Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors Laura Petitta a ; Michele Vecchione a a

Transcription

1 This article was downloaded by: [Petitta, Laura] On: 18 May 2011 Access details: Access Details: [subscription number ] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors Laura Petitta a ; Michele Vecchione a a Department of Psychology, University of Rome Sapienza,, Rome, Italy Online publication date: 17 May 2011 To cite this Article Petitta, Laura and Vecchione, Michele(2011) 'Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors', Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, 26: 2, To link to this Article: DOI: / URL: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

2 Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, 26:97 121, 2011 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: print= online DOI: / Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors LAURA PETITTA, PhD and MICHELE VECCHIONE, PhD Department of Psychology, University of Rome Sapienza, Rome, Italy The study aimed to assess absenteeism and extra role behaviors as correlates of job burnout. Employees from a nuclear physics institute (N ¼ 142) completed a survey that included the Maslach Burnout Inventory General Survey (MBI-GS), self-efficacy, support by colleagues, and workload. Levels of absenteeism and extra role behaviors were provided by company records. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses were applied to a conceptual model of relationships among variables rooted in Maslach and Leiter s resource-based model of burnout. Results suggest that self-efficacy was positively related to support by colleagues, workload, and professional efficacy, whereas it was negatively related to exhaustion. Exhaustion and cynicism were mainly and negatively related to workload and were not related to professional efficacy. In turn, absenteeism was positively related to exhaustion, whereas extra role behaviors were negatively related to cynicism. KEYWORDS job burnout absenteeism, challenging jobs, extra role behaviors, Over the last two decades, research has attempted to uncover individual and organizational factors that contribute to the employee burnout process and its subsequent consequences for the organization, both negative, such as absenteeism, and positive, such as extra role behaviors (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Lee & Ashforth, 1996; Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001; Van Emmerick, Jawahar, & Stone, 2005). The literature suggests that burnout positively predicts employee absence (Maslach & Leiter, 1999) and represents a disruptive response when experiencing a chronic worn-out Address correspondence to Laura Petitta, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Rome Sapienza, Via dei Marsi 78, Rome, Italy. laura.petitta@uniroma1.it 97

3 98 L. Petitta and M. Vecchione condition. Empirical evidence was found in health care settings (Iverson, Olekalns, & Erwin, 1998; Yacov & Yehudit, 2005), social services (Gil-Monte, 2008; Neveu, 2007; Schaufeli & Peeters, 2000), education (Bowers, 2001), and production settings (Bakker, Demerouti, De Boer, & Schaufeli, 2003; Grandey, Dickter, & Sin, 2004). Another possible consequence of burnout that has received special attention is extra role behaviors or organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB; Organ, 1997). Some scholars suggest that employees sense of emotional and mental resource depletion avert them from putting extra effort or spending personal time in activities that exceed job requirements, are discretional, and likely not rewarded (Cropanzano, Rupp, & Byrne, 2003; Van Emmerick et al., 2005). However, research findings on the causal relationship between burnout and extra role behaviors appear to be controversial, and most of the evidence mainly demonstrates that they are negatively associated. Empirical support for this negative association was found in health care settings (Cropanzano et al., 2003), social services (Kohan & Mazmanian, 2003), education (Brown & Roloff, 2009; Hannam & Jimmieson, 2002), and production settings (Chiu & Tsai, 2006; Wegge, Van Dick, Fisher, Wecking, & Moltzen, 2006). For the most part, research on absenteeism and extra role behaviors, as correlates of burnout, has been conducted with workers in human services and educational occupations and thus is grounded in the original burnout model that comprises emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment. To the authors knowledge, few studies have investigated the most recent conceptualization of burnout (Maslach & Leiter, 1999) and its association with absenteeism and extra role behaviors in production settings such as a nuclear physics institute. The current study framed the investigation of burnout within the context of an advanced Italian nuclear research institute. The organization is dedicated to the study of the basic constituents of matter and conducts theoretical and experimental research in the fields of subnuclear, nuclear, and astroparticle physics. Researchers, and the supporting technicians, are involved in granted projects that consistently require them to undergo achievement and milestone progress reports of the experimental situations they are responsible for. This work setting is of particular interest in that it represents a challenging environment where overwhelming demands may potentially erode employees, lead them to experience burnout, which in turn fosters absenteeism and undercuts extra role behaviors. However, at the same time, the high professional skills required of employees may develop their sense of self and need for high achievements that likely protect them from experiencing work overload and from tapping into a worn-out feeling of depletion. Furthermore, no study has simultaneously considered absenteeism and extra role behaviors as correlates of burnout. An additional unique contribution of the current study is the use of non-self-report measures of

4 Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors 99 absenteeism and extra role behaviors. Therefore, as a potential contribution to the ongoing research in occupational health psychology, the aim of the current study was threefold. First, we examined the relationship of the three components of the most recent conceptualization of burnout, namely exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy, with objective measures provided by the company records of absenteeism and extra role behaviors in a nuclear physics institute, namely a production setting. Second, drawing upon the resource-based model proposed by Maslach and Leiter (1999), and recently tested by Neveu (2007), the current study sought to investigate social support and workload as organizational predictors of exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy with employees in a highly professionalized scientific research context, who work on challenging and demanding activities. Third, the salutogenic approach maintains that any analysis of a stress situation must begin with what the individual brings to the situation, and not the demand characteristics of the situation alone (Appley & Trumbull, 1986, p. 311). We propose self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986), namely, the beliefs of being able to cope with job demands and lack of resources, as a key factor that explains an individual s adjustment to his or her environment and lower levels of burnout (Bandura, 2004; Cherniss, 1993; Schmitz, 2000). Consistent with this, we tested an integrated conceptual model (shown in Figure 1) in which we study the effects of an individual s sense of self (self-efficacy) within a contextual environment (social support, workload), on his or her ability to handle that contextual environment (job burnout), and perform at work (absenteeism, extra role behaviors) (Cropanzano et al., 2003; Maslach et al., 2001; Van Emmerick et al., 2005). The following sections present the actual constructs within the higher level conceptual model and their relationships. We begin by outlining the recent theoretical framework of burnout and describe Maslach and Leiter s (1999) resource-based model that integrates lack of resources and exceeding demands as predictors of a chronic misfit between the individual and the job, focusing in particular on findings from social support and workload literatures. Next, we present a social cognitive approach to the study of burnout and provide a theoretical rationale for the relationship between self-efficacy, burnout, and FIGURE 1 Conceptual model.

5 100 L. Petitta and M. Vecchione situational predictors of burnout. Finally, we outline the results of research on the relationship between burnout and absenteeism. Similarly, we will briefly introduce OCB and its relationship with the three burnout components. BURNOUT, SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND WORKLOAD Burnout Exhaustion, cynicism, and (reduced) professional efficacy are the three components of a cumulative and stable reaction to ongoing work stressors (Leiter & Maslach, 2004; Maslach & Leiter, 1999). The exhaustion component refers to feelings of being overextended and depleted of one s emotional and physical resources, and it represents the basic individual stress experience. The cynicism component refers to a negative, callous, or excessively detached response to various aspects of the job. In particular, the cynicism dimension, originally named depersonalization, refers to a self-protective detached attitude toward other people (Maslach, 1982) and has been substantially revised, now referring to a crash in expectations and a subsequent distance from work itself. Across a wide range of organizational and occupational settings, burnout research has found a relevant relationship between exhaustion and cynicism, in that the latter consistently appears as an immediate reaction to the former (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996). The third component of (reduced) professional efficacy represents the self-evaluation dimension of burnout. The person experiences a sense of reduced professional efficacy when he or she feels incompetent and lacking of achievement and productivity at work. A work situation with chronic, overwhelming demands that contribute to exhaustion or cynicism is likely to undermine one s sense of effectiveness, although the relationship among the three components is not univocal. Reduced professional efficacy appears to be a function of either exhaustion or cynicism, or a combination of the two (Lee & Ashforth, 1996). However, it appears to develop either sequentially or in parallel with the other two burnout aspects (Leiter, 1993). Hence, in the current study we tested the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1a: Emotional exhaustion will be positively related to cynicism and negatively related to professional efficacy. Hypothesis 1b: Cynicism will be negatively related to professional efficacy. Maslach and Leiter Resource-Based Model Job demands-resource (JD-R) model s (Demerouti, Bakker, Narchreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001) etiology of burnout suggests a positive relationship between burnout and demands while linking resources to a positive state of fulfillment

6 Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors 101 and engagement (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzales-Romá, & Bakker, 2002). Consistent with a JD-R approach, and building on earlier models of job person fit (e.g., French, Rodgers, & Cobbs, 1974), Maslach and Leiter (1999) proposed a developmental model of job burnout based on the degree of match, or mismatch, between the individual and conditions in the work environment. The greater the gap, or mismatch, between the individual and the job, the greater the likelihood of burnout; conversely, a higher match enhances the feeling of engagement with work (Leiter & Maslach, 2004). Lack of resources to manage job requirements and high demanding situations were found to be early predictors of the job person incongruence. In particular, a primary source of demands is qualitative and quantitative workload, whereas social support among colleagues is an important resource that negatively correlates with burnout. Specifically, lack of resources (e.g., social support) is mostly related to cynicism and reduced professional efficacy whereas exhaustion develops in relation to excessive demands (e.g., workload) (Maslach & Leiter, 1999). Neveu (2007) recently found further support to the validity of Maslach and Leiter s (1999) model on a sample of correctional officers. Social Support Lack of social support reflects mutual perceptions of group members (Maslach & Leiter, 1999) and of their contribution to task fulfillment and relational network. Literature reviews (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Lee & Ashforth, 1996) and recent empirical findings (Burke & Mikkelsen, 2006) report that several forms of social support help prevent burnout. In particular, a Swedish study (Sundin, Hochwalder, Bildt, & Lisspers, 2007) found that colleagues support was significantly related to all three burnout dimensions, whereas supervisor support was only significantly related to exhaustion. Furthermore, Leiter and Maslach (2004) suggested that an attentive and responsive sense of community with colleagues, namely social support, is incompatible with burnout. Although the lack of social support is primarily related to the cynicism component of burnout, workload exerts a major influence on exhaustion (Bakker et al., 2003). Workload Work overload is the area concerned with especially demanding events exceeding human limits, thus reflecting the relationship of work demands with occupational stress, studied in the stress and coping literature (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993). Although a sustainable workload, or an occasional emergency, provides opportunities to use and refine existing skills, a chronic overload job condition, along with little opportunity to rest, recover, and restore balance, results in acute fatigue, namely exhaustion (Leiter &

7 102 L. Petitta and M. Vecchione Maslach, 2004). Qualitative and quantitative overload depletes people s capacity to recover from job demands and has a consistent relationship with burnout, especially with exhaustion (Maslach & Leiter, 2008). Hence, in this study we tested the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 2a: Support by colleagues will be negatively related to cynicism and exhaustion and positively related to professional efficacy; however, this relationship will be stronger for cynicism than for exhaustion and for professional efficacy. Hypothesis 2b: Workload will be positively related to cynicism and exhaustion and negatively related to professional efficacy; however, this relationship will be stronger for exhaustion than for cynicism and for professional efficacy. SELF-EFFICACY, RESOURCES=DEMANDS, AND BURNOUT Self-Efficacy and Burnout Sundry studies on burnout in the last two decades have identified a plethora of organizational risk factors across many occupations in various countries, as well as some work-related outcomes (Maslach et al., 2001; Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998), thus leading to the conclusion that burnout is determined by personal and situational variables. The key issue is how best to conceptualize their combination. The interactionist approach to the study of individual and contextual factors that conjointly explain employees organizational behavior suggests that self-efficacy beliefs are an important personal resource in stress and burnout development (Bandura, 2000) and emphasizes the active and intentional role played by individuals in influencing and reflecting on their own behaviors. Bandura (1986) argued that individuals beliefs of being able to master their environment are crucial in shaping the person environment relationship, thus affecting the likely of match=mismatch between employees and their job, namely job burnout. Empirical findings from different occupational sectors suggest that self-efficacy beliefs help to prevent feelings of strain and emotional exhaustion, the callous attitude toward one s job, and the decline of feelings in job competence (Best, Stapleton, & Downey, 2005; Browers, Evers, & Tomic, 2000; Hannam & Jimmieson, 2000; Salanova, Peirò, & Scaufeli, 2002; Schmitz, 2000). Self-Efficacy and Work Strains Considering job strains through the lenses of social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), employees self-efficacy beliefs shape whether they attend to the opportunities, or to the impediments, that their work environments

8 Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors 103 present, and how formidable the obstacles appear (Bandura, 2000). Hence, people exposed to the same stressors can perceive, and consequently react, in different ways and what is a stressor for one individual may not be a stressor for another (Bandura, 2004). Workers with high levels of self-efficacy are more likely to perceive obstacles in a positive vein as surmountable, to focus on the opportunities worth pursuing and tend to use more adaptive coping strategies compared to workers with lower levels of self-efficacy (Bandura, 2000). Therefore, the former cope better with job stressors (Benight et al., 1999). The exercise of human agency enables people to actively transform their environment (Bandura, 1986). In work situations where employees have control over social conditions and institutional practices, as is the case of social support and of coordination among colleagues to share and reallocate work overload, employees can seek their well-being by actively constructing their social context (Bandura, 2000). In turn, the contextual conditions shaped by organizational members actions are more likely to be perceived as a resource versus a demand depending on how proactively they have mastered their work domains. Jex and Bliese (1999) found that individuals with high self-efficacy cope better with high workload and long work hours, reporting less physical and psychological strain. Conversely, work underload can likely be a stressor for individuals with high self-efficacy, in that they feel frustrated by organizational constraints in fully using and developing their potential (Bandura, 2000; Matsui & Onglatco, 1992). People with a low sense of efficacy exposed to chronic stressors have difficulty managing job demands and enlisting social support, thus increasing their vulnerability to burnout. Browers et al. (2001) reported that workers level of burnout was associated to feelings of lack of social support, and that their self-efficacy elicited, in particular, the personal-accomplishment dimension of burnout. In the context of a research institute, Schaubroeck, Jones, and Xie (2001) found that employees with low self-efficacy were more likely to experience job stress when faced with high-demanding requirements. Similarly, Salanova et al. (2002) reported that employees from a production setting who displayed high levels of self-efficacy were less likely to be prone to cynicism and exhaustion. Although most of the above empirical evidence seems to suggest that self-efficacy serves as a moderator of the relationship between burnout and work context, recent findings on different settings from Borgogni and her colleagues (Borgogni, Petitta, & Mastrorilli, 2009; Caprara, Barbaranelli, Borgogni, & Steca, 2003) support the role of self-efficacy beliefs in predicting employees perceptions of their organizational context. Hence, based on Bandura s (2000) theoretical rationale suggesting that self-efficacy beliefs affect people s perceptions of sociostructural factors, and consistent with previous research findings, we propose that employees self-efficacy beliefs account

9 104 L. Petitta and M. Vecchione for perceptions of their work context, namely perceptions of support by colleagues and workload, which in turn explain their experience of burnout. Hypothesis 3a: Self-efficacy will be positively related to support by colleagues and workload. Hypothesis 3b: Self-efficacy will be positively related to professional efficacy and negatively related to exhaustion and cynicism. BURNOUT AND ABSENTEEISM As noted earlier, the positive relationship between burnout and absenteeism is well acknowledged by the literature. Maslach and Leiter (1999) maintained that workers internal experience of stress is a mediator between the impact of external stressors (conflicts, demands) and work-related outcomes (e.g., absenteeism). Maslach and Leiter s (1999) model of burnout development was competitively tested by Neveu (2007) on a sample of correctional officers against two other major resource-based models, respectively grounded in Hobfol s (Hobfol & Shirom, 1993) conservation of resource (COR) and Golembiewski, Munzenrider, and Stevenson s (1986) theories of burnout. All three models tested the structure of burnout in relation to resource= demands dimensions and absenteeism, the latter as positively correlated. In particular, Maslach and Leiter s model, and Golembiewski et al. s model propose absenteeism as a consequence of burnout whereas Hobfol and Shirom proposed absenteeism as an antecedent of burnout in that it represents an escape strategy from resource depletion, a protective behavior that prevents job burnout. Results (Neveu, 2007) suggest that Maslach and Leiter s (1999) model, as well as Golembiewski et al. s (1986), fit the data better than Hobfol and Shirom s (1993) model. Poor fit indexes do not support a solution where absenteeism is a mediator between resource depletion and burnout. Furthermore, Maslach and Leiter s model supports (a) the role and dynamics of the burnout components that assign emotional exhaustion a crucial role in the subsequent development of both depersonalization and personal accomplishment and (b) the generally accepted view that considers burnout as a predictor of absenteeism. Exhaustion, in particular, is the major predictor of absenteeism. In the current study, we draw upon Maslach and Leiter s model because of the following two reasons. First, the model is in line with the most recent approaches to the multidimensional conceptualization of burnout (Maslach & Leiter, 2008), acknowledging that reduced professional efficacy develops rather independently (Leiter, 1993), and focusing primarily on the exhaustion and cynicism burnout components, which are also strongly related to each other. Second, it is in line with empirical findings that propose absenteeism as a negative consequence of burnout.

10 Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors 105 Hypothesis 4: The amount of absenteeism will be positively related to exhaustion and cynicism; however this relationship will be stronger for exhaustion than for cynicism. BURNOUT AND EXTRA ROLE BEHAVIORS Extra Role Behaviors Extra role or organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB; Organ, 1997) are discretionary workplace behaviors that exceed employees basic job requirements. Further developments propose OCB as performance that supports the social and psychological environment in which task performance takes place (Organ, 1997; p. 95) and considers extra role time as employee s OCB initiative that is related to time spent on task (Brown & Roloff, 2009). In particular, its discretionary nature means that the behavior is optional and not required by the employee s role description, that is the clearly specifiable terms of the person s employment contract (Organ, 1997, p. 86). Furthermore, Van Dyne, Cummings, and Parks (1995) specifically differentiated discretionary extra role behaviors, in the sense of going beyond the enforceable requirement of the job description, from in-role behaviors. Given that employees cannot expect any systematic rewards for these behaviors, Organ (1997) suggested that they are internally motivated and rely on employees intrinsic need for a sense of belonging and affiliation, and of achievement. Consistent with this, volunteering for extra work has been recently differentiated by Settoon and Mossholder (2002) between behaviors that (a) are addressed to enhance empathic concern and trust (person-focused) and (b) those that reflect interaction patterns with specific tasks that define work relationships (task-focused). Although extra role behaviors pitched at different levels (e.g., organization, colleagues) may be motivated by different factors (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000), the literature suggests that employees going the extra mile is influenced by individual variables such as self-efficacy (Todd & Kent, 2006), and by their perceptions of the workplace (Hannam & Jimmieson, 2002), such as support provided by the organization (Brown & Roloff, 2009; Organ & Ryan, 1995). Extra Role Behaviors and Burnout To the extent that burnout, as a chronic long-term stress, can negatively affect variables associated to intrinsic motivation (e.g., one s engagement with work and sense of achievement) (Maslach, 1986), then it would appear appropriate to assume that feelings of exhaustion, the callous and detached response to various aspects of the job, and a diminished sense of professional achievement exert a negative effect on employees willingness to put

11 106 L. Petitta and M. Vecchione extra effort in their work or volunteering for time beyond the call of duty (Cropanzano et al., 2003; Van Emmerick et al., 2005). However, with regard to the causal link between extra role behaviors and burnout, some scholars suggest (Bolino & Turnley, 2005; Hannam & Jimmieson, 2002) that OCB, in addition to the positive organizational implications, may represent a cost for employees who perform high levels of extra time, and thus may affect their well-being rather than be a consequence of their sense of depletion. Empirical findings from different organizational settings support the negative association between burnout components and extra role behaviors, and the relationship between the chronic exposure to stressful events, job stress, and OCB (Brown & Roloff, 2009; Chiu & Tsai, 2006; Cropanzano et al., 2003; Hannam & Jimmieson, 2002; Kohan & Mazmanian, 2003; Wegge et al., 2006). Miles, Borman, Spector, and Fox (2002) found that high workload, although potentially stressful, was positively related to OCB, arguing that employees perception of high workload may likely create the opportunity to continue one s work in spite of aversive conditions. We maintain that employees committed in high-level challenging jobs who perceive an elevated workload are likely to develop exhaustion while remaining involved in their job that provides them a sense of fulfillment. Furthermore, employees who experience a callous feeling of detachment from work, namely cynicism, are more likely to refrain from overdedication to work activities. Hypothesis 5: The amount of extra role time spent on the job will be negatively related to exhaustion and cynicism; however, this relationship will be stronger for cynicism than for exhaustion. METHOD Participants Employees from an Italian public institute of nuclear physics research (N ¼ 200) were administered an anonymous questionnaire. Of the 142 questionnaires returned (71% response rate), 74.5% were completed by males and 25.5% by females. Overall, 44.4% of the employees were researchers, and 55.6% were professionals who provided technical support to the researchers. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 35 years (17.1%) to older than 55 years (12.9%), with the modal age group being from 46 to 55 years (39.3%). With regard to education, 46% of the sample had completed high school, and 43.8% had a university degree. Finally, 73.7% of the sample had more than 11 years of organizational tenure.

12 Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors 107 Procedure The questionnaire was delivered in different sessions and collected a few days later. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. The research team guaranteed confidentiality of data processing. Consistent with this, respondents were asked to return the completed questionnaires directly to the research staff. Data on absenteeism and extra time behavior rates were provided by the company records at the end of the same year during which the survey was conducted. To match the participant s questionnaire responses with his or her rates of absenteeism and extra role behaviors, each participant was assigned a code, by the human resource (HR) department. Each questionnaire had the employee s personal code printed on the front page. An HR representative delivered each coded questionnaire to the correspondent employee, but the questionnaires were collected back by the research team. In doing so, the HR department knew the name of the employee, his or her code, and the objective measure rates, but did not know the answers to the questionnaire, whereas the research team knew the code, the answers to the questionnaire, the objective measures provided by the company, but not the name of the employee. This was done to enable the organization to provide the objective measures associated with each respondent, thus respecting the privacy law. Measures The measures included (a) the questionnaire and (b) the company s data on absenteeism and extra role behaviors. 1. The self-report questionnaire comprised 33 items measuring all psychological constructs considered in the conceptual model. BURNOUT The Maslach Burnout Inventory General Survey (MBI-GS; Schaufeli, Leiter, Maslach, & Jackson, 1996) is a 16-item measure and evaluates the three dimensions of burnout syndrome: exhaustion (Ex), cynicism (Cy), and professional efficacy (Ef) among people in all occupations. We used the Italian version of the MBI-GS (Borgogni, Galati, Petitta, & Centro Formazione Schweitzer, 2005). The items were framed as statements of job-related feelings such as I feel emotionally drained from my work (Ex), I doubt the significance of my work (Cy), I feel confident that I am effective at getting things done (Ef), and were rated on a 7-point frequency scale (ranging from 0 ¼ never to 6 ¼ daily). A confirmatory factor analysis conducted on the three-factor model satisfied multiple goodness of fit tests

13 108 L. Petitta and M. Vecchione (v 2 ¼ , df ¼ 96, p <.001; Non-Normed Fit Index [NNFI] ¼.91, Comparative Fit Index [CFI] ¼.92, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual [SRMR] ¼.066, root mean square of approximation [RMSEA] ¼.077). The internal consistency (Cronbach s a) was.87 (Ex),.82 (Cy), and.76 (Ef). RESOURCES=DEMANDS VARIABLES Nuclear physics job-specific studies are few, and the peculiarities of scientific research work begged for a preliminary investigation of the specific resources and requirements that professionals of nuclear physics research perceived as associated to their job. Therefore, and consistent with Schneider s (2001) recommendations to adapt the content and wording of a scale s statements to the specific context of a study, we choose not to use already available resources=demands scales. Two months before the survey, we conducted a focus group interview with employees, using Flanagan s (1954) critical incident technique. Following content analysis, and consistent with a previous research pool of items in public administration (Borgogni, Dello Russo, Petitta, & Latham, 2009), six context-related items were created that refer respectively to a resources dimension, namely support by colleagues, and a demands variable, namely workload, as listed in resources=demands taxonomies in already existing literatures (Lee & Ashforth, 1996). The items are framed as descriptions of contextual situations that respondents are exposed to and thus perceive when they are at work, namely, perceptions of context (Borgogni, Dello Russo, et al., 2009). The 7-point Likert-type response scale ranged from 1 ¼ strongly disagree,to 7¼ strongly agree. A confirmatory factor analysis satisfied multiple goodness of fit tests (v 2 ¼ , df ¼ 7, p ¼.17, NNFI ¼.97, CFI ¼.99, SRMR ¼.043, RMSEA ¼.058), and yielded support to two distinct factors. Support by colleagues. Nuclear physics research is grounded on collaboration among researchers, and between researchers and technicians on scientific projects. In this context, perception of colleagues support is associated to their professional and relational availability. Interviews captured the specificities of this work setting and revealed a situation in which employees had high control over their work schedule and suggested to examine social support with regard to how their adjust or change their agenda to facilitate others. A 3-item scale measured the perceptions of colleagues collaboration (e.g., The colleagues are available to change the work schedule in order to solve the problems of one of us ). The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach s a) was.70. Workload. In a context of highly professionalized scientific research, work requirements are intrinsically related to the value of one s activity

14 Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors 109 and are perceived by the professionals as challenging activities that foster skill utilization and enhance their sense of pride in scientific success and achievement. Interviews revealed a situation in which employees were made responsible for challenging achievements and were exposed to high qualitative and quantitative demands. A 3-item workload scale was designed to measure the perception of the quantity of work that professionals have to do as compared to time pressure (Cordes, Dougherty, & Blum, 1997) and work quantity (e.g., In my department work is intense and long-lasting ). The internal consistency (Cronbach s a) was.79. PERCEIVED SELF-EFFICACY Consistent with Bandura s (2006) recommendations for construct specificity, perceived self-efficacy was measured by 11 items regarding beliefs of being able to handle job responsibilities, emergencies, and coordination with colleagues, as required by the highly challenging and professionalized context of nuclear physics research. Items were framed as statements of job-related beliefs of being able to cope with critical technical work settings (e.g., I am sure I can successfully solve even the most difficult problems on my job ). The 7-point Likert-type response scale ranged from 1 ¼ strongly disagree to 7 ¼ strongly agree. A confirmatory factor analysis performed on the responses to the 11 items satisfied multiple goodness of fit tests and supported the unidimensionality of the scale (v 2 ¼ , df ¼ 27, p <.05, NNFI ¼.92, CFI ¼.94, SRMR ¼.055, RMSEA ¼.061). The internal consistency (Cronbach s a) was Individual data on absenteeism and extra role behaviors were made available by registered administrative records. For each employee, the number of days absent=extra time behaviors were computed over a 1-year period, the same year during which the survey was conducted. ABSENTEEISM Consistent with the organizational withdrawal approach that posits a progressive process of disengaging behaviors in relation to psychological distress (Hardy, Woods, & Wall, 2003), absenteeism was assessed on the basis of frequency and was related to absence outside scheduled vacations, holidays, days off, training leave, and military service (Wegge, Schmidt, Parkes, & van Dick, 2007). EXTRA ROLE BEHAVIORS Employees had a full-time contract, requiring them to work a given number of hours per day. Access to the workplace was by security identification

15 110 L. Petitta and M. Vecchione badges. Consistent with the definition of extra-time behaviors as spontaneous activities by an employee who volunteers for nonpaid time spent on tasks (Brown & Roloff, 2009) beyond the role prescriptions and what is specifiable in terms of the person s employment contract (Organ, 1997), we considered the frequency of working days computed on the total amount of hours spent at work, outside the scheduled working hours expected by one s contract as an objective measure of extra time (recorded through the mean of employees security badges). RESULTS Structural Model Descriptive statistics and the correlation matrix for the variables are presented in Table 1. All of the variables had skewness and kurtosis values lower than 1 (in absolute value), with the exception of absenteeism and extra role behaviors. Both these variables had a non-normal distribution, with high positive skewness and kurtosis. As recommended by Tabachnick and Fidell (1989), a logarithmic transformation was conducted to reduce skewness and kurtosis to an acceptable level. After the transformation, both variables approximated a normal distribution. Absenteeism was positively correlated to exhaustion whereas extra role time behavior was negatively related to cynicism. Exhaustion and cynicism were positively correlated and displayed a weak negative correlation with professional efficacy. Workload and support by colleagues were negatively related to cynicism. Self-efficacy was positively related to professional efficacy and the job resources component, namely, support by colleagues. The posited nomological net (McDonald, 1999) among variables, shown in Figure 1, was tested using Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 1998). Maximum likelihood estimation procedures were applied. Although the use of latent variables is generally recommended, the cases-to-parameters ratio would TABLE 1 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Among the Variables Constructs M SD Extra role behavior Absenteeism Exhaustion Professional efficacy Cynicism Work load Support by colleagues Self-efficacy p <.05, p <.01.

16 Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors 111 FIGURE 2 Final empirical model. Note. Beta coefficients are significant at p <.05; ns ¼ nonsignificant. be lower than the recommended minimum criterion of 5:1 (Kline, 2005). Thus, we used the mean ratings of the marker items to measure the study variables. This model (Figure 2) showed a nonsignificant v 2 ¼ 7.409, df ¼ 8, p ¼.41, CFI ¼ 1.0, Tucker-Lewis Index [TLI] ¼ 1.0, SRMR ¼.031, RMSEA ¼.000 ( ). The model explained the following percentage of the variance: 6% in absenteeism, 8% in extra role behaviors, 19% in exhaustion, 48% in cynicism, 34% in professional efficacy, 6% in workload, and 28% in support by colleagues. Absenteeism was negatively correlated with extra role behaviors.40, whereas support by colleagues and workload were positively correlated.22. In this model, self-efficacy was positively related to support by colleagues, more so than to workload. Self-efficacy was also positively related to professional efficacy and displayed a negative relationship with exhaustion. Consistent with approaches suggesting that professional efficacy develops rather independently (Leiter, 1993), exhaustion was positively related to cynicism whereas professional efficacy was neither related to exhaustion nor to cynicism. Support by colleagues and workload were negatively related to cynicism which in turn negatively related to extra role behaviors. Workload was positively related to exhaustion which in turn was positively related to absenteeism. ALTERNATIVE MODEL As a further test of the appropriateness of the posited conceptual model, we tested an alternative model based on Hobfol and Shirom s (1993) and Bolino

17 112 L. Petitta and M. Vecchione and Turnley s (2005) theoretical background and empirical findings. In this model, absenteeism is posited as an organizational disruptive coping behavior (Hobfol & Shirom) and extra role behaviors are posited as a personal cost of over dedication (Bolino & Turnley). Therefore, we tested a nomological net among variables that reversed the link between organizational outcomes and burnout: self-efficacy! resources=demands! absenteeism= extra role behaviours! job burnout. The model showed a significant (p <.001) v 2 ¼ 46.62, df ¼ 8, and poor fit indices (NNFI ¼.50, CFI ¼.86, SRMR ¼.057, RMSEA ¼.184; (.135; 237). From these results, it would appear that the network of influences posited in the target model fit the data best. It represents a better balance between goodness of fit and explanatory power than the relationships hypothesized in the alternative model. DISCUSSION Consistent with a salutogenic approach (Appley & Trumbull, 1986), and drawing upon the findings that self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986) explains better adjustment to one s environment and lower levels of burnout (Bandura, 2004; Cherniss, 1993; Schmitz, 2000), the current study framed the investigation of burnout within the context of an Italian nuclear physics institute and aimed at assessing an integrated model that simultaneously considered the role of self-efficacy, social support, and workload in explaining burnout, which in turn was positively associated with absenteeism and negatively associated to extra role behaviors. The results support the majority of the hypotheses yet present some counter intuitive findings. First, the self-efficacy of highly professionalized scientific researchers is positively related to support by colleagues, thus attesting the relevance of beliefs of being able to shape work activities in light of collaboration among researchers, and between researchers and technicians to achieve results on common projects. High levels of self-efficacy also relate to high levels of workload. Our findings suggest that employees working in specific demanding, yet challenging and engaging work contexts, are more likely to perceive work underload as a limit to fully using and developing their potential (Jex & Bliese, 1999; Matsui & Onglatco, 1992). Self-efficacy beliefs are grounded in an individual s actual abilities (Bandura, 1986) and provide employees a working model of their context that enables them to engage in situations that lead to desired outcomes, such as intense work for professional success and high achievements. Furthermore, when exposed to high requests, employees beliefs system drives their agentic action in exploring and selecting experiences that count. This likely enables them to motivate and commit themselves and to actively regulate their energies to avoid feelings of depletion and exhaustion (Bandura, 2004). Therefore, employees sense of

18 Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors 113 mastering prevents them from feeling drained and exhausted in the face of intense and prolonged work hours and drives them to feeling fully competent and giving a valuable contribution to their organization, in other words, high professional efficacy. Second, consistent with Maslach and Leiter s (1999) resource-based model of burnout, exhaustion was strongly and positively related with cynicism, yet exhaustion and cynicism had no significant relationship with professional efficacy. Our findings are in line with recent literature suggesting the independent role of professional efficacy in the development of burnout (Leiter, 1993; Maslach & Leiter, 2008) and further supports the idea that feeling exhausted may lead to becoming detached from aversive work conditions, but both these feelings do not automatically imply that one will evaluate one s work contribution as worthless. However, the nonsignificant paths in the model occurred in the context of a strong path from self-efficacy that appears to have consumed all of the variance in professional efficacy. This is not surprising, in light of the similarity of the two constructs, but does not entirely rule out the relationship among the three aspects of burnout. In all, when dealing with burnout professional efficacy displays as a complex self-evaluation process highly accounted for by self-efficacy as a coping process (Benight et al., 1999). Third, employees perception of support by colleagues was negatively related to cynicism thus enhancing the role of collaboration and coworkers availability in handling work requirements to find better person environment adjustment and foster engagement with rather than distance from and lack of interest for their work (cynicism). Furthermore, employees perception of workload was found to be positively related to exhaustion. This is consistent with the warnings found in the literature that continuing high work efforts (work overload) could adversely affect employees well-being and energy for work (exhaustion) (Hannam & Jimmieson, 2002; Jex & Bliese, 1999). However, and contrary to the hypothesis of the current study, workload turned out to be negatively related to cynicism. This counterintuitive finding could be explained in light of the highly skilled and scientifically committed work context. The challenging professional achievements required by the employees are likely to be perceived as opportunities for improvement and prestigious professional acknowledgements. Self-efficacious employees likely perceive work underload as a stressor in that they feel frustrated by organizational constraints in fully exploiting and developing their skills (Bandura, 2000; Matsui & Onglatco, 1992). Hence, high demands could shape the employees relationship with their work toward the positive pole of a match with their job (Bandura, 2000) and toward the experience of feelings of engagement with their professional goals. Fourth, employees absence from work was positively related to the resource depletion component of burnout (exhaustion). This is consistent with the literature and empirical findings that has assigned to the worker s

19 114 L. Petitta and M. Vecchione internal experience of stress, and to exhaustion in particular (Deery, Iverson, & Walsh, 2002; Grandey et al., 2004), a major role in fueling behavioral withdrawal (i.e., absenteeism) (Bakker et al., 2003; Gil-Monte, 2008; Maslach & Leiter, 1999, 2008). In high commitment work contexts, employees are likely fully aware of the disruptive consequences of repeated absenteeism on project achievement, and hence absenteeism is likely to be considered as a last resort coping strategy when one just cannot handle job requirements any longer. In all, a pain-avoidance theoretical framework of absenteeism (Rhodes & Steers, 1990) may be less relevant when studying burnout in relationship with other types of coping processes (Neveu, 2007), as is the case of self-efficacy in our conceptual model. This is compatible with the other major findings on extra role behaviors. Consistent with empirical findings on OCB as a negative correlate of burnout (Brown & Roloff, 2009; Kohan & Mazmanian, 2003; Wegge et al., 2006), yet differently from the significant association found between OCB and exhaustion (Chiu & Tsai, 2006; Cropanzano et al., 2003), employees who were fully involved in their job (reduced cynicism) were more likely to engage in extra-time effort and dedication to their work. Being involved and committed to the challenging goals of their work projects represents a closely matched condition to one s job and contributes to increasing the likelihood of enduring in extra role time. Overall, our findings support the relevance of a salutogenic approach to job stress, as in studying the role of self-efficacy in preventing the experience of person job misfit and feelings of strain (Lee & Ashforth, 1996). Self-efficacy, as a proactive copying strategy to handle job requirements and feelings of strain, is a key factor in preventing the most engaged employees from burning out and being absent from work. Our results support a JD-R based approach to burnout development with regard to the investigation of resources (social support) and demands (workload) in the etiology of the syndrome. The current research rejected the alternative model (Bolino & Turnley, 2006; Hobfol & Shirom, 1993) that included absence and extra role behaviors as a coping strategy that predicts employees burnout, thus providing further support to the role of burnout components in explaining positive (i.e., extra role behaviors) and negative (i.e., absenteeism) organizational outcomes. Finally, organizations depend upon the contributions of OCB for effective functioning, yet management has to protect employees who put forth more effort and work longer (workload) from paying the costs of resource depletion and engaging in retrieval behaviors and diminishing their gesture of good will and altruism (OCB). Whereas literature on absenteeism is fairly consistent in committing to differentiate various sources (e.g., medical certificate illness, permission for parental assistance, lateness) and types (i.e., voluntary, involuntary) of absences, research on extra role behaviors calls for further attention in

20 Job Burnout, Absenteeism, and Extra Role Behaviors 115 better understanding the motives of extra time dedication when dealing with demanding activities that put employees at risk of burnout. Future research could further deepen the difference between person-focused and task-focused extra role behaviors (Settoon & Mossholder, 2002), and their differential relationship with social support, workload, and burnout components. Limitations and Future Research First, the current research was specifically designed to focus on employees perceptions of organizational context and their self-efficacy in dealing with it, and on feelings of burning out, potentially associated with these variables. Consistent with this, the self-report methodology seemed appropriate (Miles et al., 2002), also considering that the constructs we measured are by definition aspects that only the person can report, in that they refer to perceptions and evaluations related to an individual self-system. Hence, there is the possibility that the current results are affected by common method variance. However, the current study s criteria were measures of absenteeism and extra time behaviors, collected at a different point in time and from a different source (objective measures), which may attenuate the risks of correlation inflation (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). Second, an arguable limitation could be the type of absence computed to assess absenteeism. Because of the system used by the firm to categorize absence from work, we were able to exclude absence due to the scheduled time-off (e.g., vacations, training leave, military service), but we were not able to control for epidemics (e.g., influenza), and for treatments due to disease or injuries. Third, a limitation could be the use of absence frequency to evaluate absenteeism, as provided by organizational records. Future research on this issue suggests a number of directions. First, measures of absence frequency could be controlled for and integrated with measures of absence length, as their interaction could contribute to explain an employee vulnerability to burnout. Second, absence frequency could be evaluated differently to include other types of withdrawal behaviors such as lateness and frequency=length of breaks. Fourth, another arguable limitation could be the use of overtime at work as a measure of extra role behavior. As maintained by Organ (1997), the concept of job itself is likely changing in the wake of increasingly flexible and competitive organizations. Job could be whatever is required in the person s workplace. To the extent that this occurs, anything that is needed from the person to contribute would become part of the job. One may argue that that is what potentially applies to the challenging and demanding job of our research context. However, given the possibility of tracking the extra time