Emotional exhaustion and its consequences: a comparative study of nurses in India and China

We explore the impact of emotional exhaustion on job performance, job satisfaction, and depression in two collectivist societies. Specifically, we investigate the role of organisational commitment as a mediator and as a moderator of the relationship between emotional exhaustion and its consequences. Data were collected from 683 nurses in India and 451 nurses in China. Emotional exhaustion exerted significant direct influence on all criterion variables beyond the impact of age and marital status for both samples. Results in general support the mediation hypothesis for both samples. Commitment was also found to moderate the relationship between emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and depression among Chinese nurses but not among Indian nurses. The results seem to suggest differential context effects between India and China in the etiology of emotional exhaustion. More broadly, the findings endorse differences within collectivist cultures. Implications of the findings for future research are discussed.