Work conditions that had an impact on high levels of job stress included excessive
workload, long working hours, little sense of control for work and other reasons related to work task. According to Ali, et al. (2013), overload equaled to excessive work or work outside one’s capability. Heaney, Price, and Rafferty (1995) noted that excessive workloads, a lack of social support and little sense of control had been found to cause job stress. On the other hand, design of the task or the nature of work condition caused job stress as well.
Tyagi (1985) pointed that work intensification usually happened when employees were faced with various limitations, and they were required to accomplish more than they could do within the time available. For example, employees were asked to produce good quality works under extreme pressure; they usually had been required to bring about beyond their own proficiencies. Employees felt highly stressful when they had to work under such conditions and nervous about completing all the work before deadline (Teck-Hong & Ismail, 2011). Other reasons caused job stress from work task also involved clients issue. For instance, long waiting times for appointments could worsen the postponement of the clients, thus creating an additional stressor for both clients and even counselors in the banks (Griffiths, Baxter & Townley-Jones, 2011).
Internal Organization Stressor
According to Ali et al (2013), organization structure and environment factor contained awful working conditions, unexplained structure of workplace and line of authority. In this study, other internal organization stressors also included role ambiguity, role conflicts, and social relationships.
Role ambiguity.
Role ambiguity was the product of obscure border between job objective and job responsibility. That is, the main reason behind role ambiguity was lack of clarity and predictability in the job. Almost every employee had the experience of role ambiguity. And when the employee entered an unfamiliar environment or took up a new position, the role ambiguity developed fiercely at that time (Tien, 2003).
Role ambiguity was a long-term result of job stressor. In other words, even role ambiguity was a temporary situation; it made job stress reaction, too (Lin, 2000). Cherniss (1980) thought that sometimes role ambiguity is unavoidable. The higher degree of role ambiguity, the stronger degree of job stress. The definition of role ambiguity was insufficient or vague information about role and task to be performed by an individual (Ali, et al., 2013) and even that information was about powers; authority and duties might be the component of the insufficient information to perform one’s role (French & Caplan, 1972; Kahn, et al, 1964).
Role ambiguity meant the employee felt the uncertainty about the principle requirement of what they should perform on their jobs, and what was expected of them with regard to how they ought to behave (Baron, 2010).
In the financial industry, role ambiguity could be highly perceived among the bank employees; for they had to do different set of tasks daily as a part of their job requirements (Teck-Hong & Ismail, 2011). Michael, Court & Petal (2009) also pointed out that one aspect of role ambiguity was the employee’s inability to predict the results of his or her actions. And, this might result in workers sensing a lock of control, which had been identified as a strong contributor to stress (Karasek, 1979).
Role conflict.
When an individual combined the expectation from himself/herself and others’ could give rise to “role pressure” in the organization. The “role conflict” resulted from the conflicts between the role pressures (Lin, 2000). Chonko & Burnett (1983) and Fry, Futrell, Parasuraman & Chmielewski (1986) all proposed that high amounts of role conflict could lead to great levels of work-related stress. When an individual was placed contradictory demands by not only supervisors but also subordinates could generate role conflict (Bashir &
Ramay, 2010). Furthermore, Larson (2004) indicated that role conflict developed more when
an employee was faced with contradictory job demands, which were adherent to difficult, unacceptable, or impossible pressures. In general, two perspectives could be explained to describe the process of making role conflict. One was from the objective and subjective circumstance aspect, and the other was from the internal and external aspect.
First, role conflict could be created from objective circumstance or subjective circumstance. The objective circumstance meant while two or more people give different orders to subordinate, and make the subordinate has role conflict; on the other hand, the subjective circumstance refer to when the employee’s expectation, objective, value contradicts with organization’s demand toward the role, on that occasion, the role conflicts was produced (Lin, 2000). Second, internal role conflict aroused from employee who needs to play two contradictory roles; on the other hand, the external role conflict happened when employee received different information from different people, and the information opposed with one another (Tien, 2003).
Social relationships.
The relationship was one of the main job stressors. French and Caplan (1972) noted that the responsibility for people was much more likely to lead to stress. Increased responsibility for people usually meant that one had to spend more time interacting with others, such as attending meetings. Whether the relationships between the individual and colleagues, supervisors, clients, and subordinates was good or not mattered a lot with job stress; for lacking of good relationships would cause the psychological intense and job dissatisfaction (Lin, 2000).
Likewise, Galvin and Dileepan (2002) reported that poor relationship with coworkers was among the most stressful factors of job stress within the organization. Shirey (2009) indicated that the importance of social support in the workplace was also evident in the
literature and had been found to relate to increased empowerment, increased motivation, and decreased job strain. For example, lacking of the upper support and the office politics, etc.
(Sun & Lee, 2009).
Overall, sources of stress would arise from interrelationships with work subordinates and superiors as well as with other members in the organization. At that time, the relationships became alienated and worse; it even triggered conflicts and brought out stress.
Besides, the sexual harassment and bully cases in the workplace were one of the sources causing relationship stress, which could not be ignored (Tien, 2003).