Effects of job burnout on intention to leave a workplace of CPAs in Thailand.

• Author: Ussahawanitchakit, Phapruke
• Position: Report - Survey

1. INTRODUCTION

   Recently, certified public accountants (CPAs) have been important professions in the business environments because they must do relevant duties and responsibilities in reporting quality of financial statements, including transparency and reliability, to stakeholders and other related parties. CPAs' competencies are needed and distinctively play significant roles in helping stakeholders and others explore, assess, and investigate the advantages and benefits of firms' financial information in all activities by auditing any business transaction through the implementation of accounting and auditing standards, and other related regulations, rules, and laws (Ussahawanitchakit, 2008). Then, a study of CPAs' behaviors has been interested for academic researchers and practitioners. The antecedents and consequences of professional practices in the auditing environments are also main issues which the academic researchers and practitioners need to outstandingly identify, survey, report, and evaluate.

   With respect to the importance of CPAs in improving the qualities of reported earnings quality and financial statements, factors that have influenced their job outcomes and intentions to stay with an organization are needed to verify and prove. Their work environments are also significant. In the flexible work environments of public accounting firms, CPAs tend to gain great behavioral job outcomes and report less stressors and job burnout (Almer and Kaplan, 2002). They are likely to adjust themselves to learn their workplaces and implement their abilities to achieve success in their professionals. Likewise, CPAs' job burnout has occurred in the busy season workload and it affects their job performance and intention to leave their organizations (Sweeney and Summers, 2002). The job burnout diminishes their job performance, decreases their job satisfaction, and increase turnover intentions in the organizations. Thus, job burnout in the organizational life of public accounting firms explicitly has an impact on job efficiency and effectiveness. Hence, the effects of job burnout on CPAs' performance, organizational commitment, and intention to leave are very interesting for the current and future studies.

   Job burnout is a psychological response to work stress of the accounting professions. It refers to a process and a syndrome that manifests in reactions to the often-found chronic stress experienced by people who provided services to other people (Lewin and Sager, 2007). It affects an individual's absenteeism, medical insurance, and reduced productivity. It also influences the individual's withdrawal from clients, the job, and the organization, diminished self-esteem, depression, and insomnia, decreased in the quality and quantity of job performance, and increased in tobacco, alcohol, and drug use. Moreover, job burnout is defined as a specific psychological stress syndrome in which a pattern of negative responses results from work demands and stressors (Sweeney and Summers, 2002). It impacts less job performance and adverse consequences for both the employee and organization. It explains a specific psychological condition in which people suffer emotional exhaustion, experience a lack of personal accomplishment and tend to depersonalize others (Fogarty, Singh, Rhoads, and Moore, 2000). Then, job burnout is likely related to distinctively report a negative psychological response to interpersonal stressors. Here, it includes three separate dimensions: emotional exhaustion, reduced personal accomplishment, and depersonalization (Almer and Kaplan, 2002).

   In the existing literatures, job burnout has had negative relationships with job outcomes and positive associations with intention to leave a workplace. An individual with higher level of job burnout tend to achieve lesser job performance and report greater intention to leave. In this study, job burnout is hypothesized to become a key determinant of driving CPAs' intention to leave their organizations. It refers to an individual's attempts to leave an organization and look for another job according to job and workplace characteristics (McKnight, Phillips, and Hardgrave, 2009). It is negatively associated with mentoring, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and positively related to turnover intentions and intentions to leave the organizations. In the accounting and auditing professions, job burnout is likely to have a negative influence on intention to leave CPAs' workplaces. Then, CPAs with high job burnout will report great intention to leave their organizations.

   Accordingly, the primary purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between job burnout and intention to leave of CPAs in Thailand. The key research questions are: (1) how job burnout has an effect on CPAs' intention to leave, (2) job burnout has a positive relationship with intention to leave, (3) all components of job burnout (emotional exhaustion, reduced personal accomplishment, and depersonalization) have different impacts on intention to leave, and (4) which dimension of job burnout has more association with intention to leave.

   The remaining section of this study is organized as follows:--1) The relevant literatures on job burnout and intention to leave are reviewed, including three dimensions of job burnout: emotional exhaustion, reduced personal accomplishment, and depersonalization. 2) The research method of the study is described, comprising of samples and data collection, variables, and statistical methods. 3) The next part of the current study is followed by the results of the empirical study and its discussion. 4) The study ends with theoretical and managerial contributions, suggestions for further research, and conclusion of the study.

2. RELEVANT LITERATURE AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN JOB BURNOUT AND INTENTION TO LEAVE

   While this study attempts to explain how job burnout has an influence on intention to leave, emotional exhaustion, reduced personal accomplishment, and depersonalization that are independent variables of the research relationships. They are hypothesized to have positive impacts on intention to leave. Thus, the conceptual, linkage, and research model presents the job burnout-intention to leave relationships, as shown in Figure 1.

   2.1 Emotional Exhaustion

   Emotional exhaustion is defined as the lacks of energy and the feelings that an individual's emotional resources are used up (Almer and Kaplan, 2002). It is a depletion of emotional resources. An individual with being emotionally exhausted typically seems to lack adaptive resources of performing the works and lose energy of devoting the duties. Also, emotional exhaustion refers to the feelings of depleted energy and sensation as a result of excessive psycho-emotional demands (Fogarty, Singh, Rhoads, and Moore, 2000). The excessive psycho-emotional demands are from work tasks of requiring innovative and creative solutions, and are most prominent in an environment of time pressure or related to matters of great consequence. They exhaust an individual's psychological resources (Sweeney and Summers, 2002). Likewise, emotional exhaustion occurs as a response to job-related demand stressors placed upon employees (Lewin and Sager, 2007). It explicitly forces an individual to act dread at the prospect of returning to work, increased absenteeism, and withdrawal from the profession. It tends to definitely affect an individual's declined work performance, negative job attitudes, and actual turnover intention. Thus, emotional exhaustion is likely to have a negative association with an individual's job performance and job outcome, and to have a positive relationship with turnover intention and intention to leave from a workplace.

   [FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

   With the need to improve an employee' productivity that supports firms to achieve innovation outcomes and gain competitive advantages, emotional exhaustion become an important factor in explaining the employee's performance and the firms' sustainability. Emotional exhaustion has got increased attention from...