STRESS MANAGEMENT

Stress Management

Name of Student

Name of Instructor

Stress Management

Introduction

Stress management has become a topic of great interest to academic researchers, managers in organizations, and the general public as well. A clear indication of this interest is the sheer number of scientific studies as well as book chapters and reviews examining occupational stress. Authors of these studies and reviews often attempt to “grab” the reader by describing the negative impact that employee stress has on organizations. For example, many authors cite the amount of money that stress costs organizations and drains from the economy in general. Although the negative impact of stress is often thought to be due to increases in health care costs, authors also claim that employee stress is costly to organizations in terms of reduced productivity, decreased quality of customer service, increased accident rates, and increased employee withdrawal, to name a few (Cooper, 2008).

This chapter examine the very important yet little understudied issue of organizational consequences of Stress management. As a starting point, It first review the various outcomes that have been examined in occupational stress research as well as the relevance of these outcomes to organizational functioning. Then review theoretical models of occupational stress in an effort to examine the implications that these models provide in linking stressors to organizationally relevant outcomes. The focus of this chapter then shifts to methodological issues in the study of organizational consequences of stress. It then review empirical evidence linking employee stress with organizationally relevant outcomes. The chapter concludes with a discussion of practical implications and future research directions (Greenberg, 2003).

Discussion

Like many areas in the organizational sciences, the study of stress management is relatively new. In assessing the effects of job-related stressors over the years, however, a clear pattern has developed in terms of the various outcomes that researchers have investigated. Specifically, stress outcomes (called “strains”) have typically been psychological, physical, and behavioral in nature. Common psychological outcomes that have been studied include anxiety, depression, and general psychological well-being. The study of physical outcomes has been popular due to the potential link between experiencing job-related stressors and ill health. Most researchers have opted to measure physical strain through self-reported physical symptoms, although some researchers have used more objective measures such as physiological indicators (e.g., blood pressure) or even health care utilization. Behavioral outcomes (e.g., job performance, absenteeism, and turnover) have been studied the least due largely to the practical difficulties associated with obtaining these indicators (Cox, 2000).

Given these three types of stress outcomes, questions have been raised about the degree to which various outcomes are relevant to organizational functioning. Feelings of anxiety, for example, do not necessarily have to occur in an organizational context and may have little if any effect on bottom-line organizational well-being. Conversely, decreased job performance occurs in an organizational context and may have a devastating impact on bottom-line profitability (Heller, 2003).

It is obvious that classifying a strain as being more relevant to the individual or to the organization is a subjective decision. Furthermore, many of the outcomes listed ...