Abstract: The present study aims to ascertain the relationship of quality of work life with organizational commitment and job burnout between government and private bank employees in Zahedan city. The sample size consists of 216 employees (108 government bank employees and 108 private bank employees) that were selected through accessible sampling method. Quality of work life organizational commitment and job burnout scales were applied to collect the data. The results of Pearson correlation revealed that quality of work life had significant positive correlation with affective commitment, continuance commitment, normative commitment, overall scores of organizational commitment and personal accomplishment but quality of work life had significant negative correlation with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. The results of multiple regression showed that continuance commitment and depersonalization together explained 68.8% of the variance in quality of work life in government bank employees. Organizational commitment was a significant positive predictor for quality of work life while depersonalization was a significant negative predictor for quality of work life in government bank employees. Moreover, results demonstrated that continuance commitment explained 73.9% of the variance in quality of work life in private bank employees and it was a significant positive predictor for quality of work life.

INTRODUCTION

Quality of life can be defined in many ways and measurement of the quality of life into scientific study is very difficult. Bumin et al. (2008) define the quality of life as an overall sense of well-being with a strong relation to a person’s health perceptions and ability to function. From human needs, opportunities and preferences perspective, quality of life is considered as a multidimensional construct emerging from the evaluation of multiple needs on the individual, community, national and global levels (Costanza et al., 2008). Today organizational behavior theorists have paid specific attention to quality of work life and conceptualized it as a set of principles which holds that people are the most important resource in the organization as they are trustworthy, responsible and capable of making valuable contribution and they should be treated with dignity and respect (Straw and Heckscher, 1984; Rose et al., 2006). The era of a job for life and full-time commitment to an organization has retreated firmly into past (Mainiero and Sullivan, 2006). Yet in Western countries such as America and Britain, 83% of the workforce work in a structured work environment. Work times vary across countries and cultures; although British workers work some of the longest hours in Europe, this is reduced by Korean or Polish inputs (Matthewman et al., 2009). Quality of work life is more concerned with the overall work climate or culture. Quality of work life might consider as a concern about the impact of work on individual and organizational effectiveness combined with an emphasis on participation in problem-solving and decision making (Luthans, 2008). Achieving a high quality work life is an important goal for many working employees.

They desire pleasant working conditions, participation in decisions that has impact on their jobs and valuable support facilities such as day-care centers for their children. Employees have expectations put additional pressures on organizations and affect their ability to compete effectively in the labor market (Hellriegel and Slocum, 2005). A high quality of work life is necessary for organizations and firms to continue to attract and retain employees. Akdere (2006) believes that the issue of work life quality has become critical in the last two decades due to increasing demands of today’s business environment and family structure.

Quality of Work Life (QWL) and organizational commitment: The relationship between quality of work life and organizational commitment in developing countries like Iran has been somewhat limited. Empirical research in this area, especially amongst bank employees in Iran as well as other Asian countries is still very scarce. The purpose of the present study is to fill this vacuum that currently exists in the areas of quality of work life research. Researchers have defined organizational commitment in various ways.

According to Buchanan (1974), organizational commitment is considered as a partisan, affective attachment to the goals and values of the organization to one’s role in relation to goals and values and to the organization for its own sake, apart from its purely instrumental worth. Hrebiniak and Alutto (1972) conclude that organizational commitment is a structural phenomenon which occurs as a result of individual-organizational transactions and alterations in side-bets or investments over time. Allen and Meyer (1990) suggest that commitment can be categorized into three different dimensions, namely affective, continuance and normative. There is strong evidence that employees who are truly empowered and work within a participatory, problem-solving framework are more committed to their organization and union (Fields and Thacker, 1992). Gnanayudam and Dharmasiri stated that quality of work life has a positive influence on the worker commitment. Daud (2010) investigated the relationship between quality of work life and organizational commitment amongst employees in Malaysian firms, results showed that there was a relationship between QWL and organizational commitment. Fang showed that Taipei railway administrations employees with different personal attributes report significant impact on quality of work life and organizational commitment.

Furthermore, employees of Taipei railway administration report significant positive correlation to personal aspects, work aspect and organization aspect of quality of work life and value commitment, effort commitment and retention commitment of organizational commitment. Huang et al. (2007) indicate that different dimensions of QWL result in distinctive effects on organizational and career commitments and turnover intentions.

Quality of work life and job burnout: Stress is an unavoidable issue at the workplace and it can reduce the amount of productivity in the organizations and firms. Prolonged occupational stress can lead to burnout. Burnout can be defined as failure, frazzle, loss of energy and power or a matter of exhaustion which is the result of the unfulfilled desires of human internal resources (Freuderberg, 1974). Job burnout has three dimensions namely; emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment. Emotional exhaustion refers to energy depletion or the draining of emotional resources.

Depersonalization refers to the development of negative, cynical attitudes towards the recipients of one’s service or care. Lack of personal accomplishment is often considered only as an afterthought (Demerouti et al., 2000). Studies have shown that the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization are related to psychological quality of life (Anand and Arora, 2009). Dyrbye et al. (2006) studied the burnout, quality of life and depression in minority and non minority US medical students. Minority students were more likely to have a low sense of personal accomplishment and quality of life in a number of domains. Arandjelovic et al. (2010) showed that burnout, quality of life and work ability are significantly interrelated categories in food manufacturing workers. In a study, Anagnostopoulos and Niakas (2010) indicate that burnout not only may negatively impact on quality of life of health-care providers but also may influence short sick leaves.

Tuuli and Karisalmi (1999) examined the relationship of burnout and the quality of working life in retail trade and metal industry. Results revealed that six dimensions of the quality of working life, namely; conflicts, job control, work of superior organization of work and monotonous job had different impact on job burnout in both the retail trade and in the metal industry. Barros et al. (2007) concluded that high prevalence of burnout syndrome was related to lower quality of life.

Further, most of the current researches have been carried out among Western countries and there is expanding interest in the relationship between quality of work life organizational commitment and job burnout. Due to lack of research on this topic among bank employees furthermore, the relationship between quality of work life organizational commitment and job burnout in bank employees of an indigenous culture like Zahedan city (Iran) is justifiable.

The objective of the present study was to ascertain the relationship between quality of work life organizational commitment and job burnout between bank employees of government and private in Zahedan which they are working under strain and also experience much occupational stress in their workplace.

Research questions:

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sample: The population of this research consists of all government and private bank employees in Zahedan city. To select the suitable sample from these population 216 employees (108 private bank employees and 108 government bank employees) were selected through accessible sampling method and completed the three measures, namely; Quality of Work Life Scale (QWLS) Organizational Commitment Scale (OCS) and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The employee’s age ranged 25-55 years old.

Procedure: The study was conducted in the government and private banks of Zahedan. In present research, the sample size consists of 216 employees who currently serve as manager, executive manager, accountant and cashier in the banks and all were selected randomly for this study. The scales were well translated into Persian language. Permission letters were obtained from the main branches of bank for distributing the scales among samples and scales were given to participants and they were also given adequate instructions on how to respond to the questions. The respondents were also assured that their participation in the study was voluntary and their responses would remain confidential and used for research purpose only.

Measures
Quality of work life scale: This scale was developed by Dubey et al. (1988) in order to assess the quality of work life of employees. In the present study, this scale was used to assess the amount of quality of work life in the government and private bank employees in Zahedan city. This scale includes 24 items on a five point format. The reliability of this scale using test-retest coefficient was 0.85 and Split-half reliability coefficient was equal to 0.87. The internal consistency of items is satisfactory. In the current research, the standardized alpha reliability was equal to 0.81.

Organizational commitment scale: The level of organizational commitment was assessed with the help of organizational commitment scale developed by Khan and Mishra. The organizational commitment scale consists of 18 items with five alternative responses, namely; strongly agree, slightly agree, undecided, slightly disagree and strongly disagree. The 18 items comprising the three sub-scales are affective, continuance and normative commitment. The median coefficients for all of the 3 sub-scales ranged between 0.83-0.93 and the same for organizational commitment scale was found to be 0.87. In the current research the standardized alpha reliability was equal to 0.68.

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI): The Maslach Burnout Inventory was used in order to measure the burnout among bank employees in the present study (Maslach and Jackson, 1979). The MBI consists of 22 items which are divided into 3 subscales; Emotional Exhaustion (EE), Depersonalization (DP) and Personal Accomplishment (PA). According to Maslach and Jackson, person with higher scores on the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization subscales and with low scores on personal accomplishment sub-scale would perceive themselves as burnout.

Thus, a person is not classified as burnout or not burnout but rather placed on a continuum from more burnout to less burnout. Burnout scores have been found to increase in stressful job setting and to predict job turnover and absenteeism. Maslach and Jackson (1981) in their research on helping professions reported that correlation between the frequency and intensity dimension across sub-scales ranged from 0.35-0.73 with a mean of 0.56.

The correlation between these dimensions for teachers varied from 0.75-0.94 with a mean of 0.87. Abu-Hilal and Salameh (1992) in their research reported that the reliability of burnout inventory ranged from 0.71-0.84. In the present research, the reliability of this inventory for emotional exhaustion 0.89 for depersonalization 0.78 for personal accomplishment 0.79 and for overall inventory 0.76 was reported, respectively.

RESULTS

Data was analyzed using SPSS 13. Parametric tests such as Pearson correlation coefficient and step-wise regression were calculated to analyze the data (Table 1). Table 2 shows the correlation between quality of work life organizational commitment and job burnout among government bank employees. Quality of work life had significant positive correlation with affective commitment (r = 0.342, n = 108, p<0.01), continuance commitment (r = 0.815, n = 108, p<0.01), normative commitment (r = 0.243, n = 108, p<0.01) and total scores of organizational commitment (r = 0.62, n = 108, p<0.01) and personal accomplishment (r = 0.477, n = 108, p<0.01) with high scores of quality of work life associated with higher scores of organizational commitment and its dimensions and personal accomplishment.

Table 1:	Cronbach’s α-coefficient of the scales used in the study

But quality of work life was negatively correlated with emotional exhaustion (r = -0.553, n = 108, p<0.01) and depersonalization (r = -0.536, n = 108, p<0.01) with high scores of quality of work life associated with lower scores of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Table 3 shows the correlation between quality of work life organizational commitment and job burnout among private bank employees. Quality of work life had significant positive correlation with affective commitment (r = 0.247, n = 108, p<0.05), continuance commitment (r = 0.859, n = 108, p<0.01) and total scores of organizational commitment (r = 0.509, n = 108, p<0.01) and personal accomplishment (r = 0.364, n = 108, p<0.01) with high scores of quality of work life associated with higher scores of organizational commitment and its dimensions and personal accomplishment. There was not any significant correlation between quality of work life and normative commitment (r = 0.134, n = 108, p>0.05). But quality of work life was negatively correlated with emotional exhaustion (r = -0.396, n = 108, p<0.01) and depersonalization (r = -0.296, n = 108, p<0.01) with high scores of quality of work life associated with lower scores of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.

Table 4 shows the results of step-wise regression of organizational commitment and job burnout on quality of work life. Results revealed that continuance commitment as 1st variable entered into equation regression and it was (β = 0.728, p<0.001) significantly related with quality of work life and in the 2nd step depersonalization entered into equation regression and it was (β = -0.176, p<0.001) negatively related with quality of work life.

Table 2:	Pearson correlation between quality of work life organizational commitment and job burnout among government bank employees (n = 108)
**p<0.01; *p<0.05

Table 3:	Pearson correlation between quality of work life organizational commitment and job burnout among private bank employees (n = 108)
**p<0.01; *p<0.05

Table 4:	Summary of stepwise regression analyses with quality of work life as criterion for organizational commitment and job burnout in government bank employees

Table 5:	Summary of step-wise regression analyses with quality of work life as criterion for organizational commitment and job burnout in private bank employees

Total scores of organizational commitment and its other dimensions (affective commitment and normative commitment) and emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment failed enter into the regression equation which shows that they were not significantly associated with quality of work life. Continuance commitment accounted for 66.4% of the variance in quality of work life and in the 2nd step depersonalization accounted for 2.3% of the variance in quality of work life. Table 5 shows the results of step-wise regression of organizational commitment and job burnout on quality of work life. Results revealed that continuance commitment (β = 0.859, p<0.001) was significantly related with quality of work life. Total scores of organizational commitment and its other dimensions (affective commitment and normative commitment) and emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment failed enter into the regression equation which shows that they were not significantly associated with quality of work life. Continuance commitment accounted for 73.9% of the variance in quality of work life.

DISCUSSION

This study was planned to explore the relationship of quality of work life with organizational commitment and job burnout between government and private bank employees where they are under pressure and occupational stress to give better financially service to customers and they also interact with their colleagues at workplace.

The findings of the present study have provided answers to the research questions. The findings provided some insights in efforts to improve the quality of work life and organizational commitment among bank employees and reduce the amount of burnout among them. The results of Pearson correlation coefficient revealed that quality of work life had significant positive correlation with affective, continuance and normative commitment and total scores of organizational commitmentwith high scores of quality of work life associated with higher scores of organizational commitment and its dimensions. But quality of work life was negatively correlated with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization while personal accomplishment was positively correlated with quality of work lifewith high scores of quality of work life associated with lower scores of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and with higher scores of personal accomplishment in the government and private bank employees. Although, quality of work life had a great relationship with organizational commitment and job burnout dimensions in government and private bank employees, normative commitment was not significantly correlated with quality of work life in the private bank employees. The results of this study are in conformity with the research of Daud (2010) and Huang et al. (2007) concluded that different dimensions of quality of work life result in distinctive effects on organizational and career commitments and turnover intentions. Organizational commitment has a positive and direct relationship with quality of work life of bank employees by increasing the amount of organizational commitment the level of quality of work life increases. Job burnout dimensions, namely; emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were negatively correlated with quality of work life but personal accomplishment had positive impact. The results of this study are consistent with the researches of Anand and Arora (2009), Dyrbye et al. (2006) and Arandjelovic et al. (2010) showed that burnout, quality of life and work ability are significantly interrelated categories in food manufacturing workers.

Results of the stepwise regression demonstrated that continuance commitment was significantly related with quality of work life and depersonalization was negatively related with quality of work life. Continuance commitment accounted for 66.4% of the variance in quality of work life and it was a unique positive predictor for quality of work life while depersonalization accounted for 2.3% of the variance in quality of work life and it was a negative predictor for quality of work life in the government bank employees but in the private bank employees only continuance commitment accounted for 73.9% of the variance in quality of work life and it had the greatest impact on quality of work life then it was a positive predictor for quality of work life.

Gnanayudam and Dharmasiri stated that quality of work life has a positive influence on the worker commitment. Same results were reported by Daud (2010). Affective, normative and total scores of organizational commitment, emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment were not significant predictors for quality of work life in the bank employees.

Although, results of the step-wise regression revealed that continuance is a unique predictor for quality of work life in both government and private bank employees, depersonalization was a negative predictor for quality of work life in the government bank employees which it can reduce the amount of quality of work life in the government bank employees. The results of the study are in direction with the research of Tuuli and Karisalmi (1999); they revealed that six dimensions of the quality of working life, namely; conflicts, job control, work of superior organization of work and monotonous job had different impact on job burnout in both the retail trade and in the metal industry. Barros et al. (2007) concluded that high prevalence of burnout syndrome was related to lower quality of life.

CONCLUSION

Achieving a high quality of work life is an important purpose for many employees who are working in industries and organizations. Bank employees desire pleasant working conditions, participation in making decision that affect their jobs and valuable support facilities such as promotion, better wage and praising. Researchers can conclude that organizational commitment is one of the attitudinal variables which have a great positive impact on quality of work life. Higher organizational commitment (continuance commitment) results in the higher level of quality of work life.

There is considerable evidences from this study that bank employees both government and private are truly empowered and work within participatory, problem-solving framework have more commitment to both the banks. It can be concluded that the relationship of depersonalization with quality of work life in the government bank employees was greater in comparison to the private bank employees (r = -0.536 vs. r = -0.296). Moreover, depersonalization was a negative predictor for quality of work life in government bank employees because they work in a condition of job stress which is resulted from work overload. They work in the condition of having too much work to do in the time available. It is very difficult for government bank employees to perform a job in the stressful situation due to having insufficient ability. So, they cannot cope with the job’s demands and they have feeling of callousness, cynicism and a reduced sensitivity toward their colleagues and customers. These circumstances have a great impact on quality of work life of government bank employees.