Cynicism as mediating variable between leadership support and emotional burnout

Administrative support staff in Turkish universities

Journal Article (2018)
Author(s)

Türkmen Taşer Akbaş (Pamukkale University)

İbrahim Durak (Pamukkale University)

Aysun Çetin (Ondokuz Mayis University)

Naci Karkin (Pamukkale University, TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)

Research Group
Information and Communication Technology
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.24193/tras.53E.1 Final published version
More Info
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Publication Year
2018
Language
English
Research Group
Information and Communication Technology
Issue number
53
Volume number
14
Pages (from-to)
5-21
Downloads counter
182
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Institutional Repository
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Abstract

Studies in management and organization scholarship prefer to focus on personnel who constitute the core in institutions having bilateral employee status, academicians in the case of our research. Yet, organizational issues pertaining to administrative employees, as support personnel, seem understudied in the literature. Thus, in this study, we focus on issues experienced by administrative employees in Turkish universities. We have employed leader-member exchange theory as theoretical background, and conducted a field research through a questionnaire form to test the model. Organizational cynicism, emotional burnout and leadership support constitute the main dimensions of the research theme. We argue that leadership support affects emotional burnout through organizational cynicism. Analysis shows that administrative support personnel in universities suffer from emotional burnout, mainly sourcing from organizational cynicism on which leadership support is highly influential. Thus superiors in bilateral institutions are expected to support administrative employees to eliminate cynicism, otherwise they are in danger of emotional burnout.