This study has for overall goal to depict a clear understanding of the overall stress felt by French and Japanese workers. By doing a cross-comparison of two radically different cultures the objective is to find common stress factors and address questions relatives to solving thus problems. This section is going to be composed of five sub-sections. The first section will provide the background of the study in which we will take a deeper look into the crucial role stress puts on work satisfaction. This first section will be followed by the purpose of the study, the questions of the study, the delimitations of the study. This first section will finish with the definition of terms.
Background of the Study
Employees are faced with a lot of difficulties in their everyday life at work. Those difficulties can become a burden for some of them. As a result, these employees might start developing a condition known as “stress”. Stress can be influenced by different risk factors, and it can lead to a state of permanent distress for the employees. If stress intensifies, employees might start feeling the first effects of a potential burnout.
Stress and burnout are major issues in the workplace. These notions can sometimes appear unclear about what it really is and how it can affect both the employees and the company. The term stress was first defined as “the non-specific response of the body to any demand made on it” (Selye, 1980). Stress can therefore be a result of demanding circumstances. Those can be various, from a soon deadline to a high pace pressure. Stress can have mental repercussions as well as physical ones.
The Dutch psychologist Geert Hofstede established several cross-cultural dimensions including one particularly relevant to our subject: individualism vs.
collectivism. In individualistic cultures, individuals are expected to look out for themselves as well their closest kin, whereas in collectivistic cultures, individuals are born within systems; they live in close relations with their whole family and are expected to take care of their elders, they have to be conscious about the group importance in schools as well as in the workplace. Therefore there is a real division that can be summarized by the confrontation of an “I consciousness” opposed to a “We consciousness”. The feelings observed by those individuals in different cultures differ greatly, notably in terms of transgression of norms individuals in individualistic cultures may express guilt, whereas individuals in collectivistic cultures may express shame (Hofstede, 2011, p.11). Traditionally collectivistic cultures have been found predominant in Asia and Africa, when individualistic ones are mostly found in Western countries. In that regard, and for the rest of the study we will refer to Japan as a collectivistic culture and French as an individualist culture.
Since this study is going be involving two different cultures, it is important to take a deeper look at those culture in order to have some insights of how stress may differ from one culture to the other. The cultures are different, therefore the pressure felt by individuals differs greatly; hence workers need to cope with different kind of stress.
Studying stress from various cultures will provide us with potential differences employees have to come with, as well as possible solutions that can be taken from one culture and implemented into the other.
Purpose of the Study
The demonstration of various stress factors relatives to each culture may help draw out potential action plans in order to reduce this intangible scourge put on employees. Through the study and the collection of data based on a same questionnaire the overall goal is to identify common stress factors and try to find potential solutions.
Therefore the purposes of the study are listed as follow:
• Examine the relations between risk factors, stress, potentially leading to a burnout, and its effect on the employees’ wellbeing;
• Compare cashiers’ situation in France and Japan
• Examine the impact of the length of work on the stress felt by cashiers
Questions of the Study
According to the purpose of the study, the research questions are listed as follow:
1. What are the relationships between risk factors, stress, burnout and wellbeing
2. What are the differences and similarities between France and Japan in terms of these relationships
3. Does working fewer hours mean having less stress?
Delimitations
This study has for overall goal to examine the stress and well being of employees within large organizations. Since organizations are composed of a lot of employees with a complex system of positions, the study focuses on the risk factors, stress, burnout and wellbeing of employees that receive direct orders, employees that work simple jobs requiring few to no qualifications but are very emotionally and physically demanding.
Therefore the job population the study is going to focus on is “cashiers”. Indeed, cashiers are working very long hours; they have to deal with customers’ feelings and satisfaction as they represent the company since they are the last impression left before exiting the store. It is also a very demanding job: in France when people go grocery shopping, they shop for the whole week, even month, therefore cashiers need to pass a lot of articles at once, some of them being really heavy. In Japan, cashiers work mostly standing; they need to be very efficient when it comes to passing articles if they want to have a good productivity. A simple look at the job offers for becoming cashier help reveal the difficulty of the job: the cashiers are the frontline of the organization. The cashier must be agreeable and sympathetic with the customers. They have to deal with several tasks at the same time therefore they have to be greatly focused. Depending their position (e.g. self checkout counter) they are required to stand for long periods of time. They lift heavy
objects such as gallons of water in their everyday tasks. The Cashiers must be able to read and understand the labels, discount coupons, checks, etc. They have to work quickly and efficiently. They have to be able to control their stress in case of a problematic situation, therefore it is important to focus on the impact of such pressure onto the employees, on what is done to improve it and how stress can cause a negative effect on both their mental and physical health.
Research limitations
People are dubious by nature, therefore finding a population willing to fulfill the questionnaire might be slightly challenging since they may be afraid of having their identity revealed to their employers. In that regard the questionnaire is made anonymous in order to protect the employees’ identity and to get more accurate responses. The questionnaire is slightly long (however this is a crucial point of the study to gain knowledge from all front about the employees’ feelings, stress and well being). As a support tool to gain additional information from the questionnaire, interviews will be conducted.
Developing an accurate picture of the work related stress risk factors can be very hard (Rick, Briner, Daniels, Perryman, & Guppy, 2001). Therefore questionnaires have been developed in order to develop indicators more than precise problem identifications.
However those indicators are sufficient enough to give managers the tools necessary to put the employees back on a healthier track (Cousins et al, 2004).
Another limitation of the study represents the difficulties presented by cross-cultural studies. According to Hofstede cross-cross-cultural study researchers often fail to
“recognize the differences between analysis at the societal level and at the individual level… which led to numerous errors of interpretation and application.” (Hofstede, 2011, p.6)
This study only includes cashiers from France and Japan. Since it only focuses on those two countries, the results can be applied to similar context.
The study evaluates cashiers. Therefore all the interpretations and results may only apply to cashiers. The results cannot be extended to other jobs within the retail industries since they offer different challenges.
The researcher relied on tierce persons to distribute the questionnaires. Therefore the researcher had no control over the random selection of participants.
Definition of Terms
Key terms in this study are defined as follow:
Cashier
Cashier takes its origins from the ancient French word “caissier” which translated literally means “money-box”. A cashier is a representative of a retail business who has the responsibility to checkout items purchased by customers, collect and keep records of customer’s payment (Opara-Nadi, 2005, p.10)
Cross Cultural Research
Cross-cultural research refers to empirical studies carried out among members of various cultural groups who have had different experiences that lead to predictable and significant difference in behavior. In the vast majority of such studies the groups under investigation speak different languages and are governed by different political units (Brislin, Lonner & Thorndike, 1973, p.6)
Risk Factors
It refers to the likelihood that exposure to a hazard (features of the workplace that have the potential to lead to harm or unwanted consequences) will lead to harm. The aim of any preventive strategy must be to keep exposures well below a level at which harm is manifest (Mackay, Cousins, Kelly, Lee & Mccaig, 2004)
Stress
Stress can feature various definitions depending on the type and the individual
any demand made on it” (Selye, 1980, p.6). More traditionally when we hear the term
“stress” we think about a mental response to a tension that may be caused by pressuring situations. In the case of our questionnaire, part II refers to stress. If an employee scored high on this part, then this employee’s stress rate will be interpreted as high.
Burnout
The term burnout was defined as: “a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and cynicism that occurs frequently among individuals who do ‘people-work’ of some kind.
A key aspect of the burnout syndrome is increased feelings of emotional exhaustion”
(Maslach & Jackson, 1981, p.99). In the case of our questionnaire, part III refers to burnout. If an employee scored high on this part, then this employee’s burnout likelihood will be interpreted as high.
Wellbeing
Wellbeing is when individuals have the psychological, social and physical resources they need to meet a particular psychological, social and/or physical challenge (Dodge, Daly, Huyton, & Sanders, 2012, p.230).
Job Satisfaction
A broad notion that can be defined in different ways. Hoppock defined job satisfaction as “any combination of psychological, physiological and environmental circumstances that cause a person truthfully to say “I am satisfied with my job””
(Hoppock, 1935, p.47). Vroom defines job satisfaction as “affective orientations on the part of individuals toward work roles, which they are presently occupying” (Vroom, 1964, p.99)
Work Related Stress Factors
Those are factors that are possible causes of stress inducement. In this study, we measure work related stress risk factors with the questionnaire by evaluation the below points. Depending on which point is being evaluated the score interpretation is different.
• Demands: including such issues as workload, work patterns and the working environment. If the employee has score high in this part, then this employee is under a tremendous amount of stress;
• Control: how much say the person has in the way they do their work. If the score is high, the employee has control, and less likely to be under stress;
• Support which includes the encouragement, sponsorship and resources provided by the organization, line management and colleagues; If the score is high, the employee receives support, and is less likely to be under stress;
• Relationships at work which includes promoting positive working practices to avoid conflict and dealing with unacceptable behavior. If the score is high, the employee has conflicted relations with his colleagues or with the direction. As a result, this employee’s stress is most likely to be higher than others;
• Role: whether people understand their role within the organization and whether the organization ensures that the person does not have conflicting roles. If the employee scores high, then the employee knows his role within the organization and is less inclined to self-wonder since this employee understands the purpose of his/her work;
• Change: how organizational change (large or small) is managed and communicated in the organization. If the score is high, the employee is able to deal with change and to discuss about it. Therefore the employee is less likely to be under stress.
Culture
The way in which organizations demonstrate management commitmentand have procedures which are fair and open (Mackay, Cousins, Kelly, Lee & Mccaig, 2004).