JOB CHARACTERISTICS, WORK ENGAGEMENT, ORGANISATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR AND JOB BURNOUT AMONG LIBRARIANS IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA

Abstract

Job burnout is an important aspect of organisational behaviour that has negative impact on librarians and organisational outcome. Despite the efforts made by library management to prevent job burnout among librarians, high level of emotional exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy remain a major challenge. Poor response to job burnout by librarians’ may be attributed to lack of understanding of job characteristics, low level of work engagement and inability to exhibit citizenship behaviour in the library. The study investigated the influence of job characteristics, work engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour on job burnout among librarians in university libraries in Southern Nigeria.

The study employed survey research design. The population of the study consisted of 624 librarians from 38 public universities in Southern Nigeria. Total enumeration was used. A validated questionnaire was used to collect data. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficients for the constructs ranged from 0.72 to 0.95. The response rate was 80.4%. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential (simple and multiple regression) statistics.

The findings revealed that the combined influence of job characteristics, work engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour on job burnout of librarians in university libraries in Southern Nigeria was significant (F(3,498) = 13.354, Adj. R2 = .069, p < .05). Job characteristics significantly influenced job burnout of librarians in university libraries in Southern Nigeria (β = .126, t(498) = 2.838, R2 = .016, p < .05); likewise work engagement significantly influenced job burnout of librarians in university libraries in Southern Nigeria (β = .184, t(498) = 4.191, R2 = .034, p < .05) and organisational citizenship behaviour also significantly influenced job burnout of librarians in university libraries in Southern Nigeria (β = .252, t(498) = 5.815, R2 = .063, p < .05). There was a low level of job burnout among librarians (M = 2.20, SD = 1.33 on a scale of six). The librarians had much understanding of their job characteristics (M = 2.50, SD = 0.61 on a scale of three). There was a very high level of work engagement among librarians (M = 4.67, SD = 1.27 on a scale of six) and librarians exhibited organisational citizenship behaviour to a certain degree (M = 2.95, SD = 1.00 on a scale of five).

The study concluded that factors such as job characteristics, work engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour contribute to low level of job burnout among librarians in universities in Southern Nigeria. The study recommended that in order for librarians to continue to perform optimally, library management should maintain the current work atmosphere together with ensuring improvement to sustain the low level of job burnout among librarians. Library authorities should train librarians on organisational citizenship behaviour, job characteristics and on maintaining good work ethics to prevent job burnout.