The mediating role of work-family conflict in the relationship between workaholism and burnout in academic staff

Employees exhibit workaholic behaviors due to both work-related and individual reasons in today's working conditions. Workaholism has become one of the issues emphasized by researchers and practitioners in terms of its causes and consequences In recent years. Workaholism prevents individuals from allocating the necessary time to other areas because of it affects employees physically and psychologically negatively. Workaholism causes individuals to allocate the time and energy they need to spare for their families to their work, causing problems in their family life and as a result of this, individuals experience work-family conflict. One of the psychological effects of workaholism is that individuals experience burnout due to being constantly exposed to stress. In this context, the aim of the study is to determine whether work-family conflict has a mediating role in the effect of workaholism on burnout. A survey was used to collect data. Questionnaires were conveyed via e-mail and 402 applicable questionnaires were gathered. In the preparation of the questionnaire, scales that have been previously proven to be reliable and validity in the literature and have been adapted into Turkish have been used. The short form of the DUWAS Workaholism Scale, which was developed by Del Líbano et al. (2010) and adapted to Turkish by Doğan and Tel (2011) was used to measure perceived degree of workaholism of the participants. The scale developed by Netemeyer, Boles, and McMurrian (1996) and adapted to Turkish by Efeoğlu (2006) was used to determine the level of work-family conflict perceived by the participants. In order to determine the occupational burnout levels of the participants, the "Burnout Scale" developed by Kristensen et al. (2005) and adapted in Turkish by Bakoğlu et al. (2009) was used. Before testing the hypotheses determined for the purpose of the research, the reliability and validity of the scales were tested, and reliability analysis, frequency analysis and exploratory factor analysis were used for this. The four-stage regression model proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986) was used to test the hypotheses. As a result of the correlation analysis, it was revealed that there were positive and significant relationships at the level of ,449 between workaholism and work-family conflict, at the level of ,468 between workaholism and burnout, and at the level of ,500 between work-family conflict and burnout. In order to test the mediating role, the change in the regression coefficients (Beta values) between the workaholism and burnout variables in the H1 and H4 hypotheses was examined. It is seen that the beta coefficient (.516), which was significant in the first model, decreased (.337) in the fourth model. Based on this result, it was determined that work-family conflict played a partial mediating role in the effect of workaholism on burnout.