Title: The management of job burnout among call centre customer service agents in India: the role of social support

Authors: Shilpa Surana, Anup K. Singh, Sharad Saxena

Addresses: Institute of Management, Nirma University of Science and Technology, Ahmedabad, 382481, India. ' International Management Institute, B-10, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi, 110016, India. ' SAS Research and Development (India) Pvt. Limited, Pune, 411013, India

Abstract: There is a lack of empirical research on employee stress in call centres (Holman, 2003). Therefore, this paper focuses on the management of job burnout through social support among call centre customer service representatives in India. Job burnout was measured by a scale developed by the authors (Surana and Singh, 2009) and the factor analysis of the same yielded three factors, namely meaninglessness, exhaustion and demotivation. The data were analysed using regression analysis and canonical correlation analysis to test for relationships between social support (co-worker, supervisory and peer support) as the independent variable and job burnout (meaningless, exhaustion and demotivation) as the dependent variable. Based on the results, it is concluded that there exists a significant inverse relationship between social support and job burnout. The strongest relationship observed is between social support-supervisor and job burnout. Implications of the proposed research are discussed along with the scope for future research.

Keywords: canonical correlation analysis; factor analysis; job burnout; multiple regression; social support; India; call centres; customer service agents; employee stress; burnout management; co-workers; supervisory support; peer support.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMD.2011.039955

International Journal of Management Development, 2011 Vol.1 No.1, pp.79 - 97

Published online: 28 Nov 2014 *