Current Perspectives on Job-Stress Recovery

Item does not contain fulltextFor decades, researchers have examined the job stressors and their outcomes for individuals and organizations. However, until now we know only little about the processes that reduce and reverse the effects of the stress process. This volume aims at filling this gap in the literature by focusing on processes related to recovery and unwinding from job stress. The book integrates various perspectives on the topic. The chapters demonstrate that recovery research is a very promising approach for understanding the processes of job stress and relieve from job stress more fully. Moreover, the chapters illustrate that recovery is a very important topic for practical job-stress interventions that have the potential to reduce the negative impact of job stress for employee health and well-being.296 p

A multi-society examination of the impact of psychological resources on stressor-strain relationships

This paper sequentially addresses a conceptual and an empirical goal. Our conceptual goal was to develop a globally relevant model of the relationship between work role stressors and strain using conservation of resources (COR) theory as our foundation. Stressors included in the model are role conflict and role ambiguity, with three resources - mastery, optimistic orientation, and self-esteem - as moderators on the stressor-strain relationship. With this conceptual framework developed, we explored our empirical goal, a test of the model using both societal-level and individual-level indicators. First, we pan-culturally tested the model across our seven-society sample. Next, we split these societies into high and low gross national income categories. Likewise, we split the respondents in our sample, regardless of their country, into high and low idiocentrism/individualism and allocentrism/collectivism categories and tested at these group levels. Our findings showed that personal resources - mastery, optimistic orientation, and self-esteem - generally served to buffer the experienced strain due to work role ambiguity and conflict. This study provides specific information that can assist the global business community in understanding how stress pervades their workforces. Overall, our findings offer substantial evidence that a global model of stress is truly viable, providing direction for future research on stress in the global workforce. © 2010 Academy of International Business All rights reserved