Relationship between Personality Traits and Burnout - Case Study Example

Relationship between Personality Traits and Burnout In Hospitality Management Research Question: The purpose of the paper is to find relationship between personality traits and burnout in hospitality management. Introduction The hospitality industry is a people industry. Hospitality jobs require customer contact around the clock 7 days a week. Such a work situation has been reported to be stressful for hospitality workers. For example, Allen and Mellor, 2002 found that dealing with problem clients is one of the most unpleasant incidents for restaurant, hotel, and airline employees. Jensen-Campbell and Graziano, (2001) identified the following reasons why young, talented hospitality employees leave the industry: long working hours including nights and weekends, low pay, and stress from demanding duties and supervisors. In general, job stress of managers and frontline personnel has been well documented in the hospitality and tourism literature (Hahn et al., 1999). Job burnout studies were originally conducted on people working in human services and education (Maslach et al., 2001 ). The topic continues to be of interest in various fields including hospitality academia. Within hospitality and tourism, most existing studies have investigated causes of burnout with a focus on the work environment including role stressors, organizational structures, and job characteristics. Specifically, role ambiguity, role conflict, poor management, poor communication, difficult customers, lack of autonomy, and work overload have been reported as precursors of hospitality job burnout (Allen and Mellor, 2002). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the role of personality dispositions in understanding hospitality employees’ job burnout in the hotel work setting. The Five-Factor Model of personality, which in recent years has received significant support among personality experts, is used. In the literature section, the five personality dimensions and the antecedents of job burnout are described in detail. 2. Literature reviews Definition of job burnout A group of psychologists consider job burnout as a type of stress, which is one dimensional (Maslach et al., 2001 ). Others view it as multi-dimensional (Allen and Mellor, 2002 ). The current consensus is that job burnout is composed of three sub-constructs: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Emotional exhaustion refers to a lack of energy and a feeling that one's emotional resources are used up because of excessive psychological demands. Depersonalization is characterized by treating others as objects rather than people through cynical, callous, and uncaring attitudes and behaviors. Diminished personal accomplishment denotes a tendency to evaluate oneself negatively because of failure to produce results. Each sub-dimension of job burnout captures its unique aspect of job burnout (Somer and Goldberg, 1999). In summary, the principal dimensions of job burnout are the stress component (emotional exhaustion), interpersonal relations (depersonalization), and self-evaluation (personal accomplishment). Five-Factor Model of personality The personality taxonomy known as the Big Five or the Five-Factor Model has been particularly influential in industrial and organizational psychology during the last decade (Maslach et al., 2001 ). Most of the studies investigating the Big Five factors utilized the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) as their foundation—Revised (NEO-PI-R; Goldberg, 2001). However, the discovery of the five factors was entirely based upon lexical studies of personality structure (Allen and Mellor, 2002). The lexical hypothesis states that the largest numbers of personality-descriptive adjectives in human languages represent the major dimensions of personality variations (Somer and Goldberg, 1999). Following the discovery of the Big Five (i.e., neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience) using the English language, the model was validated in other cultures. Clearly recognizable, five variants of personality dimensions emerged in factor analyses of familiar personality-descriptive adjectives in a variety of languages including European (Allen and Mellor, 2002 ), Turkish (Somer and Goldberg, 1999), and Korean (Zellars et al., 2000 ). Relationship between personality traits and burnout In addition to work environment variables (i.e., job demands and resources), several psychologists have emphasized personality traits as feasible predictors of job burnout. After reviewing the literature on the Big Five and vocational behaviors from 1993 to 1997, De Vries and Van Heck, (2002) reported extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism as the most frequently emerged personality traits related to vocational behaviors. Neuroticism reflects individual differences in anxiousness, depression, anger, embarrassment, emotionality, worry, and insecurity. Overall, this personality dimension affects job burnout factors in the opposite direction of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Allen and Mellor (2002) found that neuroticism had a significant relationship with exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy in their cross-sectional studies using a group of nurses. Stronger evidence for the importance of neuroticism in its relationship with job burnout was derived from a longitudinal study by Goddard et al. (2004). The results of their study indicated that neuroticism was associated with all three MBI subscales in a sample of employment service case managers. Allen and Mellor, (2002) personality profile of the hotel manager showed that hotel managers suffer from less anxiety than business executives, reflecting lodging managers may have a more stable personality. Therefore, neuroticism is posited to have a significant and positive influence on the exhaustion and cynicism dimensions of burnout and a significant and negative impact on professional efficacy in the hotel work setting. The last personality trait, openness to experience, represents individual differences pertaining to intelligence, breadth of interests, and creativity. To the authors’ knowledge, this trait has been largely irrelevant to one's job burnout with only one exception: the research done by Zellars et al. (2000). Their study reported openness to experience as a significant determinant of job burnout in the health care industry. For the purpose of this study, the authors assume that because of the limited number of studies on this subject, there is no significant relationship between openness to experience and hotel employees’ job burnout. 3. Research hypotheses In summary, based on the literature review and authors’ understanding of the nature of hotel jobs, the following five hypotheses are proposed: Hypothesis 1 Extraversion will have a negative influence on exhaustion and cynicism, and a positive effect on professional efficacy in the hotel work setting. Hypothesis 2 Agreeableness will have a negative influence on exhaustion and cynicism, and a positive effect on professional efficacy in the hotel work setting. Hypothesis 3 Conscientiousness will have a negative influence on exhaustion and cynicism, and a positive impact on professional efficacy in the hotel work setting. Hypothesis 4 Neuroticism will have a positive influence on exhaustion and cynicism, and a negative effect on professional efficacy in the hotel work setting. Hypothesis 5 Openness to experience will not exert any effect on job burnout in the hotel work setting. 4. Method Participants and procedure A total of eight lodging properties participated in this study. All of them are chain hotels located in Washington State, USA. Five of the participating properties can be characterized as upscale and three are mid-scales hotels. The authors contacted several key hotel executives, such as general managers and regional human resource directors to discuss this study. After their approval, the human resource manager of each hotel served as the onsite study coordinator. The coordinator identified the number of questionnaires needed by each hotel. Two consecutive paydays were used to gather data. On the second payday, follow-up questionnaires were sent with a reminder message. The questionnaire included a cover letter explaining the purpose of the study and a postage paid return envelope. After mailing their survey forms, respondents were instructed to inform the coordinator of their participation in the study. The list of the participant names was provided to the researchers by hotel coordinators. As an incentive, Cougar Gold Cheese was awarded to 10% of the participants on a lottery basis. The number of questionnaires sent to each property varied from 50 to 220. The response rate from each hotel ranged from 10% to 35%. All together, 1001 surveys were distributed and 191 useable questionnaires were returned (average response rate: 20%). Despite the low response rate, it was felt that the sample provides the mixture of hotel service employees from various departments (see the subject characteristics section) and the number of responses is reasonable to undertake meaningful analysis. 5. Data analysis and results A series of hierarchical regression analyses was used as a major statistical technique to test research hypotheses regarding the effects of personality traits (independent variables) on hotel employees’ job burnout (dependent variable). To determine the effect of some research factors of interest, it is necessary to statistically control for the Y variance due to causally antecedent variables in the cases under study (Cohen et al., 2003). One advantage of the hierarchical analysis is that once the order of the independent variables is determined, a unique partitioning of the total Y variance accounted for by the independent variable(s) entering at the moment may be made (Cohen et al., 2003). In the regression model proposed in this study, besides the Big-Five personality, two additional independent variables (workload and autonomy) were included. The previous literature indicates workload and autonomy as the most widely accepted job burnout antecedents. Therefore, it was deemed appropriate to allow these two attributes to enter the model first as control variables for the purpose of partialing out of their effects (step 1). Then, five personality factors, which are the focus of this study, were added into the equation (step 2). These hierarchical steps were repeated for each of the three job burnout components: exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy. 6. Discussion Although autonomy is not a focal point of this research, this variable deserves special attention. Of all the independent variables including personality, autonomy is the only variable that shows consistent effects on all three burnout factors. Autonomy is viewed as a necessary component of employee empowerment. Keegan and Lucas (2005) suggested employee empowerment (delegation of authority) as an alternative solution for hospitality work stress. In a sense, the current data also support the importance of empowerment in hospitality operations. In hotels, many service encounters require immediate action from frontline personnel to fulfill customers’ needs. Autonomy seems to alleviate lodging employees’ emotional exhaustion by allowing them to make their own decisions so that they can respond to guests’ desires more efficiently and effectively. It also appears to serve as a deterrent to becoming cynical (depersonalized) because they have the authority to provide personalized services for guests whenever necessary without seeking permission. After seeing guests satisfied, hotel workers are likely to feel good about their jobs, which probably leads to an increase in their professional efficacy. Next, conscientiousness was positively related to only one of the job burnout dimensions (professional efficacy). The association of conscientiousness with professional efficacy is much more understandable than any other personality construct. Conscientiousness has been considered most essential in predicting job performance criteria (Goddard et al., 2004 ). Strong responsibility, organizational skills, and steadiness, which characterize conscientiousness, may be accountable for this significant relationship. That is, individuals who have a high level of conscientiousness strive to complete their duties. In turn, this mastery experience leads to an increase in professional efficacy. This study shows that hotel employees are not an exception. Neuroticism (negative affectivity) is the best-known personality trait in its relationship with occupational stress and has the least controversy among scholars (Cohen et al., 2003). Extraversion is the second most commonly understood personality trait because of its role of positive affectivity. Overall, the findings of this study regarding neuroticism and extraversion are in line with previous reported outcomes, which indicate these two variables are significant predictors of exhaustion, often viewed as the core dimension of job burnout (Keegan and Lucas, 2005). Based on the tendency of these two traits to influence emotional exhaustion, it may be possible to predict that employees higher in extraversion and lower in neuroticism are likely to be long-term survivors in the hotel business. 7. Conclusion and implications In hospitality academia, most scholarly efforts examine employee job burnout focusing on work environment and conditions. This study enriches the body of literature by demonstrating empirical evidence of the role of personality types in hotel job burnout. The present research also bridges the gap between hospitality education and the hotel industry where personality measures have been a popular tool for personnel selection and placement. The results of this study strengthen the use of personality testing in the lodging industry by validating the impact of individual personality on job burnout. Another key finding involves employee empowerment. The result of this study suggests that empowered employees with more autonomy are less likely to experience job stress (exhaustion), treat customers more personally (lack of cynicism) and feel proud of their job (professional efficacy). Therefore, hoteliers should consider utilizing this concept more extensively and provide training for their employees to use their autonomy appropriately in such a manner that they can maximize customer satisfaction. In conclusion, the present study demonstrates that for lodging companies to be truly successful, appropriate employment practices such as allowing autonomy, training, and rewards should follow after recruitment of individuals with a proper personality profile. References Allen, J. and Mellor, D. 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(1999) A factor analysis of the most frequently used Korean personality trait adjectives, European Journal of Personality 13, pp. 261–282. Jensen-Campbell, L.A. and Graziano, W.G. (2001) Agreeableness as a moderator of interpersonal conflict, Journal of Personality 69, pp. 323–362. Keegan, S.N. and Lucas, R. (2005) Hospitality to hostility: Dealing with low response rates in postal surveys, International Journal of Hospitality Management 24 (2), pp. 157–169. Marchese, M.C. and Ryan, J. (2001) Capitalizing on the benefits of utilizing part-time employees through job autonomy, Journal of Business and Psychology 15, pp. 549–560. Maslach, C. Schaufeli, W.B. and Leiter, M.P. (2001) Job burnout, Annual Review of Psychology 52, pp. 397–422. Somer, O. and Goldberg, L.R. (1999) The structure of Turkish trait-descriptive adjectives, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76, pp. 431–450. Zellars, K.L. Perrewe, P.L. and Hochwarter, W.A. (2000) Burnout in health care: the role of the five factors of personality, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 30, pp. 1570–1598. Read More