CO-WORKERS/SUPERVISOR SUPPORT AND BURNOUT

CO-WORKERS/SUPERVISOR SUPPORT AND BURNOUT Afshin, Salahian (Corresponding Author) Ph.D. student, Dept. of Psychology, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. Hamid Reza, Oreizi PhD, Dept. of Psychology, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. Mohammad Reza, Abedi PhD, Dept. of Counseling, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. Iraj, Soltani PhD, Dept. of management, Faculty of management, Islamic Azad University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. Abstract The purpose of this study was to test moderating role of perceived supervisor support between stress and burnout in personnel of Mobarakeh Steel Company. Statistical population was all of personnel that have a diploma or higher degree from Mobarakeh Steel Company. By proportional stratified sampling method 273 people from different company s area selected, randomly. Data collected by job stress and perceived co-workers/supervisor support questionnaires and Maslach burnout Inventory (MBI-9). Results indicated that perceived coworkers/supervisor support moderated the relationship between stress and burnout. Implications of the findings for preventive intervention efforts to combat burnout are discussed. Keywords: Burnout, Stress, Perceived Co-Workers/Supervisor Support. 1. Introduction Job burnout was first recognized as a psychological problem among healthcare and social service professionals in the 1970s (Pines and Maslach 1978). Extensive interviews with such workers revealed they often experienced emotional depletion and loss of motivation resulting from prolonged emotional stress encountered in their jobs. Occupational stress occurs when job demands do not match the person's adaptive resources. Stress is a generic term that refers to the temporary adaptation process that is accompanied by mental and physical symptoms. In contrast, burnout can be considered as a final stage in a breakdown in adaptation that results from the long-term imbalance of demands and resources, thus from prolonged job stress (Brill, 1984). A related conceptual distinction between burnout and stress is that the former includes the development of negative attitudes and behaviors towards recipients, the job and the organization, whereas job stress is not necessarily accompanied by such attitudes and behaviors (Maslach, 1993). This assertion was empirically supported by Schaufeli & Van Dierendonck (1993), who showed the discriminant validity of burnout, as measured with the MBI (particularly depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment), and generic mental and physical symptoms of job stress. Finally, it has been claimed that anybody can experience stress, while burnout can only be experienced by those who entered their careers enthusiastically with high goals and expectations. For example, specifically individuals who expect to derive a sense of significance from their work are susceptible to burnout. Those COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 141

without such expectations would experience job stress instead of burnout. Accordingly, burnout is a specific type of job stress that is characterized by its chronic and multifaceted nature. Moreover, it includes the development of negative attitudes, and it occurs among initially highly motivated individuals. Probably the most often cited definition of burnout comes from Maslach & Jackson (1986, p. 1): "Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work". Emotional exhaustion refers to the depletion or draining of emotional resources caused by interpersonal demands. Depersonalization points to the development of negative, callous and cynical attitudes toward the recipients of one's services. Finally, lack of personal accomplishment is the tendency to evaluate one's work with recipients negatively. Burnout professionals believe that their objectives are not achieved, which is accompanied by feelings of insufficiency and poor professional self-esteem. Burnout was originally conceptualized as a response to job stress produced by the demands of helping needy clients (Maslach 1982). It was quickly realized, however, that institutional/organizational factors seemed to contribute to burnout (Maslach and Florian 1988; Maslach and Leiter 1997). Grosch and Olsen (2000) and Weiner (1989) propose interaction models of burnout that conceptualize occupational stress as an interaction of individual and institutional characteristics in which the self combines with the system in begetting stress syndromes. These authors suggest how essential personal resources such as self-esteem, self efficacy, and social support (Hobfoll 2002) play a role in these syndromes. Unlike personal resources, such as self-esteem and self-efficacy, Hobfoll (2002) views social support as a process, which includes actual behavior as well as perceptions of support. From a systems perspective, social support has been identified as a key resource in the environment leading to improved mental health and other positive physical outcomes (Cohen et al. 1997; Cohen and Wills 1985). A number of studies have found that perceived social support is a vital resource in maintaining wellbeing in response to occupational stress (e.g., Beehr et al. 2003; Daniels and Guppy 1997; Frese 1999; Vermeulen and Mustard 2000). Early research on burnout found that psychotherapists relied on social support from supervisors/colleagues to prevent burnout (Farber and Heifetz 1982) and that social support was associated with lower levels of burnout among human services workers (Shinn et al. 1984). Subsequent research strongly suggests that lack of support from supervisors can contribute to burnout (Friesen and Sarros 1989; Kalliath and Beck 2001; Maslach and Jackson 1982; Maslach et al. 2001), and some studies have found that support from supervisors may reduce burnout symptoms in teachers, school psychologists, and other kinds of workers (Baruch-Feldman et al. 2002; Greenglass et al. 1994). From a systems point of view, these two sets of findings complement each other. Lack of social support within an organization puts a strain on personal resources in response to occupational stress, which leads to burnout. In contrast, work-related sources of social support enhance personal resources in response to stress, ameliorating burnout. From a systems perspective it is likely that support from work colleagues, other than supervisors, would also be associated with lower burnout, and there is some evidence of this effect (Greenglass et al. 1997; Huebner 1994). So, according to Grosch and Olsen (2000) and Weiner (1989) model, the purpose of this article was to examine the moderating role of perceived co-workers/supervisor support in relationships between stress and burnout. 2. Method Statistical population of this study was all of personnel that have a diploma or higher degree from Mobarakeh Steel Company (7580 personnel). Sampling method was proportional stratified that from different company s area selected, randomly. So, 300 people selected COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 142

according to the Cochran formula, and 273 people responded the questionnaire. Maximum frequency for age classification was 26-36(43.2 percent), and minimum frequency was 56-60(.4 percent). Also, 247 people (90.5 percent) were married and 26 people (9.5 percent) were single and maximum frequency in education degree was Diploma (150 people; 54.9 percent) and minimum frequency was Master degree (8 people; 2.9 percent). Moreover, 11, 93, and 169 people were manager, expert, and operator or repairer, respectively. The questionnaires that used in this research were in Persian and consisted of 3 parts. Part 1 collected demographic information, part 2 measured predictive variables (stress and coworkers/supervisor support), and part 3 measured burnout. Social support Social support was measured using four social support items adapted from Frese (1999) with minor rewording. How willing are the following people to listen to your work-related problems? How willing are the following people to listen to your personal problems? How easy are the following people to talk to? To what degree can the following people be relied upon when things get tough at work? The wording is slightly different than that used by Frese (1999), who, for example, asked How much are each of the following people willing to listen to your work-related problems? Participants rated each of four categories of people on a 4-point scale: 1 = not at all, 2 = somewhat, 3 = fairly, and 4 = very. The four categories were: (1) immediate work supervisor, and (2) work colleagues/coworkers. The responses from items 1 and 2 were averaged to create the variables of support from supervisors/colleagues. To assess personnel burnout, the 9-item abbreviated version (MBI-9) used in this study was derived from the Education Form of the 22-item Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI; Maslach & Jackson, 1986). The inventory has been used in studies with the Hong Kong Chinese teachers (Chan & Hui, 1995). In this study, nine items were selected to reflect the three components of burnout based on reviewing past studies on the structure of MBI (e.g., Byrne, 1994; Chan & Hui, 1995; Chan, 2006). In responding to the MBI-9, participants were requested to evaluate each item in terms of the frequency of their feelings ranging from 0 (never) to 6 (every day). The items are scored on the three 3-item subscales reflecting burnout components of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. High scores on the first two scales and low scores on the last scale are indicative of burnout. Job stress was assessed by using a four-item scale from Netemeyer et al. (2005). A sample item is My job tends to directly affect my health. In these scale participants were requested to evaluate each item from 1 (extremely disagree) to 5 (extremely agree). 3. Result Mean, standard deviation (SD), and Reliability of each scale (measured in our research by Cronbach alpha coefficients) showed in table 1. Nunnally (1978) also recommended the Cronbach alpha of a scale should be greater than 0.7 for items to be used together as a construct. Results indicated that all measurement have acceptable reliability and were more than 0.7. Moreover, the confirmatory factor analysis method is employed. Table 2 shows the factor loadings with the absolute value larger than 0.3, which is a threshold in factor analysis. The findings in table 3 clearly support the existence of factors. Table 3 showed Correlations between study variables that all of them are significant. Results of hierarchical regression revealed also that in step (1) emotional exhaustion is most significantly predicted by stress (R 2 =.248). In step (2) adding the perceived coworkers/supervisor support, increased the prediction power of emotional exhaustion, significantly(r Square Change=.025; Sig. F change=.003). Moreover, in the final step of hierarchical regression interaction between stress and perceived co-workers/supervisor COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 143

support was significant in predicting emotional exhaustion(r Square Change=.012; Sig. F change=.038). Also, another subscale of burnout predicted by hierarchical regression, but none of them wasn t predicted by interaction between stress and perceived co-workers/supervisor support (p>.05). In this order, stress and perceived co-workers/supervisor support are the most important for explaining emotional exhaustion of personnel. 4. Conclusion At the organizational level, the most important manifestations of burnout are absenteeism, turnover, lack of job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Maslach & Jackson, 1986; Salahian et al, 2012). These manifestations show the importance of studies that examine the predictor and moderator variables of burnout. In this article, we examine role of perceived coworkers/supervisor support, between stress and burnout relationships. Results revealed that interaction of stress and perceived co-workers/supervisor support predict emotional exhaustion, negatively. High levels of perceived co-workers/supervisor support were associated with reduced emotional exhaustion. In addition, co-workers/supervisor support acted to protect personnel from emotional exhaustion when faced with high levels of perceived work demands. This is consistent with theoretical predictions that high work demands and low support lead to the highest levels of work-related stress (Devereux et al. 2009; Karasek and Theorell 1990). According to the important role of emotional exhaustion in burnout, these findings showed the role of perceived co-workers/supervisor support in understanding burnout. So, regular and high quality supervision is likely to have a negative effect on burnout and thus on the success of interventions (Eikeseth et al. 2009). So, a priority for future research would be to test different supervision models and to record the impact on burnout and also on their psychological well-being. COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 144

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Annexure Table 1: Mean, standard deviation and Cronbach alpha coefficients Variables Mean SD α Stress 8.88 2.89.8 Emotional exhaustion 5.71 2.8.834 Depersonalization 5 2.2.76 Personal accomplishment 9.9 2.05.79 Co-workers/supervisor support 18.93 4.21.791 Table 2: Confirmatory factor analysis Items Factor loadings Ps S EE Ps1.7 Ps2.79 Ps3.85 Ps4.71 Ps5.79 Ps6.69 Ps7.89 Ps8.82 S 1.46 S 2.53 S 3.6 S 4.72 Note: Ps: perceived co-workers/supervisor support; S: stress; EE: emotional exhaustion Table 3: Correlations between study variables Variables (1) (2) (3) (1) Emotional Exhaustion (2)Stress.498** (3)Perceived Co-Workers/supervisor support -.322** -.35** (4)Stress Perceived Co-Workers/supervisor support.251**.749**.321** **p< 0.01; *p< 0.05 COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 147

Model R R Square Std. Error of the estimate Table 4: Model summary R Square Change F Change df1 df2 Sig. F Change 1.498.248 2.44.248 89.85 1 271.0001 2.523.273 2.4.025 9.243 1 270.003 3.534.285 2.38.012 4.327 1 269.038 Model 1: Stress Model 2: stress, perceived co-workers/supervisor support Model3: stress, perceived co-workers/supervisor support, stress perceived co-workers/supervisor support Table 5: ANOVA Model 3 Sum of squares df Mean square F Sig. Regression 611.58 3 203.86 35.7.0001 Residual 1535.7 269 5.7 total 2147.28 272 Table 6: Coefficients Model 3 B Std. Error Beta t Sig. (Constant) -.017 2.179 -.008.994 Stress.88.224.905 3.928.0001 Perceived Co-Workers/supervisor support.097.107.147.91.363 Stress Perceived Co-Workers/supervisor support -.024.012 -.474-2.08.038 Dependent variable: emotional exhaustion COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 148