Chapter 2. Literature Review
2.1 Occupational Stress
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
5
Chapter 2 Literature Review
This chapter concerns the theoretical background of this study. Section 2.1 defines occupational stress and the occupational stress model adopted in this study.
Section 2.2 and Section 2.3 introduces social support and perceived organizational support (POS) and their roles in alleviating emotional exhaustion. The research framework is presented in Section 2.4.
2-1 Occupational Stress
Although increasing attention has been placed on occupational stress research over the past few decades, there is no single and consistent definition of occupational stress. This discrepancy between different definitions is attributable to the various approaches adopted by researchers. This section attempts to clarify the definition of occupational stress adopted in the present study.
2-1-1 The Definition of Occupational Stress
The attempt to define and conceptualize stress can be dated back to the 1950’s where Dr. Hans Selye first termed stress as being a “non-specific response of the body to any demand made upon it” (Selye, 1956). Advocates of this response-based
approach treated stress as a dependent variable, a response to disturbing or threatening stimuli (Sutherland & Cooper, 1990). Increased industrialization led to the
identification of stress sources that are important determinants of optimizing work environments. This resulted in the development of the stimulus-based approach, whereby stress was treated as an independent variable that causes a response from an individual, and defined as “an external force operating on a system” (Hall &
Mansfield, 1971).
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
6
As stress research has matured over the last half a century, it is currently well understood that stress cannot be as simple as the response and stimulus based definitions. Contemporary views on stress, such as the interaction and transaction approaches, indicate that stress is a dynamic process whereby the individual interacts with the environment and produces psychological or physiological consequences.
These approaches focus on the importance of both environmental and individual process variables. For example, McGrath (1976) states that stress occurs when individuals are met with situations or conditions that cannot be dealt with by their capabilities. Advocates of this person-environment fit perspective propose that stress is experienced when individuals perceive or appraise that they are not able to meet the demands of the environment. Similar to McGrath’s definition, stress has also been defined as a “misfit between a person’s skills and abilities and demands of the job”
(French, Rogers, & Cobb, 1974).
In addition, Schular (1980) pointed out that stress is a result of the interaction between an individual and his/her environment in general. First, factors in the external environment such as demands and opportunities, cause stress to an individual when they are perceived to exceed their capabilities and resources. Second, the outcomes to such demands and opportunities must be perceived to be important for the individual in order for stress to occur. From the above analysis, it is clear that stress is caused by factors in the environment that individuals perceive to be hindering their
achievements of important goals.
In accordance with Beehr and Newman’s (1978) extensive review and definition of stress as “a condition wherein job related factors interact with the worker to change his/her psychological or physiological condition such that the person is forced to deviate from normal functioning”, this study defines occupational stress as the core
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
7
relationship between stressor and strains. Adopted from Beehr (1998), occupational stress is defined as an overall transactional process consisting of two aspects – stressor and strains. Stressors are events or conditions that are encountered by individuals in the environment; strains are the individual’s psychological, physical, and behavioral responses to stressors.
2-1-2 The Job Demands – Resources Model
Following the definition and conceptualization of occupational stress, various stress models have been developed. Whereas some models focus on the individual’s perception of environmental demands and their capabilities of dealing with stressors, such as the Person-Environment Fit Model (French, 1973), others point out the importance of the cognitive aspects of appraisal and decision making processes, such as McGrath (1976) Stress Cycle Model and Beehr and Newman’s (1978) Meta-Model of Stress.
However, literature review indicates another line of research that focuses on work environments and characteristics in relation to occupational stress. Popular models include the Institute of Social Research (ISR) Model (French & Kahn, 1962) and the Job Characteristics Model (Hackman & Oldham, 1980). These models place much emphasis on the subjective perception of environmental and job stressors such as role ambiguity, conflict, skill variety, job security and workload, and the role of situational and personal variables that moderate these perceptions to lead to health outcomes (Kompier, 2003). The Demands-Control Model (DCM) (Karasek, 1979), which focuses on psychosocial job characteristics such as job demands and job
control, is currently the most influential model in this line of stress research (Kompier, 2003). According to this model, individuals with high job demands and low job
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
8
control experience significant strain; however, high job control moderates the negative effect of job demands. Nevertheless, this model has been criticized for its simplicity and failure to incorporate the complexity of work environments. In addition, Johnson and Hall (1988) have indicated that job control is not the only variable or resource that individuals use to cope with job demands. Other variables, such as social support, have been found to attenuate the experience of strain caused by job demands (Johnson & Hall, 1988). This led to the development of the Job Demands – Resources Model (JDR) (Demerouti et al., 2001), which argues that every occupation involves two general factors that contribute to the experience of stress – that is, job demands and job resources.
In the Job Demands – Resources Model (Figure 2.1), work characteristics associated with stress are classified into job demands and job resources categories.
Job demands refer to physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job or stressors that require individuals to engage in physical or psychological efforts.
These efforts, in turn, are associated with physiological and psychological costs, or exhaustion (Demerouti, et al., 2001). Examples of job demands include physical workload, time pressure, and physical work environment.
Job resources, on the other hand, refer to physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job. These job resources are further defined to be (a) functional in achieving work goals, (b) reduce job demands and related physiological and psychological costs, or (c) stimulate personal growth and developments
(Demerouti et al., 2001). Bakker, Demerouti, and Verbeke (2004) later classified the types of resources into four different levels: (a) organizational level resources (e.g.
salary, career opportunities, job security); (b) interpersonal and social relations (e.g.
supervisor and coworker support, team climate); (c) organization of work (e.g. role
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
9
clarity, participation in decision making); and (d) task level (e.g. performance feedback, skill variety, task significance, autonomy).
Consistent with the previous literature review, job demands are aspects of the work environment or job that require effort from individuals. Although the Job Demands – Resources Model (Demerouti et al., 2001) focuses on the objective characteristics of job demands such as physical workload and time pressure, it neglects the subjective aspect of job demands such as emotional job demand. This study focuses on the subjective emotional measure of job demands and defines emotional job demand as the degree to which a job requires individuals to experience emotions regarding the work itself, and attitudes and behaviors towards others internal and external to the organization (Grandey & Fisk, 2005). When applied to the Job Demands – Resources Model (Demerouti et al., 2001), emotional job demand, which is a type of job demand, will be positively related to emotional exhaustion. Past researches have indicated the positive relationship between emotional job demand and emotional exhaustion (Bakker, Demerouti, & Verberke, 2004). Hence, it follows that:
Hypothesis 1: Emotional job demand will be positively associated with emotional exhaustion.
With respect to job resources, this study chooses to investigate resources from two different levels: organizational level and social level. Support from the overall organization itself is studied at the organizational level; whereas, the social level includes emotional and instrumental supports from coworkers and supervisors. The remaining literature review in this section will further elaborate on these supportive variables.
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
10