The relationship between job demands, job resources, engagement, burnout and intention to quit

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The increasing demand for client-services in a highly competitive businessenvironment has resulted in a substantial increase in the number of callcentres in South Africa and worldwide (Carrim, Basson & Coetzee, 2006).Within the call centre industry, turnover intentions have been identified as oneof the most pressing problems in terms of cost and productivity. This researchsuggests that the exploration and then the alteration of job resources and jobdemands will help elicit factors that foster engagement and will help lessenand/or alleviate burnout experiences. This in turn will help to decreaseturnover intentions in the South African call centre industry. This researchattempts to investigate the proposed relationships between the constructs in astructural model.The literature review defines turnover, turnover intention, engagement,burnout as well as job demands and job resources, using the Job Demands-Resources model. It also discusses the importance for organisations tounderstand employees' turnover intentions. The literature review aims toportray that there are relationships between the five constructs.The current research was conducted in 5 inbound/outbound South African callcentres. The sample was comprised of 122 participants and a non-probabilitysampling technique, convenience sampling was utilized. A self-developedBiographical Questionnaire, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES)and the Maslach Burnout Inventory Questionnaire (MBI) were used asmeasuring instruments. Job demands and job resources using the WorkDesign Questionnaire (WDQ) by Morgeson and Humphrey (2006) were usedas well as a Turnover Intentions Questionnaire developed by Roodt (2004)cited in Adam and Roodt (2008). A reliability analysis was done to assess themeasurement properties of the respective measures, and all scales showedhighly acceptable reliability.The data wereanalysed using the soft approach to Structural EquationModeling that is Partial least squares path modeling. The results indicate that all of the relationships tested are significant. A model testing engagement andburnout as mediators were also investigated. Both relationships wereinsignificant hence engagement is a mediator between job resources andintention to quit and burnout a mediator between job demands and intention toquit. This was also confirmed by two separate Sobel tests (Sobel, 1982).This study adds to existing literature on job resources, job demands,engagement, burnout and intention to quit by providing insights into therelationships among these constructs. This study also provides call centreswith valuable information for the development and/or alterations of workingconditions aimed at mitigating turnover behavior and maximizingorganizational outcomes through an engaged workforce.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University