Research On The Influence Of Grassroots Civil Servants’ Career Adaptability On Burnout And Work Engagement:a Moderated Mediation Model

The working attitude and psychological state of grassroots civil servants will directly affect administrative performance and public service quality.The single career path and limited promotion space in the public sector have led a large number of grassroots civil servants falling into a career plateau and encounter the career ceiling,resulting in negative work attitudes and low work efficiency,and the widely criticized phenomenon of official inaction.How to deal with the career plateau and burnout of grassroots civil servants,and how to stimulate their enthusiasm and engagement has become an important issue for the construction of effective cadres and the improvement of government effectiveness in the new era.Based on Resource Conservation Theory and Career Construction Theory,this study explores whether career adaptability of grassroots civil servants affects their career plateau and whether the relationship between them has an impact on work engagement and burnout,and further explores the moderating role of public service motivation in this process,constructing a moderated mediation model.By using convenience sampling and snowball sampling method,467 valid questionnaire data of grassroots civil servants were obtained.The results of the conditional process analysis based on Mplus and Process show that(1)career adaptability of grassroots civil servants has a significant negative effect on their career plateau and burnout,and a significant positive effect on public service motivation and work engagement;(2)career plateau has a significant positive effect on burnout,and a significant negative effect on public service motivation and work engagement;(3)promotion stagnation partially mediates the relationship between career adaptability and work engagement.And job marginalization and promotion stagnation partially mediates the relationship between career adaptability and burnout;(4)public service motivation plays a moderating role in mediating the pathway through which career adaptability affects burnout via the career plateau.And as the level of public service motivation increases,the negative effect of career adaptability on career plateau increases,the positive effect of job marginalization on burnout decreases,and the positive effect of promotion stagnation on burnout increases accordingly.Combining the findings and results of the open-ended questionnaire,this study proposes the following countermeasures at the organizational and individual levels.Government departments should(1)promote grassroots civil servants’ career adaptability through career consultation and vocational skills training;(2)optimize the human resource management systems such as job rotation,cadre selection and salary incentives to reduce the experience of career plateau.Individual grassroots civil servants should(1)develop career knowledge and skills through initiative learning to improve their governing ability;(2)make personal career development plan and establish long-term career goals;(3)strengthen their career beliefs and clarify the correct work motivation to serve the people.