The role of collectivism/individualism and job autonomy on job burnout in Thailand

Abstract

The current study was conducted to investigate 1) whether the cultural orientation (collectivistic and individualistic orientation) predicts need for job autonomy among Thais employees, and 2) whether the influence of cultural orientation plays roles in the relationship between employees' perceptions of job autonomy and job burnout levels in Thailand. There were 925 Thai employees who participated in the study. Mediation analysis, independent sample T-Test, and regression was conducted to examine the hypothesis. The results indicated that Thais who indicate an individualistic orientation will demonstrate higher levels of need for job autonomy compared to Thais showing a collectivistic orientation. Also, cultural orientation were found to predict the disengagement dimension of job burnout through job autonomy. Specifically, individualistic employees were more likely to disengage than those who were collectivistic employees when they were involved in a low job autonomy situation. However, in high autonomy situation, employees reported similar tendencies of disengagement and exhaustion regardless of their cultural orientation. This study suggests the importance of sociocultural context when dealing with job autonomy and employee burnout, and helps to reaffirm previously observed findings that cultural differences can potentially emerge at within-country levels in the form of important individual differences.