Measuring humane orientation of organizations through social exchange and organizational identification facilitation and control of burnout and intent to quit

Abstract

The paper explores relationship of humane orientation of organizations with members’ reactions to such treatment by the organization. Orientation of mangers to form good relationship with subordinates has been reflected through subordinates’ perception of quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) and it was expected to predict members’ reaction through feeling of exhaustion (burnout). Role of humane orientation of organizational support measured through perceived organizational support (POS) by subordinates and organizational identification (OID) as possible explicators of the relationship between LMX quality and organizational burnout have also been explored. In addition, the relationship of OID and POS with yet another reaction of members’ to treatment of organizations through their intent to quit (termed as “turnover intention” in this study) has been explored. Organizational burnout has been considered as explicator of the two relationships. We conducted three step hierarchical linear regressions on a sample involving data at two time waves. Items on quality of LMX, POS and OID were answered in first wave by participants while those on TI and organizational burnout were answered by same participants in second wave. A total of 192 usable responses were obtained for all items. The analysis was done with SPSS 16.0. As expected, all the hypotheses were supported. A major contribution of the research to academic literature is the corroboration of directionality of some of the relationship through two time wave design. Also, burnout in this research has been measured at organizational level and the results were in line with burnout measured at job level in some of the earlier studies on burnout. It is hoped that managers will pay increased attention to humane practices as benefits of the same have been supported through this study.