The demographic information in descriptive statistics was collected from 402 workers, living in the Russian Federation. The descriptive statistics was comprised of 6 questions, including gender, age, years of working experience in the current job position, part of Russia respondents were working in, current job position and industry they were working in. The frequency and percentage of the demographic information are shown in Table 4.1.
Gender
Most of the respondents in the current study were females. Out of 402 respondents, there were 248 females (61.8%) and 153 males (38.2%).
Age
The participants age ranged from 19 years to 75, where the most frequent age range was from 26 to 35 (41.4%, 166 respondents).
Years of Working Experience
Working experience in the current job position ranged from half a year to 36 years.
The most frequent range of working experience years was from 0.1 to 5 years (58.2%, 231 respondents).
Location of Current Job Position
The respondents represented 5 parts of the Russian Federation: Northern, Southern, Central, Western and Eastern. The most respondents were working in the Central part of Russia, which is 246 respondents (61.7%), there were 13 respondents working in Northern part (3.3%), 51 respondents working in the Southern part (12.8%), 49 respondents working in the Western part (12.3%) and 40 respondents working in the Eastern part (10%).
44
Job Position
Job positions ranged from business owner to soldier. There were 73 respondents (18.3%) working as head of middle management, 78 respondents (19.6%) working as laborer.
Most of the respondents were office workers- 205 respondents (51.5%).
Industry
Industries that respondents were working in ranged from army to freight services.
Most frequently, respondents were working in manufacturing- 85 people (21.7%), 74 respondents in IT (18.9%), and 57 respondents in wholesale (14.5%).
Discussion
Based on the descriptive statistics, most of the respondents were females with the most frequent age range of 26 to 35 years old. Moreover, most frequently respondents had from 1 month to 5 years of working experience in the current job position. Besides, most of them were working in the central part of the Russian Federation as office workers. Also, respondents, most frequently, were working in the manufacturing industry.
45 Table 4.1.
Descriptive Statistics on Sample Characteristics
Item Frequency Percentage Item Frequency Percentage
1. Gender 5. Job position
46
Correlation Analysis
Correlation analysis was conducted in order to understand the relationship between variables. The means, standard deviation, reliabilities, and correlations among age, gender, years of working experience in the current job position, job position, industry, location of job in Russia, job stress, multitasking job demand, polychronicity and self-efficacy are shown in Table 4.2.
47 Table 4.2.
Mean, Standard Deviation, Correlation, and Reliability (n=402)
Note. Numbers in parentheses represent Cronbach’s alpha value.
*p < .05. **p < .01
Gender, Location, Job, and Industry were dummy variables.
MJD: Multitasking Job Demand
Mean S.D. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. Gender (female) .62 .48
2. Age 35.46 10.20 .114*
3. Working experience 6.70 6.90 .131** .644**
4. Location (central) .61 .48 -.040 -.127* -.140**
5. Job (office worker) .51 .50 -.006 -.207** .031 -.028
6. Industry (manufacturing) .21 .40 .089 .201** .090 -.045 -.183**
7. Self-efficacy 4.86 1.09 -.024 .194** .259** .077 -.181** .068 (.75)
8. Job stress 2.19 1.10 .093 -.220** -.178** .116* .105* -.042 -.295** (.81)
9. MJD 3.21 .87 -.005 -.131** -.191** .130** -.085 -.039 .000 .113* (.82)
10. Polychronicity 2.78 .73 -.037 -.067 -.061 .111* -.120* -.005 .135** -.025 .438** (.74)
48
According to Table 4.2 job stress is correlated with multitasking job demand (r=.113, p<0.5), meaning that according to the sample in this study, there is relationship between job stress and multitasking job demand. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 has an initial support.
Additionally, in this study, it turned out that multitasking job demand and polychronicity are positively and significantly correlated (r=.438, p<.01), which shows that the person working under high multitasking job demand, will have high level of polychronicity.
Moreover, according to Table 4.2 job stress is negatively and significantly correlated with self-efficacy (r=-.295, p<.01), meaning that the higher the person’s self-efficacy is, the less job stress person will have. This result is also consistent with Hecht and Allen’ study (2005).
As for demographic variables, polychronicity is positively and significantly related to location (central) (r=.111, p<.05). This means that jobs, where people with high polychronicity levels work, are situated in the central part of Russia. Polychronicity is negatively and significantly correlated with job (office worker) that respondents had (r=-.120, p<.05), it gives an idea that office workers tend to have low levels of polychronicity.
Multitasking job demand is negatively and significantly correlated with age (r=-.131, p<.05), meaning that younger people work under multitasking job demand more often that older people. Also, multitasking job demand is negatively and significantly related to working experience of the respondent in the current job position (r=-.191, p<.01). This shows that multitasking job demand is decreasing with the years of working experience in the current job position. Moreover, multitasking job demand is positively and significantly related to location (central) (r=.130, p<.01), jobs with high multitasking job demand tend to be situated in the central part of Russia.
Also, job stress is negatively and significantly correlated with age (r=-.220, p<.01) and working experience (r=.178, p<.01). This shows that job stress tends to get less with the increasing of age and working experience. Moreover, job stress is positively and significantly correlated with job (office worker) (r=.105, p<.05), meaning that people working as office workers tend to have higher levels of job stress.
49
Self-efficacy is positively and significantly correlated with age (r=.194, p<.01) and working experience (r=.259, p<.01), it gives the idea that the self-efficacy will increase with the age and working experience. Also, self-efficacy is negatively and significantly correlated with job (office worker) (r=-.181, p<.01), it means that people working as office workers tend to feel lower levels of self-efficacy.
Discussion
According to the correlation analysis, the demographic item, such as location is positively correlated with polychronicity, while job position is negatively correlated with polychronicity. Age, working experience are negatively correlated with multitasking job demand, location is positively related to multitasking job demand. Job stress is positively correlated with job position, and negatively correlated with age and working experience. Self-efficacy is positively correlated with age and working experience; and negatively correlated with job position.
Additionally, in this study, it turned out that multitasking job demand and polychronicity are positively and significantly correlated. Moreover, job stress is negatively correlated with self-efficacy. Also, the results provide the initial support for the hypothesis that job stress is correlated with multitasking job demand.
Structural Equation Modeling
The Structural Equation Modeling using multitasking job demand, polychronicity and self-efficacy as the independent variables and job stress as the dependent variable is shown in Figure 4.1. The summary of goodness-of-fit indices for the structural model is reported in Table 4.3, the results show a good fit on the assessment of CMIN/DF being smaller than 5, GFI more than .8 and RMSEA less than .08 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988), The summary of path coefficients for the structural model is presented in Table 4.4.
50 Figure 4.1. Structural model.
Table 4.3.
Summary of the Goodness-of-fit for the Structural Model
Model CMIN/DF P RMR RMSEA GFI AGFI
Structural model 4.301 .000 3.114 .091 .857 .820
Table 4.4.
Summary of Path Coefficients for Structural Model
Description Path coefficient
Multitasking Job Demand→ Job Stress .084
Polychronicity→Job Stress -.134
Self-efficacy→Job Stress -.305***
Age→Job Stress -.321***
Gender→Job Stress -.050
Working Experience→Job Stress .069
Note. *** p < .001, ** p < .01, * p < .05
Hypothesis 1 proposes that multitasking job demand is positively related with job stress. As shown in Table 4.4, the relationship between multitasking job demand and job
51
stress does not show significant regression coefficient (β=.084,p>.05) Thus, hypothesis 1 is not supported.
In Table 4.4 it is presented that polychronicity is not related to job stress, because it does not have a significant regression coefficient (β=-.134, p>.05). As for control variables, self-efficacy has a strong relationship with job stress (β=-.305, p<.001), age has a negative and significant relationship with job stress (β=-.321, p<.001), but gender does not have strong relationship with job stress (β=-.050, p>.05), as well as working experience does not have effect on job stress (β=.069, p>.05).
Hierarchical Regression Analysis
In hierarchical regression analysis there were 4 steps used. First, demographical variables and control variables, such as gender, age, years of working experience, job position, location, industry and self-efficacy were entered into the analysis. Second, the independent variable- multitasking job demand was entered at the second level. Third, the moderating variable- polychronicity was added. Forth, the product of multitasking job demand and polychronicity was entered into the analysis. In order to avoid multicollinearity, before polychronicity and multitasking job demand were multiplied, these two variables were mean-centered by subtracting their mean from the original scores.
The regression in Table 4.5 provides test for Hypothesis 2. The regression results show significant moderating effect of polychronicity on the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress in model 4 (β= -.173, p<.001), thus Hypothesis 2 is supported.
Also, regression shows that multitasking has no significant effect on job stress (β= .083, p<.05).
52 Table 4.5.
Result of Hierarchical Regression Analysis on the Moderating Effects (n=402)
Variables Model 1
Industry-manufacturing .009 .012 .013 .004
Self-efficacy -.268*** -.270*** -.264*** -.229***
This research developed two competing hypotheses. As it was expected, one of them is supported, while the other one is not. It turned out, that in Hypothesis 1, multitasking job demand does not have an impact on job stress, and therefore, Hypothesis 1 is rejected. But it was found, that in Hypothesis 2, polychronicity has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress. In order to interpret the
53
moderating effect in more details, interaction plot was drawn. Figure 4.2 shows the interaction between multitasking job demand and polychronicity and their effect on job stress.
Polychronicity was divided in high, moderate and low groups. It is shown in Figure 4.2, that when polychronicity is high, multitasking job demand has a negative effect on job stress;
while when polychronicity is low, multitasking job demand has a positive effect on job stress.
The interaction plot shows for those with lower levels of polychronicity, high multitasking job demand resulted in more job stress, while for those with higher levels of polychronicity, high multitasking job demand resulted in less job stress. In simple terms, people with high levels of polychronicity, working under multitasking job demand, will perceive less job stress;
while people with low levels of polychronicity, working under multitasking job demand, will be exposed to higher levels of job stress. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 is supported, polychronicity does have a strong influence on the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress.
Figure 4.2. Interaction plot for the moderating effect of polychronicity.
54
A summary of hypothesis testing result is shown in Table 4.6.
Table 4.6.
Hypotheses Testing Results Summary
Hypotheses Result
H1 Multitasking job demand is positively related to job stress. Not Supported H2 Polychronicity moderates the relationship between multitasking
job demand and job stress: when polychronicity is high, high multitasking job demand will result in less stress; when polychronicity is low, high multitasking job demand will result in more job stress.
Supported
55
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
The conclusion of this study is provided based on the research findings and discussions. Furthermore, research and practical implications, research limitation, as well as future research suggestions are presented.
Conclusions
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress, and also explore how the moderating effect of polychronicity would influence the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress. Convenience sampling was utilized, a quantitative study was conducted, and respondents were asked to fill in hard copies questionnaires or online questionnaires. A total number of 402 valid questionnaires were received.
Since there were two competing hypotheses developed, it was expected, that one of them would be supported, while the other one would not be. The result from Structural Equation Modeling and Hierarchical Regression analysis shows that the first hypothesis is rejected: multitasking job demand has no effect on the job stress. There might be some reasons why this hypothesis is not supported. Generally speaking, the first hypothesis was developed based on the results of previous studies, which tested the relationships between multitasking and psychological stress in experiment. So it should have been assumed that the nature of the environment in multitasking experiments and working multitasking conditions are different. Most often in experiments, participants are asked to get the highest possible score with the most accurate result as quickly as they can, so there is no room for mistakes or coming back to the tasks to redo them. Also, the participants do not have any choice about when to switch between the tasks or which tasks to perform simultaneously; they have to follow the instructions and procedures of the experiment. Moreover, in this new environment with new unpredictable tasks, participants probably treat experiment as a test, and people when taking test generally feel anxious. Contrary to multitasking experiments, multitasking working conditions are probably not that stressful. When the person is working under multitasking conditions, most often he is aware of which tasks he has to do every day, how to combine them or switch between them more efficiently. Also, a person in working conditions
56
normally has a chance to go back to previous task to check for mistakes and complete it. Thus, that might be the reasons why the first hypothesis was rejected.
The second hypothesis, based on the person-job fit theory, was fully supported. It turned out that, polychronicity has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress. It means, that different levels of polychronicity will influence the relationships between multitasking job demand and job stress in different ways.
Such as when polychronicity is high, multitasking job demand has a negative effect on job stress; while when polychronicity is low, multitasking job demand has a positive effect on job stress. This means that people with high levels of polychronicity, working under multitasking job demand, will perceive less job stress; while people with low levels of polychronicity, working under multitasking job demand, will be exposed to higher levels of job stress.
Therefore, the second hypothesis is supported.
The interaction plot also shows that for those with lower levels of polychronicity, high multitasking job demand resulted in more job stress, while for those with higher levels of polychronicity, high multitasking job demand resulted in less job stress.
Research Implications
The main topic of this study was multitasking job demand in different job positions in the Russian Federation. Multitasking job demand is a rather new concept that has not been studied a lot by scholars.
The result of the current study brings the idea for organization on what types of people to hire for the jobs with high multitasking job demand. The current research may bring more understanding about multitasking job demand to the organizations, Human resource department, employees, and job candidates.
There are several major contributions of the current study. The major contribution in this study is that, first of all, the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress was tested in real working conditions in the Russian Federation. The findings showed no significant relationship between job stress and multitasking job demand. That was needed, because there have been only few studies, that showed the relationships between stress and multitasking, but these relationships were mostly tested by experiments related to working
57
situations. The second major contribution is retesting the moderating effect of polychronicity on the relationship between multitasking job demand and job stress among employees in different job positions in the Russian Federation, which showed significant moderating effect of polychronicity. Finally, the replication of the Hecht and Allen’s study (2005) was needed, because they used different sample: alumni, faculty, and staff of two Canadian post-secondary institutions, while in the current study the sample was employees working in the Russian Federation.
Practical Implications
There are some practical implications of the current study’s results. First of all, nowadays there are many companies that require their employees to work under multitasking conditions. Probably, some organizations may find that multitasking job demand is difficult for certain types of employees to undertake, and, therefore, they might suffer from job stress, while for other employees it is relatively easy to work under multitasking job demand, and these people show lower levels of stress. This study may provide a clearer picture about multitasking job demand for the organizations, what types of employees is better to hire on the jobs that require constant engagement in multitasking.
The current study suggests that organizations should hire people with high polychronicity levels, if the organization’s requirements for specific jobs are to work under high multitasking job demand. Polychronic employees will better fit the environment with high multitasking, and will have lower levels of job stress.
As for employees, it is suggested, that they should think about person-job fit when accepting the job offer. They should understand their propensities, such as the level of polychronicity, and based on that choose the working environment that is more suitable for them to work in.
Research Limitations
Although this research reached its aim, some limitations are still unavoidable. First of all, since the data for this study was collected by self-report questionnaires, from a single source, Common Method Variance problem might affect the results of the current study.
However, Harman’s single-factor test was conducted, and the largest factor only explained
58
22.63% of the variance, which shows that there is no serious Common Method Variance problem with the measurements. Second, the modified measurement model for self-efficacy did not pass all model comparison criteria; therefore, the self-efficacy measurement may not have good construct validity. Third, all the scale variables went through Confirmatory Factor Analysis, but in order to achieve a good fit, many items were deleted from original measurement models; therefore, it might have some effect on the results of the study. Fourth, most of the respondents were working in central part of Russia, which might indicate a regional bias. Fifth, due to time and resource limits, sample size may seem small. Therefore, in order to generalize the results for larger groups, this study should have involved more participants. Sixth, there were 7.2% of missing data in the current study; therefore it might have some effect on the results of the study. Seventh, polychronicity modified measurement model did not pass for Average Variance Extracted criteria; therefore there might be some negative effect on the validity of the measurement. Finally, a convenience sample was used, thus, the findings may not fully represent the whole working population in Russia.
Future Research Suggestions
Based on the current research results, there are some suggestions for future studies.
First of all, in the current study, it seems that the level of polychronicity increases while the person is working under multitasking job demand. It will be important to prove this finding, and investigate this result with different or larger sample.
Second, an interesting fact was found in the current study. It turned out that multitasking job demand decreases with the years of working experience in position that employee holds. It seems that when an employee gets hired he is obliged to multitask, but after certain period of time he starts to less multitask. Therefore, it will be interesting to investigate why employees’ multitasking job demand starts to decrease, and at what period of their work, multitasking job demand starts to change its degree.
59
Summary
This chapter drew a conclusion, based on the findings of the research. Also, practical and research implications were provided. Research limitations, as well as suggestions for future research were proposed.
60
REFERENCES
Adler, R. F., & Benbunan-Fich, R. (2012). Juggling on a high wire: Multitasking effects on performance. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 70(2), 156-168.
Antoniou, A. S. G., Davidson, M. J., & Cooper, C. L. (2003). Occupational stress, job satisfaction and health state in male and female junior hospital doctors in Greece.
Journal of Managerial Psychology, 18(6), 592-621.
Journal of Managerial Psychology, 18(6), 592-621.