The introduction of this study provides an insight into this research. It discusses the background, problem statement, research purpose and questions, and rationale of the study.
Background of the Study
The increasing globalization brings more changes in the business world. Business creates more demands from the employees, their work quality and skills they should possess.
Nowadays many job positions require employees to be flexible and be able to perform several tasks simultaneously or switch back and forth between several tasks, thus, employees become involved in multitasking.
DiMaggio (2001) mentions some reasons why multitasking could appear in the working environment. These reasons may include: companies’ organizational hierarchies became flat, organizations’ forms became team oriented, organizational structures underwent changes, employees have to focus on multiple initiatives, and job duties became flexible.
(DiMaggio, 2001). An example of positions where multitasking is a demand may include the following: physicians, managers, software developers, analysts and small office workers (Chisholm, Dornfeld, Nelson, & Cordell, 2001; Gonzalez & Mark, 2004). An example of multitasking is a situation when a man is operating a computer, talking with a coworker about the future project and signing the documents that were brought to him by a secretary.
Many of the previous studies described how managers were using their time at work, such as the structure and content of the work they have. It was shown that middle level managers are engaged in various activities and have little time for making solitary decisions (Horne & Lupton, 1965). Another study found that the activities that CEO performs can be characterized as various, full of fragmentation and brevity (Mintzberg, 1970, 1973). Top-level managers used to be the primary working positions that were associated with a multitasking environment. But now even general employees are multitasking. One of the studies revealed that at work people on average spend about three minutes on each task and somewhat two minutes using electronic tool or paper document before switching tasks (Gonzalez & Mark, 2004). So, people from different positions may be involved in multitasking.
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Generally, when there is a demand for multitasking, people may have lower task performance than people in the non-multitasking conditions (Grawitch & Barber, 2013).
Since under multitasking job demand people have to constantly switch their attention between tasks, individual’s attention might decrease and lead to increased error rate (Buser &
Peter, 2012). On the other hand, multitasking job demand also makes people perform several tasks at a time, meaning that an individual has to process big amount of information, which might bring the feeling of being overloaded (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). Also multitasking makes people have the feeling of tension (Franklin & Hunt, 1993; Joslyn & Hunt, 1998;
Oswald, Hambrick, & Jones, 2007). Moreover, doing multiple things at a time may provoke emotional exhaustion and somatic health symptoms (Xie, Elangovan, & Hrabluik, 2009).
Therefore, it is assumed that under multitasking job demand people may feel high levels of job stress.
Job stress indeed has some negative effects on the employees. High levels of stress in the working place may cause people to have high turnover intention (Cropanzano, Rupp, &
Byrne, 2003; Kavanagh, 2005). Also stress may have negative effect on health and psychological condition, cause a risk of premature mortality (Lantz, House, Mero, &
Williams, 2005; McEwen, 1998; McEwen & Seeman, 1999; Miller, Cohen, & Ritchey, 2002).
In the Russian Federation, nowadays, there is no precise statistics of stress levels at work, but according to rough estimation, approximately 70% of Russian people are constantly under stress, and one third of Russian population are under high levels of stress (Muchkaeva &
Chapaikina, 2012). According to the results of a survey that was conducted in the central part of Russia, 45% of respondents believe that their work is connected with high levels of stress, 27% of respondents consider that their work provoked high levels of stress, 70% of respondents accused work stress in decreasing their mental and physical health (Muchkaeva
& Chapaikina, 2012).
Most importantly for organizations, stress may cause some financial disadvantages.
Companies can lose considerable amount of money due to stress perceived by employees. For example, research in the UK in 2008 states that 20 percent of people mention stress as one of the main reasons for leaving the organization (CIPD, 2008). The average cost for turnover in the UK is approximately 5800 pounds, ranging from 2,750 pounds for manual laborer to 20,000 pounds for the senior manager (Donaldson-Feilder, Lewis, & Yarker, 2011).
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Companies lose huge amount of money to hire new employees and train them. Although the statistical data is from the United Kingdom, the cost for the organizations in the other countries might be quite similar.
Definitely, not any organization wants to lose huge amount of money on the issues that are related to employee’s stress. If knowing that multitasking job demand may increase job stress, organizations would probably like to seek for the solution of how to minimize levels of job stress in multitasking environment. So presumably, there should be a certain type of individual who fits this multitasking job environment, such as polychronic individuals.
Polychronicity is a propensity of an individual to perform several tasks at a time or switch back and forth between the tasks. Polychronic individuals are able to withstand interruptions and adapt to unexpected situations by changing planned activities’ schedules (Hall & Hall, 1990). Also polychronic individuals have low turnover intention (Jang &
George, 2012) and higher stress tolerance (Kantrowitz, Grelle, Beaty, & Wolf, 2012).
Person-job fit theory may explain the relationships between multitasking job demand, job stress and polychronicity. Person-job fit is a model that characterizes stress as a lack of congruence between environment demands and person’s characteristics, such as abilities and values (French, Caplan, & Harrison, 1982). Therefore, when there is a match between environment demand and person’s characteristics, person will feel lower levels of stress, and vice versa, when there is a misfit of environment demand and person’ s characteristics, person will feel higher levels of stress. Thus, it is predicted, that if there is a person-job fit between high multitasking job demand and individual with high levels of polychronicity, this individual shall have lower levels of stress, and if there is a misfit between high multitasking job demand and individual with low levels of polychronicity, this individual shall perceive higher levels of job stress.
One of the studies reveals the outcome of person-job fit on the dimension of polychronicity on the psychological strain (Hecht & Allen, 2005). The study by Hecht and Allen (2005) tested their hypotheses on the alumni, faculty, and staff of two Canadian post-secondary institutions. They found that people high in polychronicity, working in multitasking environment, tend to perceive low levels of psychological strain, while people
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with low polychronicity levels, working in multitasking environment tend to perceive high levels of psychological strain.
Thus, the aim of the current study was to retest part of the Hecht and Allen’s (2005) study, where they tested the moderating effect of polychronicity on relationships between polychronicity supply (i.e. multitasking job demand) and psychological strain, using a sample from the Russian workforce, and to identify the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress. The sample of this study included workers from different job positions in various types of organizations. This study was aimed at exploring variables in real working conditions using quantitative approach of collecting data.
Statement of the Problem
Knowing that in recent times more and more employees are required to be constantly in the environment that demands multitasking, it was important to find out if the multitasking job demand has an influence on the level of job stress, perceived by employees. There have been not many studies that revealed the relationships between job stress and multitasking and most of them were experiments. Thus, it was important to find out if multitasking had any effect on job stress in real working conditions using quantitative approach of collecting data.
Moreover, nowadays job stress is inevitable in modern job settings. Thus, it was important to explore if job stress levels can be minimized by the approach of person-job fit, by having the match between polychronic individual and multitasking job environment.
The partial replication of the study by Hecht and Allen (2005) was needed, due to the difference in sampling. The sample in the study by Hecht and Allen (2005) were alumni, faculty, and staff of two Canadian post-secondary institutions. The sample in the current study was employees in different industries, most frequently working in office. It was important to do the replication, because the Hecht and Allen’s sample’s (2005) characteristics and working conditions are quite different from the current sample. First of all, there is a difference in the nature of work or tasks of employees in different industries (mostly business industries) and alumni, faculty and staff in institutions. For example for faculty workers, they are mostly involved in students’ affairs and their guidance, institution staff may be involved in advising students on educational issues, working with professors and other departments,
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while employees in business industries may focus exclusively on one aspect of business, such as logistics. Secondly, the institution workers’ and business workers’ possessed skills and abilities might be different, depending on the environment requirements. Thirdly, the study by Hecht and Allen (2005) tested hypothesis in Canada, while the current study tested hypothesis in Russia, thus different cultural backgrounds might have showed different results.
Thus, it is important to test hypothesis on the different sampling.
The current study examined the relationships between multitasking job demand and job stress, and how polychroncity influenced the relationships between multitasking job demand and job stress. Finally, the results of current study were compared to the results of the study by Hecht and Allen (2005).
Rationale of the Study
Multitasking job demand is a new concept that has not been studied a lot by researchers. In our rapidly changing world, this concept should be especially important.
Multitasking environment is surrounding people everywhere, from home to work we are supposed to perform several tasks at a time or switch back and forth between them.
As many people engage themselves in multitasking on the voluntary basis, there are also some places where people cannot choose, where they are required to multitask. Many present-day organizations and companies have new requirements towards their employees- multitasking job demand.
But even though many organizations have multitasking demands, not all of the people are suitable to work in these conditions, due to frequent stress that people might have because of multitasking.
Therefore, it was important to investigate if there were some people’s propensities that might minimize the job stress under multitasking job demand. In particular, this study was interested in how the moderating effect of polychronicity could influence the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress.
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Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was twofold. Firstly, this study focused on the exploration of the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress. Secondly, this study examined how the moderating effect of polychronicity influenced the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress. Replicating the part of the study by Hecht and Allen (2005) allowed this research to compare the results between different types of sample. This research is a partial replication of the study by Hecht and Allen (2005). It is replicated in the part where Hecht and Allen (2005) examined the moderating effect of polychronicity on relationships between psychological strain and polychronicity supply (i.e. multitasking job demand).
Research Questions
Derived from the research purpose and problem statement written above, the current study investigated and analyzed the following research questions:
1) How does multitasking job demand relate to job stress?
2) How will polychronicity as a moderator influence the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress?
Definition of Terms Multitasking Job Demand
Multitasking job demand is a job demand that requires “accomplishing multiple-task goals in the same general time period by engaging in frequent switches between individual tasks” (Delbridge, 2000, p.1) or by performing several tasks at a time.
Job Stress
Job stress is defined as an employee’s awareness or feeling of personal dysfunction as a result of perceived conditions or happenings in the working place, or employee’s
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psychological and physiological reaction, that are caused by workplace environment (Montgomery, Blodgett, & Barnes, 1996).
Polychronicity
Polychronicity is “a non-cognitive variable reflecting an individual’s preference for shifting attention among ongoing tasks” (Poposki & Oswald, 2010, p. 250) within the same period of time or preference for focusing attention on several tasks at the same time.
Person-Job Fit
Person-job fit is a fit between demands of the job and person’s abilities, or the fit between the attributes of a job and person’s desires (Edwards, 1991).
Summary
This chapter provided an overview of the importance and need for replication of the study by Hecht and Allen (2005). The important concepts of this study were reviewed in the introduction. The statement of problem was identified. The purpose of the study in addition to research questions was provided. Lastly, the important terms in this study were defined.
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