Psychosocial safety climate and burnout among Malaysian research university academicians: the mediating roles of job demands and work engagement

Abstract

Contemporarily, academicians from Malaysian research university encounter greater burnout due to their high levels of job demands and low extents of job resources. Hence, this paper intends to examine the predictors of burnout among academicians. Furthermore, the paper intends to investigate the potential roles of work engagement, challenge demands and hindrance demands as the mediating variables. A total of 686 academicians from Malaysian research university participated in the study. The results of the study demonstrated that psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and work engagement possess a significant negative relationship with burnout whereas challenge demands and hindrance demands possess a significant positive relationship with burnout. Moreover, work engagement, challenge demands and hindrance demands were found to serve as significant mediators on the relationships between the predictor variables and burnout. The findings of this study are helpful to both academics and practitioners who desire to manage the burnout pervasiveness among Malaysian research university academicians.