Research On The Impact Of Perceived Organizational Support On The Job Burnout Of Street-level Civil Servants

According to the report on the psychological profile of grassroots civil servants in China by Dr.Jianjun Zheng(researcher of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences),which is published by Guangming Daily in 2013,78.89% of the grassroots civil servants had mild burnout and 6.4% had severe burnout.Excessive burnout can lead to problems such as the decrease in civil servants’ sense of identity towards the governmental organization,the decrease in work commitment,and procrastination,thus affecting their work efficiency.Street-level civil servants are considered to be a critical part of China’s civil servant group,who have to face the public directly.In light of this,public trust and government image will be seriously affected if street-level civil servants’ burnout is not effectively alleviated.Therefore,this research focuses on the impact of perceived organizational support on the street-level civil servants’ burnout.Meanwhile,the research introduces the variable of job engagement and establishes a theoretical model to investigate the relations among three factors,namely burnout,job engagement,and perceived organizational support.By analysing empirical data of street-level civil servants’ burnout profile and testing the hypotheses,recommendations on reducing burnout are put forward.The research is conducted from the following aspects.Literature review is done to explain the theory of perceived organizational support,the conservation of resources theory,the theory of social exchange and their applications.Based on theoretical exploration and interview,the research hypotheses are proposed to establish a model of the aforementioned three factors.In the empirical analysis part,the statistical analysis method is utilized.The data of 323 street-level civil servants is collected as the data basis.Difference analysis,correlation analysis and regression analysis are conducted by SPSS 22.0 software.The research shows that:(1)Respondents with various personal characteristics would have different sense of perceived organizational support,job engagement,and burnout;(2)The sense of perceived organizational support of street-level civil servants positively affects job engagement and its dimensions;(3)The sense of perceived organizational support,job engagement of street-level civil servants and all dimensions negatively affect burnout and its dimensions;(4)The job engagement of street-level civil servants plays a mediating rolein the sense of perceived organizational support and burnout.Based on the findings above,this research proposed recommendations in the following areas.First of all,a good organizational atmosphere emphasizing fair and harmony could reduce the level of inefficiencies caused by burnout and thereby increase their self-identity.Secondly,establishing a reasonable assessment and incentive mechanism and expanding street-level civil servants’ career promotion channels could improve their job engagement,thus reducing the cynicism level in burnout.Finally,through scientific and reasonable functional training and stress-relieving mechanisms,street-level civil servants can better master work skills and shape a healthy professional psychological quality,and then alleviate the level of exhaustion in burnout.