Organizational Behaviour Comportement Organisationnel

1991) and individual psychological strain (Kaufmann and Beehr, 1989). Studies of burnoutamong law enforcement officers represents only two percent of 473 studies published injournal articles, books and 538 dissertations between 1978 and 1996 (Schaufeli and Enzmann,1998). However, several burnout studies of law enforcement organizations, have confirmedthe negative impact that job demands have on the home and family lives of officers as a resultof high burnout levels (e.g., Burke and Deszca, 1986). Law enforcement is associated withpsychological and emotional stressors that are often not counterbalanced by positive,emotionally pleasing interactions (Cannizzo and Liu, 1995). The majority of burnout studieson law enforcement have focused at the lowest organizational levels (i.e., street level), whichis consistent with most burnout studies conducted in various occupations. According to Leeand Ashforth (1993: 370), “very few studies have focused on managers, despite the apparentprevalence of burnout at the managerial level” (e.g., Harvey and Raider, 1984) and thedetrimental effects managers can have on the attitudes and behaviors of individuals they serveand lead (Golembiewski, Munzenrider et al., 1986; Gryskiewicz and Buttner, 1992;Kadushin, 1985; Seltzer and Numerof, 1988). Consequently, the current study aims toaddress this deficiency by investigating burnout among senior law enforcement officers byfocusing on the burnout process within this occupation.The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI, Maslach and Jackson, 1981) has been themost widely used instrument for investigating burnout and is recognized to be robust.However, the structural validity of the MBI is not beyond question (Schaufeli, Enzmann etal., 1993), even though many attempts have be made to clarify the number of factors (e.g.,Byrne, 1993; Schaufeli and Van Dierendonck, 1993). The original three factor structuredeveloped by Maslach and Jackson (1981) has dominated all investigations of the burnoutprocess which to date, have been unable to provide conclusive empirical evidence of theburnout process (Hellesøy et al., 2000). A recent study of the MBI factor structure identifiedfive burnout factors (Densten, 2001). This new factor structure incorporated keydevelopments in the conceptualization and measurement of burnout that have occurred sincethe conception of the MBI. Specifically, the expanded five-factor structure increased thecapacity of the MBI to measure more clearly the dimensions of emotional exhaustion andpersonal accomplishment. The emotional exhaustion dimensions relate to ‘feelings of beingemotionally extended and exhausted by one’s work’ (Maslach and Jackson, 1981: 100) andhave both a psychological and somatic (i.e., physical) aspect which are measured by twofactors, namely emotional exhaustion (psychological strain) and emotional exhaustion(somatic strain). According to Enzmann, Schaufeli, Janssen, & Rozeman (1998), being ableto distinguish clearly between psychological and physical forms of exhaustion has soundtheoretical support. Emotional exhaustion, as a single factor has a discriminant validity that isconsidered ‘relatively poor’ because it is strongly related to other concepts, such aspsychosomatic symptoms (Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1998). Consequently, these findingsprovide support for emotional exhaustion having two aspects.The personal accomplishment or professional efficacy dimensions relate to a lack offeelings regarding both job competence and successful achievement in one’s work and aremeasured by two factors (items were reverse scored), namely personal accomplishment (self)and personal accomplishment (others). Personal accomplishment (self) focuses on internallydriven feelings related to self-inefficacy or a lack of ability (Bandura, 1977), while personalaccomplishment (others) focuses on externally driven (e.g., views from others) feelingsrelated to learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975) and the expectation that successfulachievement is unlikely. The depersonalization, cynicism, or dehumanization dimensionrelates to an individual’s attempts to gain emotional distance (e.g., treating a client as anumber) as a means to cope with exhaustion, and is measured by a factor, namelydepersonalization. In summary, the emotional exhaustion factors represent forms of strainwhile the personal accomplishment factors and the depersonalization factor are copingbehaviors.Each MBI burnout factor has a different progression or mechanism but is linked by acommon association or root (Buunk and Schaufeli, 1993). This multidimensional view issupported by empirical evidence (Maslach, 1993). Several models have attempted to explain21