International Management Review Vol. 6 No. 1 2010
Burnout among Canadian, Chinese, Malaysian and Pakistani Employees:
An Empirical Examination
Muhammad Jamal
Department of Management, John Molson School of Business
Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
[Abstract] This study examined the relationship of job stress with burnout and turnover motivation among
employees in Canada (N = 535), People’s Republic of China (N = 685), Malaysia (N = 305), and Pakistan
(N = 321). Data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire from full-time employed people in
four metropolitan cities in four countries on overall job stress, job stressors, work overload, conflict,
ambiguity, resource inadequacy, and burnout and turnover motivation. Bivariate multiple regressions were
used to analyze the data. Overall job stress and the four job stressors were significantly related to burnout
and turnover motivation in the predicted direction in all four countries. Some support for the country effect
(t-test) on four job stressors was also found in the present study. In general, the findings of this four-nation
study tend to be supportive of convergence as opposed to divergence perspective in cross-cultural
management research. Implications of the findings are discussed for future cross-cultural management
research.
[Keywords] Job stress; turnover; employee; workload; stress measure; cross-cultural management
Introduction
This study examined the relationship of job stress measures with burnout and turnover motivation
among employees in Canada, People’s Republic of China, Malaysia, and Pakistan. Many constructs,
such as job stress, burnout, motivation, and job satisfaction, have been developed and primarily tested
in Western industrialized countries (Glazer & Beehr, 2005; Harrison, Newman, & Roth, 2006; Jamal,
2005). Their portability and usefulness to developing, emerging countries have rarely been tested
despite repeated suggestions to do so (Foley, Hang, & Lui, 2005; Jamal, 1999; Kirkman, Lowe &
Gibson, 2006). A recent comprehensive study of 24 nations suggested that cross-national management
research is now needed more than ever because it can no longer be assumed that North American and
Western concepts and theories transcend cultural and national boundaries (Spector, Cooper, & Sanchez,
2002). In this respect, the present study contributes to cross-cultural /national management literature
by examining the relationship between job stress and burnout among employees in four countries, thus
furnishing empirical evidence on the convergence/divergence perspective in cross-cultural
management research (Pudelko, Carr, Fink, & Wentage, 2006).
A number of reviews of occupational mental health have highlighted the importance of
understanding the stress and burnout relationship for the well-being of the employees and employing
organization (Baba, Jamal, & Tourigny, 1998; Beehr, 1998; Lepine, Podsakoff, & Lepine, 2005;
Maslach, 2003). Job stress has been labeled as one of the most serious occupational hazards of modern
time in industrialized countries (Dollard & Winefield, 1996; Jamal, 2005). Work-related stress affects
employee health with 50-70 percent of diseases of being psychosomatic or stress-related in nature
(Jamal & Badawi, 1993; Daley & Parfitt, 1996). Moreover, the reported cost of work-related stress
has been increasing quite rapidly in industrialized countries (Siu & Cooper, 1998). In the United
States, the cost of stress and stress-related problems to employers has been estimated at around $150
billion annually (Donatelle & Hawkins, 1989). In the United Kingdom, the cost to industry associated
with replacing person