The relationship between organizational justice and job burnout of grassroots civil servants—A case study of Y County, Guangdong Province

Grassroots civil servants' work not only directly bears upon the quality and efficiency of public services and the government's image but also is closely related to the modernization of national governance systems and capacities. Based on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, this paper uses validated research scales and survey data collected from 659 grassroots civil servants in Y County, Guangdong, to investigate the relationship between organizational justice and job burnout. We employed Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to rigorously test the hypotheses. Reliability and validity tests, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and path analysis were conducted. Results indicated that between the overall organizational justice and overall job burnout of grassroots civil servants, a significant negative correlation exists. Furthermore, specific dimensions of organizational justice demonstrated unique associations with the three dimensions of job burnout. The paper discusses practical implications regarding the multiple dimensions of organizational justice. Comprehensive measures at this stage include creating a fair government environment at the grassroots level, improving the fairness of distribution through checks and balances, enhancing assessment and promotion mechanisms, perfecting participation mechanisms, improving the management skills of grassroots leaders, and improving the two-way communication mechanism. This may help enhance the sense of organizational justice among the grassroots civil servants, and may be associated with lower levels of job burnout.