LOCUS OF CONTROL AS A MODERATOR FOR

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORGANISATIONAL ROLE

STRESS AND MANAGERIAL EFFECTIVENESS
Shalini Srivastava
Getting the pulse of the present economic scenario, corporate are today increasingly
realising the fact that their people, especially those at the managerial levels, are the only
source of competitive advantage. This has resultedin a renewed focus on the HR strategies
that can ensure retention, commitment, as well as reduction of stress and maximum
effectiveness of managerial personnel. This is only possible when personnel working in
organizations are contended, motivated in their respective work areas. Managerial
effectiveness is important for the survivaland growth of organisations. Experts have, over
the years, attempted to describe the work of all managers by a set of common behaviours or
roles. One’s personality plays prominent role in determining his effectiveness
orineffectiveness in dealing with day to day stress prevailing in an organisation. It was
found during the course of reviewing the literature that there is a paucity of survey research
from the psychological point of view on private sector managers regarding their
effectiveness. The present study was done on a sample of 200 managers belonging
to private sector organisations. The major objective of the study was to analyse moderating
effects of Locus of Control on the relationship between organisational role stress and
managerial effectiveness. Hierarchical MultipleRegression analysis was conducted to find
the results. It was found that organisational role stress was negativelyrelated to Managerial
Effectiveness and Internal Locus of Control moderated organisational role stress and
Managerial Effectiveness relationship.

INTRODUCTION Faced with the new challenges corporate houses of Indian economy are
today increasingly realizing the fact that their people, especially those at the managerial
levels, are the only source of competitive advantage. This has resulted in a renewed focus on
the HR strategies that can ensure retention, commitment, as well as continued growth and
effectiveness of the managerial personnel.Likert (1961) had emphasised that a manager must
be adaptive to a specific situation and needs of his/her followers resulting in high degree of
effectiveness in meeting the personal and organisational goals. According to Reddin (1970),
managerial effectiveness is nothing more than the output, and it is dependent upon the
output with regards to one’s position in the organisation.He emphasised upon the output
without any mention of morale and satisfaction of group members. In the situation
of complexity and ambiguity, an effective manager is an optimiser of resources for better
organisational functioning (Campbell et al., 1970). Drucker (1977), however, gave this
situation lesser importance as a determinant of managerial effectiveness. According to him,
what matters is the habit of a manager in tackling the problem in a specific manner.
Once this habit (which develops through practice) develops then whatever the situation may
be, he is going to perform well. According to Langford (1979), effectiveness is contingent
upon the situation – the situation being the manager himself, his position, tasks assigned to
him, the organisation and the socio-economic environment. According to Black and Edward
(1979), the best way to measure effectiveness is by obtaining difference between the
quantity actually produced and the quantity planned.Hill (1979) had also somewhat similar
views when he reported that an effective manager showed high concern for the people and
productivity.

Organisational Role Stress

Since the dawn of human consciousness humankind

has been engaged in the pursuit of happiness, peace and
stress-free life. In the process, human beings are caught
in a dynamic technological whirlpool which has “spawned
mega-bureaucracies, micro-task specialisation and greater
urbanisation. Phenomena like these are closely linked
with work settings, which have numerous systems such
as production, marketing, finance, administration as
well as macro-organisational sub systems like internalorganisational
systems and organisational level, goals,
strategies, climates, cultures, structures, management
styles and performance. These are accountable for the
growth of the organisation and its role incumbents on the
one hand, and society at large on the other.
Stress in the workplace is increasingly a critical
problem for employees, employers and the society.
Researchers who study stress have demonstrated the direct
and indirect costs of stress. (Matteson and Ivancevich,
1987). There are many variables which have been related
to organisational stress. Ivancevich and Matteson (1980)
proposed a model of organisational stress research that
outlined the major antecedents of work stress. They noted
the importance of individual differences as moderators of
stress and detailed possible outcomes of stress at work.
Stress is associated with impaired individual
functioning in the workplace. A number of aspects of
working life have been linked to stress. Aspects of work
itself can be stressful, namely work overload (Defrank
and Ivancevich, 1998; Sparks and Cooper, 1999, Taylor et
al., 2005) and role-based factors such as lack of power, role ambiguity, and role conflict
(Burke, 1988; Nelson and
Burke, 2000).
In the past three decades, empirical researches on the
theme of stress have increased many folds. Researchers
have focused their attention on the causal factors of
stress, stress manifestations, moderators of stress-strain
relationship, and types of stresses experienced by diverse
work populations, and various coping strategies adopted
by organisational entities to cope with stress (Pestonjee,
1992).
The large organisations, like other settings, exert its set
of unique forces on the individual. Through the application
of these forces, the organisation is able to channel the
individual’s behaviour towards certain goals and to direct
his/her interactions towards certain people and away from
others.
Pareek (1983) has pioneered work on role stress by
identifying as many as ten different types of organisational
role stresses namely: Inter role distance (IRD), Role
Stagnation (RS), Role Expectation Conflict (REC), Role
Erosion (RE), Role Overload (RO), Role Isolation (RI),
Personal Inadequacy (PI), Self-role Distance (SRD), Role
Ambiguity (RA), Resource Inadequacy (RIN).

Method
The sample consisted of 200 managers from private sector
organisations comprising of BPO, Banks and IT Sectors.
The organisations within the private sector were located in
Delhi and National Capital Region. The employees were
males and females, in the 20-60 years of age group, and has
spent at least one year in the same organisation.
The data was collected by administering questionnaires
mainly during office hours, with the consent of relevant
representatives of the employer as well as the respondents.
The participants were chosen randomly from each
organisation and belonged to different departments of
the organisation. Most of the participants showed their
willingness to participate in the study after a short meeting.

TERMS :

Organisational stressors (conflict, blocked career, alienation,

work overload, and unfavourable work environment) will be positively
related to job stress.

Organisational Factors as Sources of Stress

Job stress has been defined as the non-specific response of the body to any
demands made upon it (Selye, 1976). It is considered to be an internal state or
reaction to anything we consciously or unconsciously perceive as a threat, either
real or imagined (Clarke and Watson, 1991). Robbins (2001) defines stress as a
dynamic condition in which the individual is confronted with an opportunity, constraint,
or demand related to what he or she desires and for which the outcome is
perceived to be both uncertain and important. Stress can be caused by environmental,
organisational, and individual variables (Matteson and Ivancevich, 1999;
Cook and Hunsaker, 2001). Organisational-based factors have been known to
induce job stress for employees at the workplace (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985).
These factors are commonly termed as organisational stressors since they serve
as agents that trigger the various stress reactions (Von Onciul, 1996). Among the
numerous organisational sources of stress, only five variables were investigated in
this study namely conflict, blocked career, alienation, work overload, and
unfavourable work environment.
Role conflict has been found to have a positive relationship with job stress
(Roberts et al, 1997). When individuals are required to play two or more role
requirements that work against each other, they are likely to experience job stress.
This is because role conflicts create expectations that may be hard to reconcile.
Foot and Venne (1990) discovered a positive relationship between barriers to
career advancement and job stress. When employees perceived a lack of career
opportunities, they are likely to feel uncertain about their future in the organisation,
which in turn, are likely to induce stress. Alienation at the work place can also
lead to stress. Thoits (1995) in his study discovered that alienation has a positive
effect on job stress. Feelings of alienation are likely to result when employees are
required to work alone. According to Kanungo (1981), when workers believe
there is a separation between their own job and other work related contexts, a
sense of frustration that finally manifested in a behavioral state of apathy is likely
to occur. This is particularly intense for employees with high social needs. Working
alone on one’s job without social support from one’s peers and supervisors
ORGANISATIONAL STRESSORS AND JOB STRESS AMONG MANAGERS 65
would lead to job stress (Mirovisky and Ross, 1986; Eugene, 1999). Work overload
both quantitatively and qualitatively has been empirically linked to a variety
of physiological, psychological, and behavioral strain symptoms (Beehr and
Newman, 1978; Roberts et al, 1997; Miller and Ellis, 1990). According to
Greenhaus et al (1987), heavy workload lowers one’s psychological well-being
resulting in job stress. Additionally, a work environment associated with unpleasant
organisational climate, lack of privacy, a lot of hassle in conducting work, and
distractions can result in higher stress (Miller and Ellis, 1990; Eugene, 1999).
Thus, the first hypothesis of the study is as follows:
H1:Organisational stressors (conflict, blocked career, alienation

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework of the Study

Methodology
Subjects
Participants in the study consisted of managers attached to 20 randomly
selected electronic firms (both local and foreign) located on the island of Penang,
Malaysia. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed in proportion to the

I. Independent Variables

1. Conflict
2. Blocked Career
3 Alienation
4. Work Overload
5. Unfavourable Work Environment

II. Dependent Variable

Job Stress
Moderating Variable
III.Moderating varaiable
Neuroticism.
Methods of Analyses
Job stress can be influenced by personal factors (Matteson and Ivancevich,
1999). Six personal variables (age, gender, marital status, number of children,
working experience, and job tenure) were controlled in the statistical analysis
following previous researchers (Roberts et al, 1997; Smith et al, 1998; Rashed,
2001; Cooper et al, 1994).
Since gender and marital status were categorical in nature, these variables
were initially dummy coded. The first and second hypotheses were tested using a
four-step hierarchical regression (Cohen and Cohen, 1975) where the control
variables were entered in the first step, followed by the main effects of the five
organisational variables (conflict, blocked career, alienation, work overload, and
unfavourable work environment) in the second step. Neuroticism was added into
the equation in the third step. In the final step, the five interaction terms were
68 SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT REVIEW, VOLUME 27 NO 2
entered into the regression equation. The change in the F-value and the significance
of the individual parameter was observed. If an interaction term is found to
be significant, neuroticism is said to moderate the relationship between the relevant
organisational stressor and job stress.

TITLE - 3
Lay representations of workplace stress: What do people really mean
when they say they are stressed?

Introduction
The non-specificity of the stress concept A substantial body of research has accumulated on
occupational stress. It is now generally acknowledged that stress is the product of an
imbalance between appraisals of environmental demands and individual resources (Lazarus
& Folkman, 1984; MacKay, Cousins, Kelly, Lee & Caig, 2004) and that stressors (i.e.
environmental demands) should be operationally differentiated from strains (i.e. responses to
these demands) (Jones & Bright, 2001). Nevertheless, stress is still subject to numerous
explanations from diverse academic perspectives, and a clear distinction between stressors
and strains is not always made.

The lack of consensus amongst researchers in the field is illustrated by the findings of a
study Correspondence: Gail Kinman, Department of Psychology, University of Luton,
Luton, Bedfordshire LU1 3JU,
UK. E-mail: gail.kinman@luton.ac.uk ISSN 0267-8373 print/ISSN 1464-5335 online # 2005
Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/02678370500144831.
Lay representations of occupational stress

Research suggests that people are more likely to attribute the stress or strain that
theyexperience to the work environment than other life domains (McCormick,
1997; Warr & Payne, 1983). Considerably more insight has, however, been
gained into individuals’ explanatory models of life stress and health than lay
representations of occupational stress. As research reviewed in this paper
suggests that representations of stress held by individuals
inform their attitudes and actions, an investigation of lay theories of work stress
and its relationship with employee wellbeing has the potential to inform policy
and practice relating to how stress is managed in organisations. Employees are
likely to draw on a number of of sources when forming their opinions about
work stress, including organisational policies and practices, the trade union
movement and the media. Many organisations now provide secondary and
tertiary interventions of different kinds that aim to counsel stressed individuals
and/or ‘‘educate’’ employees about stress and how best to manage it.