ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AND JOB BURNOUT AMONG EMPLOYEES IN MALAYSIA Najihah Hanisah bte Marmaya Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Kampus Bandaraya Melaka, 75300 Melaka, Malaysia Najihah_02@yahoo.com Mizan Hitam Director Office, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Kampus Alor Gajah Melaka, 78000 Melaka, Malaysia. Norsyamina Zawawi Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Kampus Bandaraya Melaka, 75300 Melaka, Malaysia Jeniwaty Mohd Jody Faculty of Science Policy and Political Science, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Kampus Bandaraya Melaka, 75300 Melaka, Malaysia Abstract— Burnout issue is an increasingly important phenomenon in Asian countries. Burnout is a well-known phenomenon that may express itself differently, and affect employees differently, in different working condition. Studying on burnout in different contexts will contribute to deeper understanding of the phenomenon as a whole and how to minimize its negative effects on employees’ productivity, satisfaction, and commitment to stay in their organization. Commitment has become one of the most important factors influencing burnout in modern day occupational settings. Present study is to investigate the influence of organizational commitment (affective, continuous and normative commitment) on burnout among employees. Respondents were approached conveniently, from various departments in Northport (M) Bhd. Using a sample of 50 employees revealed that only affective commitment influence burnout. Implications of the result are discussed. Keywords- Affective commitment, continuous commitment, normative commitment and job burnout. I. INTRODUCTION Organizational commitment and job burnout have received considerable attention and several studies have been devoted to explaining these two variables. The relation between the two has received scant attention (Begley and Czajka, 1993). Kobasa, (1982) and Antosnovsky (1979) argue that organizational commitment protects the individual from negative outcomes experienced at work either because those individuals who are committed to the organization have connected more closely to the individuals at work or because they have found meaning of their work. The present study was designed to examine the relationship between organizational commitment and job burnout among employees in workplace. II. JOB BURNOUT Rapid pace of change and the ever increasing demands on our time, job burnout becomes a major factor that most employees have to contend with. Burke and Greenglass, (1989) have found that there are few and consistent personality traits that are correlated with burnout, however, there are several significant and consistent job, work setting, and organizational correlates with burnout. III. ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT Organizational commitment is the employee's psychological attachment to the organization. Organizational commitment refers to the employee’s attachment to the employing organization – namely, the commitment to the entire organization as the employee perceived it (Morrow,1993) and the organization support for the employee (Whitener,2001). According to Buchanan (1974) organizational commitment is the emotional connection to a particular organization, which is characterized by three major parameters in the individual’s attitudes towards the organization. It is the identification which means internalization of the organization’s goals and value. Organizational commitment reflects the individual relationship with the organization, and that this relationship is significant in explaining the individual’s behavior in the organization, and that this relationship is significant in explaining the individual’s behavior in the organization. Affective Commitment is defined as the employee's positive emotional attachment to the organization. An employee who is affectively committed strongly identifies with the goals of the organization and desires to remain a part of the organization. This employee commits to the organization because he/she "wants to". In developing this concept, Meyer and Allen drew largely on Mowday, Porter, and Steers's (1982) concept of commitment, which in turn drew on earlier work by Kanter (1968). Continuance commitment develops out of the perceived cost (benefit against loss), and requires that the employee be aware of these benefits and losses. Therefore different workers who encounter identical situations may experience 185 2010 International Conference on Business and Economics Research vol.1 (2011) © (2011) IACSIT Press, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia