Organizational Behaviour Comportement Organisationnel

the interrelationships among the MBI burnout factors. Central to these investigations hasbeen a developmental focus (Leiter, 1993), that is, how one factor influences another factor.Originally, Leiter and Maslach (1988) proposed sequential relationships among the burnoutfactors, and from this proposal, two schools of thought have developed. The first views theburnout process as an internal process with emotional exhaustion as the trigger to thesyndrome. The second views personal accomplishment and emotional exhaustion dimensionsas developing in parallel (Leiter, 1993) which involves two factors being influenced at thesame time from external work aspects. Further, Leiter (1993) has argued that a mixedsequential and parallel process model is most appropriate, rather than just a simple sequentialprocess model. Several studies of the burnout process (e.g., Bakker, Schaufeli et al., 2000;Toppinen-Tanner et al., 2000) have limited their investigations to a purely sequentialapproach (i.e., emotional exhaustion leads to depersonalization and then personalaccomplishment) which ignores the potential of parallel relationships within the burnoutprocess. This study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating parallel and sequentialrelationships.The current study identified three alternative process models of burnout. The firstmodel, was based on the phase approach of Golembiewski and Munzenrider (1988), thesecond model, was based on the sequential approach of Leiter and Maslach (1988), and thethird model, the base model, had all burnout factors centered on emotional exhaustion(psychological strain). The base model tests the proposition that emotional exhaustion(psychological strain) was central to all other burnout factors. Common to the first andsecond models, was the direct relationship of emotional exhaustion (psychological strain) onemotional exhaustion (somatic strain). Support for the direction of this relationship arisesfrom Leiter, Clark, and Durup’s (1994:79) finding that “emotional exhaustion mediated therelationship of psychosomatic symptoms with qualities of the work environment.” Wolpin(1988, cited in Shirom, 1989) also found that somatic symptoms were more likely to followpsychological symptoms rather than precede them. In addition, personal accomplishment(others) preceded personal accomplishment (self) in both the first and second models. Whileboth personal accomplishment types involve assessments of psychological success andfailure, personal accomplishment (others) is similar to self-efficacy (see Bandura, 1989) andis influenced by job or organizational aspects (i.e., situation-specific) and would therefore,logically precedes the more globally focused personal accomplishment (self) which isassociated with the general premise of hope (see Synder, 1994). In other words, self-efficacybeliefs would logically affect feeling of hope. The current study aims to clarify therelationships between the two emotional exhaustion factors and the two personalaccomplishment factors within a single structural model.Golembiewski and Munzenrider’s (1988) Phase ModelThe Golembiewski and Munzenrider’s (1988) process model has eight distinct phaseswhich are identified by unique combinations of high and low scores of depersonalization,personal accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion. These eight phases identify theprogressive deterioration of an individual experiencing burnout. Several cross-sectionalstudies (Golembiewski, Boudreau et al., 1996; Golembiewski and Munzenrider, 1990;Golembiewski et al., 1986; Greenglass, Burke et al., 1997; Gryskiewicz and Buttner, 1992)and one longitudinal study (Bakker et al., 2000) have provided support for this model. Theeight phases represent an underlying progression from depersonalization, to lack of personalaccomplishment and finally, emotional exhaustion. In simple terms, the phase modelsuggests that individuals first attempt to cope with a stressful situation by gaining emotionaldistance from their clients (i.e., depersonalization), resulting in impeded performance whichdiminishes personal accomplishment that eventually results in emotional exhaustion(Golembiewski et al., 1996). The current study investigates this phase progression of burnoutin Model 1 which proposes that the burnout process starts from depersonalization, whichsimultaneously (or in parallel) leads to (lack of) personal accomplishment (others) and (lackof) personal accomplishment (self), and finally to emotional exhaustion (psychological strain)and emotional exhaustion (somatic strain). Figure 1, illustrates the relationships of Model 1.22