Women Police Personnel's Work-Family Conflict and Burnout from Individual's Experience: The Moderating Effect of Stressful Working Environment.

Abstract

Aim: This study investigates the relationship between Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and the individual's experience of burnout by considering the moderating role of a stressful working environment.

Material and methods: The questionnaire holds "Work-Family Conflict" and consists of eight questions adopted from Carlson and Perrewé (1999). "Burnout" consists of three subconstructs, namely "Emotional exhaustion", which carries four questions, "Depersonalization", which has four questions, and "Personal accomplishment", holding three questions adopted from Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach and Jackson, 1981). And finally, "Stressful work environment" consists of 10 questions adopted from Gershon (1999). The research instrument was distributed among women police working in Chennai and Kanchipuram regions. The data from 427 women police personnel were collected through a questionnaire using a simple random sampling method.

Statistical analysis used: First, exploratory factor analysis was performed to test the standardization and tested for reliability using Cronbach's alpha test. It found that all loadings are between 0.649 and 0.866, which is satisfactory. Second, for demographic questionnaire items, descriptive statistics were performed. Finally, to find the moderating effects of stressful work environment on the relationship between WFC and the individual's experience of burnout, multiple hierarchical regression analysis was computed.

Results: The results show that WFC positively affects burnout and it has been found that a stressful working environment moderates the relationship. It also supports that individuals experience a high level of burnout when the working environment and WFC are intense.

Conclusion: The result supports that individuals experience high burnout when the working environment and WFC are intense. The study initiated an attempt to explain the mechanism through which a stressful working environment influences burnout levels.