Social self-efficacy and job burnout: A moderated mediation model

ZHENG Xiao-Xu; CHEN Jiao; LUO Yang; MENG Hui

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2019, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (2) : 350-357.

Social self-efficacy and job burnout: A moderated mediation model

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Abstract

With the accelerating of work pace and the increasing of work stress, the problem of job burnout becomes increasingly common. Job burnout will not only reduce job performance, increase destructive behaviors and safety accidents, but also impair physical and psychological health of employees. To prevent or relieve a series of negative effects of job burnout, we need to explore the influencing factors of job burnout. According to the job requirements-resource model, the factors affecting job burnout can be divided into work requirements and work resources which include internal resources and external resources. The present research explored the influencing factors of job burnout from the perspective of individual characteristics related to internal resources. Social self-efficacy, as a representation of self-efficacy in the social field, is a special kind of internal psychological resources which can help employees relieve work stress. And, existing research shows that social self-efficacy affects individual's ability to apply interpersonal skills in social situations, and also the establishment and maintenance of interpersonal relationships, which may make employees obtain more social support to resist job burnout. The present research aims at investigating whether employees’ social self-efficacy can predict their level of job burnout, and understanding how interpersonal relationship play a role in the process. On the basis of the job requirements-resource model and leadership-member exchange theory, we constructed a moderated mediation model to examine whether leader-member exchange relationship mediated the relationship between social self-efficacy and job burnout, and whether leader-member exchange social comparison moderated this mediation effect. By convenient sampling and two-stage follow-up questionnaire survey, totally 399 full time employees from multiple companies were recruited into this study. They completed workplace social self-efficacy scale, leader-member exchange relationship scale, leader-member exchange social comparison scale, and Maslach burnout inventory-general survey. The results indicate that: (1) social self-efficacy has a significant negative predictive effect on job burnout; (2) leader-member exchange relationship has a significant mediating effect between social self-efficacy and job burnout;(3) leader-member exchange social comparison moderated the relationship between leader-member exchange relationship and job burnout (4) leader-member exchange social comparison is a significant moderator in the indirect effect that social self-efficacy predict job burnout by leader-member exchange. The findings of this research extend previous studies on the antecedents of job burnout by examining the relationship between social self-efficacy and job burnout. In addition, by exploring the mediating role of leader-member exchange relationship, this study advanced our understanding about the underlying mechanism that transmits the predictive effects of social self-efficacy to job burnout. This finding shows that social self-efficacy belonging to internal resources can be transformed into external work resources through social interaction to help employees meet job requirements and resist job burnout, which provides a new idea for the study of the influencing factors of job burnout. Our findings also point to some practical strategies that employees and organizations can use to resist job burnout. On the one hand, organizations can enhance employees' social self-efficacy and train their workplace social skills in some trainings to help them cope with job burnout. On the other hand, the organizations should cultivate the ability of its managers to establish good relationships with subordinates, and managers to improve communication, cooperation and trust with subordinates, so as to help employees avoid job burnout.

Key words

social self-efficacy / leader-member exchange / leader–member exchange social comparison / job burnout

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Social self-efficacy and job burnout: A moderated mediation model[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2019, 42(2): 350-357

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