Title: Psychosocial safety climate and burnout among academicians: the mediating role of work engagement

Authors: Kok Ban Teoh; Daisy Mui Hung Kee

Addresses: School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia; SENTRAL College Penang, 3, Penang Street, Georgetown, 10200 Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia ' School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia

Abstract: As Malaysian universities are moving towards world-class research universities, academicians are now more vulnerable to burnout. Hence, a literature review related to burnout is done on full-time academicians who have worked more than one year in Malaysian research universities, and psychosocial safety climate (PSC) is found useful in this context as it is a precursor to working conditions including job demands and in turn, burnout and work engagement through mediation pathway. This paper proposes a better job design by PSC through challenge job demands and hindrance job demands which could enhance the work engagement of academicians while minimizing their level of burnout. Hence, in-depth PSC context proposed for the rewarding job demands and reduce the burnout level of academicians via the mediation of work engagement. Therefore, PSC could offer a useful tool to help in the change of management practices of research universities and in turn academicians' health and well-being.

Keywords: research universities; burnout; job demands; psychosocial safety climate; PSC; work engagement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSS.2020.106946

International Journal of Society Systems Science, 2020 Vol.12 No.1, pp.1 - 14

Received: 12 Nov 2018
Accepted: 02 Aug 2019
Published online: 28 Apr 2020 *

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