A Structural Model of Higher Education Managers’ Job Burnout Based on Quality of Work life, Organizational Commitment, and Knowledge Management

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

The present study aimed to posit a structural model to predict higher education managers’ job burnout based on their quality of work life, organizational commitment, and knowledge management. This applied and descriptive study included 250 managers of district one of Islamic Azad University selected through cluster sampling from among a total of 660 managers.  In order to collect data a use was made of four questionnaires of job burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1981), quality of work life (Walton, 1973), organizational commitment (Meyer, 1990), and knowledge management (Lawson, 2003) whose reliability indexes were assessed. The findings revealed that: 1. the relationship of the quality of work life, organizational commitment, and knowledge management to job burnout was statistically significant. 2. Quality of work life, organizational commitment, and knowledge management could predict the managers’ job burnout most. 3. There was a statistically negative relationship between quality of work life, organizational commitment, and knowledge management and the dependent variable of job burnout. 4. Quality of work life could account for emotional burnout and personal accomplishment. 5. All the components of work life quality could predict job burnout. 6. Organizational commitment could only account for individual job performance of managers’ job burnout. 7. Two dimensions of intellectual commitment and normative commitment could predict job burnout variance by 0.44% and 0.39% respectively. 8. Except individual performance none of the burnout components were predicted by knowledge management. 9.  Only three dimensions of the knowledge management were able to predict job burnout. 10. The two dimensions of knowledge absorption and storage could predict the quality of work life. 11. Three components of quality of work life (healthy and safe workplace, legalism of the organization and the overall organization atmosphere) could account for job burnout.

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