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The relationship between sense of coherence, work engagement and burnout in a Public-Sector organisation

The objective of this study was (i) to determine the relationship between sense of
coherence, work engagement and burnout; and (ii) to determine whether, in terms of the
various socio-demographic groups, namely, gender, age, race, marital status, number of
years in current position and number of years in public service, the sample differed
significantly in terms of their levels of sense of coherence, work engagement and burnout.
A quantitative study, using primary data, was conducted using a convenience sample
(N = 172) of middle managers in a public service organisation. The psychometric properties
of the Orientation to Life Questionnaire, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and the
Maslach Burnout Inventory Scale were investigated before the hypothesis was tested.
The statistical analysis of the data included descriptive statistics as well as inferential
statistics. The Kaiser-Meyer Olkin and Bartlett’s test of sphericity techniques were used to
determine the exploratory factor analysis of all three measuring scales. A correlation
analysis between the one-factor sense of coherence, one-factor work engagement and the
three burnout sub-dimensions (exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy) was
conducted.
The Pearson product-moment correlation was used to determine the strength of the
relationships between the variables. The level of significance was set at a 95% confidence
interval level (p 􀀂􀀁0,05).
Standard multiple regression analysis was used to establish whether there is a significant
relationship between sense of coherence, work engagement and burnout. The Wilk’s
lambda technique was used to test the results for significance, while Levene's test of equality of error variances technique was used to test the results for significance on the
sense of coherence and work engagement scales with regard to the demographic groups.
The results showed that there was a significant relationship between the participants’ sense
of coherence, work engagement and burnout levels. Significant differences were also found
between respondents in the marital status group and the burnout dimension,
depersonalisation or cynicism. The results also reflected the wellbeing status of middle
managers and indicated that the respondents were flourishing (feeling good as they scored
a high sense of coherence and functioning well as indicated by a high score for work
engagement).
It is anticipated that the findings of the study will contribute valuable knowledge to employee
wellbeing programmes in public service. The study concludes by making recommendations
for future research practice. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/23123
Date09 1900
CreatorsGallie, Fatima
ContributorsHarry, Nisha
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeDissertation
Format1 online resource (x, 148 leaves) : illustrations (chiefly color)

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