exercise frequency, and sleep status. The results of the mediation analysis showed that higher psychological contract scores were related to better physical and mental health, thus inhibiting burnout among grassroots civil servants. This indicates a significant mediation effect of physical and mental health in the relationship between psychological contract and burnout of grassroots civil servants.
Conclusion
The psychological contract of grassroots civil servants has a significant negative effect on burnout, and physical and mental health mediate between the two. These conclusions are of great theoretical and practical significance for alleviating the stress of grassroots civil servants and improving their work performance.
Team identification is associated with less exhaustion and disengagement through more social support and higher collective self‐efficacy. However, previous studies did not distinguish between emotional and instrumental support, even though both forms of support may relate differently to collective self‐efficacy. By distinguishing between both support forms, we expected an indirect effect―the ‘supportive structure’ mechanism―of team identification on burnout mediated via emotional support. For a second mechanism―the ‘supportive action’ mechanism―we expected an indirect effect serially mediated by instrumental support and collective self‐efficacy. We tested our hypotheses among N T1 = 567 employees in a four‐wave study with 3‐month time lags between measurement points. Partially in line with our expectations, emotional support (T2) mediated the relation between team identification (T1) and disengagement (T4), but not emotional exhaustion (T4). Moreover, as expected, the results showed an indirect association between team identification (T1) and emotional exhaustion and disengagement (T4) via instrumental support (T2) and collective self‐efficacy (T3). Accordingly, employees benefit from both support forms but through different mechanisms. We discuss our findings and implications for future research.
As hospitality firms face labor shortages, employees are asked to perform
a greater range of tasks than ever before. However, employees
may view certain tasks as outside the acceptable boundaries of their
role, and consider them illegitimate. Illegitimate tasks can have a range
of negative outcomes, yet we still do not understand how such tasks
affect hospitality employees. Drawing on the cognitive-affective processing
system framework, we investigate the effects of illegitimate
tasks on proactive customer service performance (PCSP) of hospitality
employees. In addition, we examine the intervening roles of harmonious
work passion and perceived insider status, and the buffering role
of traditionality. The results of two studies, using mixed methods,
show that illegitimate tasks negatively affected proactive customer
service performance (PCSP), and that perceived insider status and
harmonious work passion mediate this relationship. Moreover, traditionality
moderated these effects. These findings offer several theoretical
and practical implications.
Public servants’ mental health can impact how, how well, and to whom services are delivered. In this article, we extend the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework to consider whether employees’ perceptions of themselves, their co-workers, and beneficiaries predict higher psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a survey of state and local public servants ( n = 3,341), we report alarming rates of psychological distress: one in three employees are burnt out and one in five are experiencing compassion fatigue. Those who view government as the place to make a difference, and those who perceive co-workers as competent, are less likely to report distress. Those who attribute poverty to systemic factors, and not to individual flaws of beneficiaries, experience higher distress. These findings suggest an urgent need to prioritize public servant mental health, and show that individual perceptions of self and others can predict variation in psychological distress, even in periods of widespread crisis.
The social identity approach to stress proposes that the beneficial effects of social identification develop through individual and group processes, but few studies have addressed both levels simultaneously. Using a multilevel person-environment fit framework, we investigate the group-level relationship between team identification (TI) and exhaustion, the individual-level relationship for people within a group, and the cross-level moderation effect to test whether individual-level exhaustion depends on the level of (in)congruence in TI between individuals and their group as a whole. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 525 employees from 82 teams. Multilevel polynomial regression analysis revealed a negative linear relationship between individual-level identification and exhaustion. Surprisingly, the relation between group-level identification and exhaustion was curvilinear, indicating that group-level identification was more beneficial at low and high levels compared with medium levels. As predicted, the cross-level moderation of the individual-level relationship by group-level identification was also significant, showing that as individuals became more incongruent in a positive direction (i.e., they identified more strongly than the average team member), they reported less exhaustion, but only if the group-level identification was average or high. These results
emphasize the benefits of analyzing TI in a multilevel framework, with both theoretical and practical implications.
Burnout has been recognized as a serious health problem. In Portugal, before COVID-19 Pandemic, there were strong indicators of high prevalence of burnout in physicians and nurses. However, the Portuguese Health Care Service was able to efficiently respond to the increased demands. This study intends to understand how psychosocial variables might have been protective factors for burnout in physicians and nurses in Portugal. Specifically, we considered several psychosocial variables that have been found to be protective factors for burnout in previous research and we compared their predictive and unique impact in the prediction of burnout. These variables are perceptions of justice (distributive, procedural, justice from colleagues, justice from patients, and their families), professional identification, meaningful work and empathy. We also included workload, as a risk factor, and controlled other variables that can be confounds for burnout, such as socio-demographic variables, ideological variables (religiosity, political orientation), and specific variables related with COVID-19 pandemic. The sample of the present study is composed by 229 physicians (aged between 23 and 70 years old, M = 36.54; SD = 10.72; 48% male and 52% female) and 268 nurses (aged between 22 and 69 years old, M = 34.96; SD = 9.52; 27% male and 73% female). An online survey was created using Qualtrics and participants were recruited via Facebook and LinkedIn. The data were collected during 29 days (between the 45th and the 74th days after the first diagnosed case of COVID-19 in Portugal). The results showed that workload was a significant risk factor, except for disengagement in physicians. The most consistent protectors across samples were procedural justice (for both dimensions of burnout, both in physicians and nurses) and professional identification (for disengagement, both in physicians and nurses; for exhaustion only in physicians). This study suggests that decreasing workload and promoting procedural justice and professional identification are key factors that might be simultaneously and independently addressed in interventions for reducing the risk of burnout or preventing it from occurring in the first place.
Background
Health workers are at high risk of job burnout. Primary care in China has recently expanded its scope of services to a broader range of public health services in addition to clinical care. This study aims to measure the prevalence of burnout and identify its associated factors among clinical care and public health service providers at primary care facilities.
Methods
A cross-sectional survey (2018) was conducted among 17,816 clinical care and public health service providers at 701 primary care facilities from six provinces. Burnout was measured by the Chinese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale, and multilevel linear regression analysis was conducted to identify burnout’s association with demographics, as well as occupational and organisational factors.
Results
Overall, half of the providers (50.09%) suffered from burnout. Both the presence of burnout and the proportion of severe burnout among public health service providers (58.06% and 5.25%) were higher than among clinical care providers (47.55% and 2.26%, respectively). Similar factors were associated with burnout between clinical care and public health service providers. Younger, male, lower-educated providers and providers with intermediate professional title, permanent contract or higher working hours were related to a higher level of burnout. Organisational environment, such as the presence of a performance-based salary system, affected job burnout.
Conclusions
Job burnout is prevalent among different types of primary care providers in China, indicating the need for actions that encompass the entirety of primary care. We recommend strengthening the synergy between clinical care and public health services and transforming the performance-based salary system into a more quality-based system that includes teamwork incentives.
The scholarship on work engagement has proliferated in the past several decades, building a solid body of evidence for its role in positive achievements at, and attitudes to, work. Similarly, public service motivation (PSM) became a permanent fixture in the public sector management research, having generated insights on predisposition to serving the public and its impact on performance of civil servants. However, there is limited evidence on the relationship between PSM and work engagement. To address this gap, we surveyed 218 civil servants occupying mid‐level management positions in the civil service of a small European country of Moldova. Using moderation analysis, we find that higher PSM strengthens the positive impact of some job resources, such as perceived social impact on work engagement, whereas lower PSM makes the negative effect of some job demands, such as red tape, more pronounced. This highlights the importance of PSM in work engagement of mid‐career managers, and its role as both an enhancer and a coping mechanism.
We find that high public service motivation (PSM) strengthens the positive relationship between work engagement and job resources, whereas low PSM makes the negative impact of job demands on work engagement more pronounced. To improve work engagement, public agencies should help employees understand how their individual efforts contribute to the overall prosocial impact of the public service.
Background: The modernization of China’s system and capacity for governance that China has promoted in recent years could be understood as China trying to reform its state governance.
Purpose: This article investigates the characteristics of the basic structure of China’s state governance model since the reform and opening up.
Main Argument: China’s governance model is a dual structure model that can be observed in its organization, decentralization, value and efficiency systems. At the same time, this reform, marked by the reform of Party and state institutions, establishes a party-centered state governance system and structure; that is, the adjustment of the relationship between politics and administration, promotes the construction of the state governance system of party centralism.
Conclusion: Based on ongoing reform activities, the essence of China’s current governance reform is a more comprehensive revision of China’s governance model since the reform and opening up.
Despite an increase in research on how performance information regarding public agencies affects citizens’ evaluations of public agencies, we know very little about how performance information regarding public employees affects citizens’ evaluations of public employees and public employees themselves. This represents an important gap in the literature, given that judgments are made about whole public sector professions−not just about government bureaucracies. This article features two experiments. The first experiment assesses the effects of positive and negative perceptions regarding teacher performance on citizens’ support for public school teachers along five dimensions. The second experiment assesses the effects of negative perceptions regarding teacher performance on the morale of public school teachers themselves along six dimensions. We find that positive perceptions regarding teacher performance does not affect the attitudes of citizens or public school teachers along the dimensions that we studied. Negative perceptions regarding teacher performance, however, affected citizens’ attitudes toward three outcomes: support for teacher tenure, the likelihood that respondents' would recommend a career as a public school teacher, and respondents perceived prestige of a career as a public school teacher. Negative perceptions regarding teacher performance affected one outcome for public school teachers; their perceptions regarding the prestige of the profession.
In the literature concerning Chinese student teachers, there is little research regarding the relationship between job satisfaction, professional identity, and burnout. In the current study, 267 student teachers (aged 20 to 25 years, female 58.8%) from Western China completed surveys assessing the student teachers’ professional identity, job satisfaction, and burnout. Using structural equation models, results indicated that professional identity and job satisfaction could predict burnout, and the effect of professional identity on burnout was partially mediated by job satisfaction. Moreover, job satisfaction could significantly moderate the relationship between professional identity and burnout. These findings imply that professional identity and job satisfaction are critical indicators of burnout, and can be used in basic intervention strategies that decrease burnout among Western Chinese student teachers.
The study investigates the nature of public service motivation’s (PSM) relationship to employee work engagement. Using the Job Demands-Resource Model, the authors compare whether PSM as a resource is an antecedent to employee work engagement or has a buffering effect on job hindrances of perceived red tape in explaining employee work engagement. They surveyed 388 supervisors and managers in a public-sector organization in the United States. The findings support PSM as an antecedent along with perceived job influence and perceived procurement red tape to employee work engagement.
Motivation in Public Management: The Call of Public Service joins a long-standing debate about what drives the behavior of government employees and others who are engaged in the public's business. For many centuries, public service was considered a noble calling and, more recently, a profession. During the latter part of the 20th century, however, many scholars called into question both the reality and desirability of a public service ethic. This book draws upon a substantial and growing body of evidence from across disciplines in the social, behavioral, and natural sciences. It asks and answers key questions about the extent to which behavior is fundamentally self- or other-regarding. To paraphrase James Madison, 'public servants are not angels,' but neither are they self-aggrandizing opportunists. The evidence presented in this volume offers a compelling case that motivation theory should be grounded not only in rational choice models, but altruistic and prosocial perspectives as well. In addition to reviewing evidence from many disciplines, the volume extensively reviews research in public management conducted under the rubric of 'public service motivation'. The volume is a comprehensive guide to history, methodology, empirical research, and institutional and managerial implications of research on public service motivation. As the contributors illustrate, the implications transcend particular sectors or countries.
We provide a meta-analytical review examining two decades of work on the relationship between individuals’ social identifications and health in organizations (102 effect sizes, k=58, N=19,799). Results reveal a mean-weighted positive association between organizational identification and health (r=.21, T=.14). Analysis identified a positive relationship for both workgroup (r=.21) and organizational identification (r=.21), and in studies using longitudinal/experimental (r=.13) and cross-sectional designs (r=.22). The relationship is stronger (a) for indicators of the presence of well-being (r=.27) than absence of stress (r=.18), (b) for psychological (r=.23) than physical health (r=.16), (c) to the extent that identification is shared among group members, and (d) as the proportion of female participants in a sample decreases. Overall, results indicate that social identifications in organizations are positively associated with health but that there is also substantial variation in effect size strength. We discuss implications for theory and practice and outline a roadmap for future research.
Purpose
– Considering the ongoing international debate on the role of public administrations in economic systems, the interest around public service motivation (PSM) has significantly grown among practitioners and scholars in the past two decades. Following the research streams that have investigated topics of organizational behavior within the public context, the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of PSM on public employees’ feelings of job satisfaction. The novelty of the study lies in linking some characteristics of the work context presumed to be more prevalent in public organizations with specific job characteristics, regarded as relevant antecedents of job satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
– The study is based on two complementary studies conducted in an Italian public administration. The paper shows how PSM influences job satisfaction, job engagement, and life satisfaction.
Findings
– This paper shows how PSM influences job satisfaction, job engagement, and life satisfaction. The findings display how job engagement affects both job and life satisfaction in such contexts. Additionally, the findings display how job engagement affects both job and life satisfaction in such contexts.
Research limitations/implications
– Although based on a specific context of public administration, the analysis allows some generalizations.
Originality/value
– Based on these results, the paper contributes to two main streams of the literature. First, it enriches the existing research on PSM by analyzing how it can be managed in complex organizations. Second, it informs the literature on job satisfaction and work-related stress and relates to the intersection between organizational behavior and human resource management that informs the drawing up of HR policies. Furthermore, the paper sheds new light on how to deal with such problems and at the same time opens new avenues for investigations.
Working in the public sector implies the need to make decisions in the face of dilemmas.
As consistent decision-making is highly desirable for organizational performance, the
question arises: what do public service professionals base their decisions on? This study
aims to increase our understanding of whether public service motivation and professional
role identity are useful concepts by which to predict what decisions public service pro-
fessionals will make in complex situations. Using survey data, this research investigates the
impact of these two concepts on the decision-making of veterinary inspectors working at
the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority. The results support the hypoth-
esis that decision-making is influenced by the way in which veterinary inspectors interpret
their professional role. Public service motivation, in contrast, seems to have neither a
direct nor a moderating effect on decision-making in the context of dilemma situations.
Common method variance (CMV) is an ongoing topic of debate and concern in the organizational literature. We present four latent variable confirmatory factor analysis model designs for assessing and controlling for CMV—those for unmeasured latent method constructs, Marker Variables, Measured Cause Variables, as well as a new hybrid design wherein these three types of method latent variables are used concurrently. We then describe a comprehensive analysis strategy that can be used with these four designs and provide a demonstration using the new design, the Hybrid Method Variables Model. In our discussion, we comment on different issues related to implementing these designs and analyses, provide supporting practical guidance, and, finally, advocate for the use of the Hybrid Method Variables Model. Through these means, we hope to promote a more comprehensive and consistent approach to the assessment of CMV in the organizational literature and more extensive use of hybrid models that include multiple types of latent method variables to assess CMV.
This study examines the joint influences of work exhaustion, job demands (red tape, role conflict, work overload), and public service motivation on street-level bureaucrats’ turnover intention. Based on a survey of 4974 Korean street-level bureaucrats, the study examines the potential mediating role of work exhaustion and complex moderating role of public service motivation in determining street-level bureaucrats’ turnover intention. In line with previous research, we find that job demands have both direct and indirect associations with street-level bureaucrats’ turnover intention through work exhaustion. However, public service motivation was found to reduce the employees’ turnover intention in two different ways. First, public service motivation was found to have a direct negative association with turnover intention. In addition, it was also found to mitigate the positive associations between job demands and work exhaustion, and between job demands and turnover intention.
Points for practitioners
The findings of the current study provide several practical implications for public managers. First of all, it suggests that imbuing public sector values through formal and informal training is important. Second, it provides some clues for local government managers to reduce street-level bureaucrats’ work exhaustion and turnover intention. For example, the problem of work overload for street-level bureaucrats could be reduced by reassigning work responsibilities according to workload analyses for given jobs.
In recent years, much research has been conducted on the relationship between public service motivation (PSM) and various outcomes, including job satisfaction. This article presents a meta-analysis aggregating the effects of PSM on job satisfaction. Meta-regression analysis is used to assess the impact of numerous study characteristics and to identify potential issues of publication bias. The findings, based on 28 separate studies, show no evidence of publication bias and support the positive relationship between PSM and job satisfaction. Furthermore, the results support the importance of providing individuals with the opportunity to serve the public within this relationship. Given the organizational benefits that can be derived from improved job satisfaction and the focus of PSM research on its implications for job satisfaction, these findings are of interest to both academics and practitioners in the field of public administration.
The growth in international research on public service motivation (PSM) raises a number of important questions about the degree
to which the theory and research developed in one country can contribute to our understanding of PSM in other counties. To
help address this issue, this study revisits the conceptual and operational definitions of PSM to address weaknesses previously
noted in the literature. Although some important steps have been taken to both improve and internationalize the PSM scale,
this work has been done incrementally. In contrast, this study takes a more systematic and comprehensive approach by combining
the efforts of international PSM scholars to develop and then test a revised measurement instrument for PSM in 12 countries.
Although the resulting four dimensional 16-item measure of PSM reported here provides a better theoretical and empirical foundation
for the measurement of PSM, our results suggest that the exact meaning and scaling of PSM dimensions are likely to differ
across cultures and languages. These results raise serious concerns regarding the ability to develop a single universal scale
of PSM, or making direct comparisons of PSM across countries.
Considerable research views group, organizational, and professional identities as theoretically and methodologically similar. This study suggests that these identities are generically different. An explanatory sequential mixed data analysis of survey and interview data collected at an information technology organization (N = 111 workers) was used to examine the relationships between identities and the experience of burnout and to understand the communicative behaviors associated with types of identity and burnout. Survey data revealed that controlling for communication activity, work group identification was associated with lower depersonalization while professional identification was associated with increased personal accomplishment. No relationship was found between organizational identification and burnout. Semistructured interviews revealed three themes related to identification: (a) Being Yourself in the Work Group, (b) Valuing the Role of the IT Professional, and (c) Othering the Organization. Implications for organizational communication with respect to theorizing and measuring organizational identity are discussed.
This article looks at public values as an alternative public management instrument to the traditional public instruments or those of New Public Management (NPM). China offers very explicit examples of public values deliberately built on the boundary between the public and the private. We examine this issue through the civil servant recruitment examinations in China and the point of view of the candidates. We propose a cultural approach to the ‘publicness’ of these examinations to understand the public/private articulation of the values they convey and their roles in the field of public management in China. We highlight a set of spiritual and moral values from the private sphere that are transmitted in the public values through the civil servant recruitment examinations, often to legitimize the government and its social control.
Points for practitioners
In this article we consider public management instruments in China that are often relatively unknown or considered archaic. Their uses offer original examples of instruments that are embedded in Chinese society that open out the spectrum of public values towards private values, mainly spiritual and moral. We wish to make an empirical contribution to the debate on the role of public values in public management. We investigate the civil servant recruitment examinations in China through their content and the values they transmit. Candidates for the examinations explain to us the values that guide their preparation for public jobs and we analyse their role in Chinese public management.
In social psychology, we need to establish a general theory of the self, which can attend to both macro and micro processes, and which avoids the redundancies of separate theories on different aspects of the self. For this purpose, we present core components of identity theory and social identity theory and argue that although differences exist between the two theories, they are more differences in emphasis than in kind, and that linking the two theories can establish a more fully integrated view of the self. The core components we examine include the different bases of identity (category/group or role) in each of the theories, identity salience and the activation of identities as discussed in the theories, and the cognitive and motivational processes that emerge from identities based on category/group and on role. By examining the self through the lens of both identity theory and social identity theory, we see how, in combination, they can move us toward a general theory of the self.
Contradictory evidence can be found in the literature about whether ingroup identification and perceived relative deprivation are positively or negatively related. Indeed, theoretical arguments can be made for both effects. It was proposed that the contradictory findings can be explained by considering a hitherto unstudied moderator: The extent to which deprivation is attributed to the ingroup. It was hypothesised that identification would only have a negative impact on deprivation, and that deprivation would only have a negative impact on identification, if ingroup attributions are high. To test this, attributions to the ingroup were experimentally manipulated among British student participants (N = 189) who were asked about their perceived deprivation vis-à-vis German students, yielding support for the hypotheses.
Occupational stress and burnout remain largely unexplored as red tape repercussions, even though they can jeopardize public servants’ wellbeing, motivation, and performance. Using a survey experiment with 354 school principals conducted between November 2018 and January 2019 in Chile, we provide evidence that red tape foments burnout risks. More red tape increases emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a sense of low personal accomplishment, while cutting red tape reduces emotional exhaustion but does not attenuate depersonalization and low personal accomplishment. These experimental results further prior observational findings about employee responses to red tape and are particularly pertinent for public services struggling with effectively cutting red tape.
Aims and objectives:
The present study was aimed at describing the status of job burnout and exploring the mediating roles of psychological capital and professional identity on the association between organisational justice and job burnout.
Background:
With the shortage of nurses all over the world, nurses' job burnout has become the focus of studies in recent years. However, limited published research has examined the mediating roles of psychological capital and professional identity on the association between organisational justice and job burnout within hospital contexts in China.
Design:
A cross-sectional design.
Methods:
A total of 1,009 nurses were enrolled from a major general hospital located in Qiqihar City in the northeast of China from March-July 2018, and asked to complete questionnaires regarding organisational justice, psychological capital, professional identity and job burnout. The STROBE checklist was adhered to in this study.
Results:
It was observed that the overall proportion of nurses with job burnout was 58.8%. All the correlations among organisational justice, psychological capital, professional identity and job burnout were statistically significant, with coefficients ranging between -0.487-0.863. Psychological capital and professional identity had indirect effects equal to -0.072 and -0.142, respectively, on the association between organisational justice and job burnout, taking up 13.7% and 26.9% of the total effect, respectively. The serial indirect effect of psychological capital and professional identity was -0.129, accounting for 24.5% of the total effect.
Conclusions:
This study showed the necessity of addressing the status of job burnout among Chinese nurses. Psychological capital and professional identity may mediate the linkage between organisational justice and job burnout independently and accumulatively.
Relevance to clinical practice:
Nursing managers should strengthen organisational justice and improve the psychological capital and professional identity of nurses through effective strategies to prevent the job burnout of nurses.
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed front-line healthcare workers to unprecedented risks and stressors threatening both physical and mental health. Prior work in the military has found that team identification, or the sense that one was a part of a team, can help reduce stress and prevent burnout during prolonged stress.
Methods
We conducted repeated cross-sectional surveys embedded within emergency department workflow to understand whether team identification was associated with reduced reports of stress and burnout among front-line workers.
Results
During the 10-week study which spanned the first wave of COVID-19, 327 of 431 (76%) front-line healthcare workers responded to at least one round of the survey. Higher team identification was associated with significantly less work stress ( B =−0.60, 95% CI −0.84 to to -0.40, p<0.001) and burnout ( B =−12.87, 95% CI −17.73 to -8.02, p<0.001) in cross-sectional analyses. Further evidence of the protective effect of team identification for work stress ( B =−0.36, 95% CI −0.76 to 0.05, p=0.09) and burnout ( B =−13.25, 95% CI −17.77 to -8.73, p<0.001) was also found in prospective longitudinal evidence.
Conclusion
This work suggests work team identification is a key buffering factor against feelings of stress and burnout. Efforts to promote team identification may offer a promising way for leaders to support front-line healthcare workers’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. These results can inform ongoing COVID-19 operational and quality improvement initiatives.
Stress and burnout are pervasive among public school teachers and amplified in urban schools, where job demands are often high and resources low. Relatively little is known about factors contributing to stress and burnout among urban school teachers specifically, or how these aspects of teacher occupational wellbeing relate to their use of effective classroom practices. Rather than utilizing objective measures, extant research has relied heavily on teacher self-report of antecedents and consequences of stress and burnout, which have also rarely been examined in tandem. To address this and other gaps in the literature, the current study examined the interplay of job demands and resources, stress and burnout, and effective classroom practices (operationalized as warm-demanding teaching). Two discrete observational measures, in addition to teacher self-report, were collected from a sample of 255 teachers in 33 low-income, urban middle schools. Findings indicated that White teachers, female teachers, and teachers in low-income schools reported higher stress and burnout. Teachers reporting more self-efficacy, affiliation with colleagues, and student emphasis on their academics (i.e., more resources) reported lower stress and burnout; furthermore, adding resources to the model attenuated associations between student disruptive behaviors and stress and burnout. In turn, stress was associated with lower levels of observed demanding teaching (instructional dialogue); however, surprisingly, burnout was related to higher levels of observed teacher warmth (sensitivity). We discuss these findings in light of prior research and consider implications for future research and professional development for teachers.
Interest in experimental research in public management is on the rise, yet the field still lacks a broad understanding of its role in producing substantive findings and theoretical advances. Written by a team of leading international researchers, this book sets out the advantages of experiments in public management and showcases their rapidly developing contribution to research and practice. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the relationship between experiments and public management theory, and the benefits for examining causal effects. It will appeal to researchers and graduate-level students in public administration, public management, government, politics and policy studies. The key topics addressed are the distinct logic of experimental methods in the laboratory, in the field, and in survey experiments; how leading researchers are using different kinds of experiment to build knowledge about theory and practice across many areas of public management; and the research agendas for experimental work in public management.
In this study, we develop and test a model examining why and when perceived overqualification relates to career satisfaction and subjective well-being. In a sample of 143 new university graduates in Spain with data collected across two time periods, we showed that perceived overqualification interacted with career centrality to predict relative deprivation, which in turn was related to lower career satisfaction, positive affect, and life satisfaction, as well as higher negative affect. Further, perceived overqualification had negative main effects on career satisfaction, negative affect, and life satisfaction. The results suggest the importance of perceived overqualification for well-being outcomes, as well as the importance of adopting a contextual approach to investigating the personal effects of perceived overqualification.
Purpose
Based on motivation theories, such as self-determination theory, this study aimed to examine whether intrinsic and extrinsic motivation significantly influence burnout and turnover intention in the public sector. Furthermore, we assessed the mediating effect of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and public service motivation (PSM) on the relationship between intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and burnout/turnover intention.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a survey of 203 public employees from local governments in South Korea, this study conducted ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis to investigate the relationships among intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, OCB, PSM, and burnout/turnover intention.
Findings
We found that intrinsic motivation had a significantly negative effect on both burnout and turnover intention. Extrinsic motivation had a significantly positive effect only on burnout. Lastly, OCB and PSM had a mediating effect on the relationships between intrinsic motivation and burnout.
Originality/value
These results provide some insights into the effects of job motivation on burnout and turnover intention in the public sector. Particularly, this research highlights the importance of intrinsic motivation, OCB, and PSM in decreasing burnout and the importance of intrinsic motivation in decreasing turnover intention of public employees.
Purpose
Little research has been conducted which assesses the impact of the police self-identity on burnout. The purpose of this paper is to assess how identification with the police role, work centrality, policing values and perceived dissonance in values contributes to emotional exhaustion across the police career.
Design/methodology/approach
Conjunctive analysis of case configurations (CACC) is utilized to examine how various factors conjunctively interact to influence the probability of burnout among officers at various career stages. This method allows for the examination of more complex interactions than traditional statistical methods.
Findings
The findings suggest that the interaction between police values and professional identity is complex and neither completely supportive nor unsupportive of existing identity theories. Specifically, strong identification with the police role has both positive and negative effects over the course of the police career.
Practical implications
Understanding how the police professional identity changes over the course of the police career can help to inform more deliberate and targeted training to help officers avoid burnout and improve the quality of policing for both citizens and police.
Originality/value
The present research applies an emerging statistical method, CACC, to an important but understudied question – the impact of the police professional identity on burnout throughout the career. In doing so, the present research illustrates that the effects of the professional identity on burnout are both complex, with significant ramifications for the practice of policing.
Recent theoretical and empirical research outlined the role of organizational identification in the stress process. We provide an empirical test of the social identity model of stress by testing a two-step mediation model of the identification-burnout link. We hypothesize that strongly identified teachers will receive more support from colleagues which, in turn, relates to perceptions of reduced workload, which finally leads to both lower work- and student-related burnout. We tested our model in a large cross-sectional sample of 2685 Swiss teachers representing half of the teacher population of Ticino Canton. Hypotheses were supported. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Institutional analyses of the developmental state claim that the principal source of state capacity is internal cohesiveness, which is defined as the tendency for the rank and file of the civil service to be in unity while working together towards national goals. In the literature on the China model, the strong capacity of the Chinese state has been taken for granted, and internal cohesiveness in the Chinese bureaucracy has not been problematized. This knowledge gap is narrowed by studying data on the Bureau of Urban Management (i.e. Chengguan) in China. Recent studies are reviewed of bureaucratic logics and behaviour that question the extent of collaboration between higher authorities and their subordinates (i.e. vertical cohesiveness) in China. Next, the essay theorizes about how these bureaucratic logics may also undermine collaboration among government bureaus (horizontal cohesiveness). Background information is offered about Chengguan and reports on the challenges identified by Chengguan officers to work with people in other bureaus. The research does not find any solid evidence of horizontal cohesiveness in the Chinese bureaucracy. This calls for an effort to reassess the validity of the China model. Copyright
The lið, a retinue of warriors sworn to a leader, has long been considered one of the basic armed groups of the Viking Age. However, in recent years the study of lið has been eclipsed by the discussion of larger Viking armies. In this paper, we focus on the key question of how loyalty to the lið was achieved. We argue that two processes that have been intensively studied by psychologists and anthropologists – ingroup identification and identity fusion – would have been important in the formation and operation of lið. In support of this hypothesis, we outline archaeological, historical and literary evidence pertaining to material and psychological identities. The construction of such identities, we contend, would have facilitated the formation of cohesive fighting groups and contributed to their success while operating in the field.
Social welfare work has long been identified as a highly stressful occupation, and one in which considerations of motivating employees and encouraging increased responsibility and commitment are central to understanding individual and collective performance. In the face of organizational factors that negatively affect employees’ motivation, including a lack of promotion opportunities, red tape, and expected emotional exhaustion, it becomes much more important for management to motivate employees in such a way that they can provide meaningful and satisfactory services to their clients. Extant research suggests that employees with higher levels of public service motivation (PSM) are motivated to engage in prosocial behaviors that benefit others. Using survey data gathered from social welfare workers in South Korea, this research examines the impact of a number of job-related factors on employee levels of PSM. The results indicate that job significance, professional job involvement, and affective commitment all impact the levels of PSM, suggesting that attention to job characteristics and the dynamic nature of PSM are important in particularly stressful front-line professions.
Points for practitioners
Given the organizational constraints on reward programs that exist in public agencies, it becomes increasingly important to consider other job-related factors that may improve motivation – especially related to public goals – among social welfare workers. The findings of this study suggest that increasing opportunities for social welfare workers to directly meet and interact with their service beneficiaries or enabling employees to gain access to citizens’ feedback about their service quality or service impact (e.g. citizen satisfaction survey results), can play a major role in maintaining or improving employees’ level of public service motivation. The results also underline the importance of managers’ giving consideration to fostering employees’ public service motivation.
This research examined the extent to which job motivation, social support, public service motivation (PSM), and burnout are related to turnover intention and whether burnout serves as a mediator for these relations. Using data collected from local revenue officers in South Korea, this research found that intrinsic motivation was significantly and negatively related to employees’ intention to leave their organization, whereas self-sacrifice (one of the PSM elements) was positively associated with turnover intention. In addition, the analyses revealed mediating effects of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization (burnout) on both intrinsic motivation and self-sacrifice turnover intention. These findings are relevant for public organizations that are concerned about managing employee turnover intention caused by public reforms dealing with changing environment.
It is well known that job burnout is a major problem for many professions. Correctional officers, the most important driving force in correctional facilities, deal with unwilling and potentially violent populations, and this may lead to burnout. However, in China, few studies are available regarding burnout among correctional officers and associations with work-related factors. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of work characteristics on job burnout among Chinese correctional officers in public prisons.
Cross-sectional survey.
This cross-sectional study was performed in March/April 2011. The study population comprised 2185 correctional officers working in four prisons in a province in north-east China. A questionnaire that examined job burnout [three subscales: emotional exhaustion (EE), cynicism (CY) and professional efficacy (PE)], work conditions, occupational stress and demographic factors was distributed to these correctional officers. In total, 1769 responses were received (response rate 81%). Multiple logistic regression was used to explore the factors related to burnout.
Mean (±standard deviation) scores were 10.59 ± 7.51 for EE, 9.65 ± 6.56 for CY and 23.90 ± 9.39 for PE. Strong extrinsic effort and reward were the most powerful predictors of job burnout; an imbalance between effort and reward at work and perceived threat was mainly associated with EE and CY, and strong overcommitment was mainly associated with EE and PE.
Chinese correctional officers experience a slightly higher level of job burnout, and this is affected by work-related stress. It is important to reduce occupational stress in correctional officers and improve disadvantageous work conditions in order to reduce burnout in this population.
Copyright © 2015 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
This article uses job demands–resources theory to build a model of public service motivation (PSM). Public service motivation determines how employees in the public sector deal with their daily job demands and resources. Highly motivated public servants are able to deal with their job demands and prevent exhaustion. Additionally, because of their sense of calling, they are motivated to mobilize their job resources to stay engaged and perform well. However, if job demands are consistently high and job resources are consistently low, highly motivated public servants will lose their psychological resources, resulting in lower PSM. Reduced PSM, as a consequence, may strengthen the loss cycle of job demands and exhaustion and weaken the gain cycle of job resources and engagement. Public service managers and employees may use this model to optimize their work environment on a day-to-day basis.
Organizational experiences can affect employees’ public service motivation (PSM) in a myriad of ways. Drawing on the institutional perspective of PSM theory, we argue that an individual’s PSM gets affected due to feelings of personal fit with the job requirements and indirect effects of perceived fit on job satisfaction is mediated through PSM. We expect that the direct effect of job fit on job satisfaction is contingent on the experience of work pressure, such that the effect would be stronger in low pressure conditions. Similarly, the indirect effect of personal job fit on job satisfaction is also contingent on the experience of work pressures. In conditions of high workload, the strength of the effect of job fit on job satisfaction through PSM may be weaker as compared with low work pressure conditions. Analysis of a survey of 213 respondents supports our hypotheses. Implications of these findings and future research directions are also discussed.