Role Stress and Coping Among Business School Professors: A Phenomenological Study

The purpose of the paper is to identify the determinants of role stress amongst business school professors in India and explore the coping strategies followed by them based on the professional experiences shared by the professors. We employ Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to gain insights into the causes of rising levels of stress in business schools and the practised coping strategies from the professors’ perspective based on their narratives of lived experiences. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 64 professors from 29 public and private business schools in India. Analysis of qualitative data resulted in the emergence of 11 themes; we make recommendations based on the themes for the business schools’ management to assist the professors in alleviating role stress. As pointed out by Chong and Ahmed (2014), phenomenological studies are rarely used for inquiry in the higher education context. The insights gathered from IPA help in understanding the tenacious causes of role stress in the management institutes and the day-to-day coping strategies followed to reduce the same

Employer Attractiveness Through Social Media: A Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into the subjective experience and perception of job seekers about the extensive use of social media as a source of recruitment and selection by the employers and its influence on the overall employer attractiveness. Four focus group interviews were conducted, audio-taped, transcribed, and analyzed by following the procedure of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) laid down by Smith and Osborn (2007). By employing IPA, the themes which emerged under the study are: ease of information; navigational usability and user friendliness; person-job fit and person-organization fit; reliability and timeliness; positive and cost effective marketing; value creation for the employers; and privacy concern. The present study posits to assist the human resource managers in formulating strategies pertaining to social media recruitment and selection so as to create an image of attractive employer. Although IPA has been predominantly used within health psychology, it has been uncommon in the recruitment literature so far. Since IPA is a phenomenological account of an individual’s personal experience and perception about an object or event, it allowed determining the richness of job seekers’ perception and the extent to which it is similar or different across each participant groups. Also, the current study is one of the pioneers in uncovering the perception of job seekers about social media recruitment and selection process in the Indian context

Impact of Social Media Addiction on Employees’ Wellbeing and Work Productivity

The objective of this study is to gain insights into the experiences of employees regarding their social media usage and consequences of social media overuse at the workplace. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) procedures. The qualitative data was collected from the employees working in renowned IT/ITES companies in India. The themes that emerged are lack of sleep; backache and eye strain; feeling of envy; lack of depth in the relationships; tendency to seek approvals; not meeting deadlines; compromise with the work quality; distraction from work. The present study intends to assist human resource managers in designing appropriate policies and guidelines pertaining to employees’ social media usage at the workplace