The Moderating Role of Work Passion in the Relationship Between Organizational Climate and Burnout in a Sample of Secondary School Teachers

Abstract

The study investigated the moderating role of work passion in organizational climate and burnout relations among secondary school teachers. A total of two hundred and one (201) participants comprising 28 male and 182 female secondary school teachers from the ages of 24 to 46 years (M = 32.54,SD = 4.03) were drawn for the study using two-stage sampling. Burnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1986), Organizational Climate Scale (Litwin & Stringer, 1968) and Work Passion (Vallerand, Houlfort & Bourdeau 2003) were used for data collection. A correlational design was adopted for this study , while a moderated hierarchical multiple regression was used for data analysis. Findings show that work passion negatively correlated with emotional exhaustion dimension of burnout of (r= -.12,p < .05), work passion negatively correlated with depersonalization dimension of burnout (r= -.23,p < .001), work passion did not correlate with feeling of reduced personal accomplishment. Organizational climate did not correlate with any dimension of burnout (emotional exhaustion, r= -.08, depersonalisation, r= -.09 and feeling of reduced personal accomplishment, r= .02 at p< .05). Work passion negatively moderated the relationship between organizational climate and two dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion, β= -.21 and depersonalisation, β= -.20 at p< .01). Thus, school management should motivate school teachers to enhance work passion, so as to contribute to a decrease in both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.