WORK STRESS AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE: THE

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Research Journal in Organizational Psychology & Educational Studies 3(5) 350-358

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© Emerging Academy Resources (2014) (ISSN: 2276-8475) www.emergingresource.org

WORK STRESS AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL Justice Mensah and Kwesi Amponsah-Tawiah Department of Organization and Human Resource Management University of Ghana Business School P. O. Box Lg78. Legon, Accra, Ghana Corresponding Author: Justice Mensah ___________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT With the consequences of work stress still on the surge, this study adopted a cross-sectional survey design to explore work stress and quality of work life (QWL): The mediating role of psychological capital among 290 SSNIT employees to understand personal dispositions that can mitigate the negative consequences of work stress. Using correlational and hierarchical regressional analysis findings from this study suggest that quality of work life (QWL) related negatively with work stress but positively with psychological capital. Also, a positive relationship was found between PsyCap and QWL. Furthermore, no mediation effect of PsyCap was established in the work stress-QWL relationship. However, resilience (a component of PsyCap) was found to partially mediate the work stress-QWL relationship. Lastly, the results showed that work stress partially mediated the psychological capital-quality of work life relationship. In terms of theoretical relevance, findings from this study makes some contributions to existing body of knowledge and more specifically to the emerging and developing literature of psychological capital as well as positive psychology by providing findings in relation to the mediating role of PsyCap as a whole as well as its individual components. It is imperative that organizations put in much effort to develop the resilience as well as PsyCap levels of employees since it has been shown in this study to mitigate the negative effects of work stress as well as guarantee better QWL respectively. ©Emerging Academy Resources KEYWORDS: Work Stress, Quality Of Work Life, Resilience And Psychological Capital __________________________________________________________________________________________ Lazarus and Folkman (1984) maintain that stress is the INTRODUCTION Stress has become part of our lives and each one of us resultant consequence of people’s beliefs that they are reacts to stress in different ways. Stress produces deficient in needed resources to confront challenging physical, hormonal and chemical changes in the body to events. It stands to reason that psychological capital accelerate the functioning of the heart, lungs and muscles (PsyCap) is one needed resource to help employees (Gazzaniga & Heatherton, 2003). Work stress is stress confront challenging and stressful events at the work inherent in work and can occur when a discrepancy exists place which consequently may mitigate the negative between the demands of the workplace and a person’s consequences of work stress on employees QWL. ability to execute these demands (Henry & Evans, 2008). Psychological capital (PsyCap) has been defined as “an individual’s positive psychological state of development Stressors from work can lead the body to experience and is characterized by: (1) having confidence (selfsome physiological reaction which can affect an efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to individual physically and mentally. Factors that create succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive and breeds workplace stress are widespread and range attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the from technological change and global competitive future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, pressures to toxic work environments and managerial redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and bullying (Colligan & Higgins, 2006). Downsizing, rapid (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and changes in competitive pressures, technology, and work bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain procedures, increased levels of job insecurity, and eversuccess” (Luthans, Youssef & Avolio, 2007, p. 3). demanding customers make today’s workplace arguably even more stress-laden than it was just a decade ago. In Research has shown that job related stress is linked with addition, lack of autonomy, difficult or strained soaring organizational (and societal) health-care costs interaction with colleague workers as well as (Colligan & Higgins, 2006), as well as affecting management, molestations from superiors and little or no negatively employee quality of work life (QWL) opportunities for advancement in one’s skill level (Bolhari, Rezaeem, Bolhari & Zare, 2012; Charu, 2013). contribute to making today’s work place more stressful Fernandes (1996) opines that QWL cover the conciliation than in previous years. of the individuals’ and organizations’ interests, that is to say, at the same time that it improves the worker’s satisfaction, it improves consonantly the productivity of

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Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 3(5):350-358 Work Stress And Quality Of Work Life: The Mediating Role Of Psychological Capital

motivation to kick start a project and adopt new strategies to accomplish same project when the current strategy is not yielding positive results. Optimism is the general disposition to expect the best in all things. As noted by Carver and Scheier (2002, p. 231), “optimists are people who expect good things to happen to them; pessimists are people who expect bad things to happen to them” and the distinction among these two is not of little importance as optimists “differ in how they approach problems and challenges and differ in the manner and success with which they cope with adversity.”

the company. Studies over the years have examined to some extent the impact of work stress on quality of work life of employees (Hong, Tan, & Bujang, 2010; Leonard, 2002). However, previous empirical findings are still less encouraging and have been inconclusive especially in terms of the nature of the relationships and contributions of psychological capital on quality of work life of stressed workers. Also the field of positive psychology, specifically psychological capital, just begun and research has not comprehensively tested the strengths and effect of its individual components (resilience, hope, optimism and efficacy). This study therefore sought to explore the relationship between work stress and quality of work life and investigate further the mediating role of PsyCap, hope, resilience, efficacy and optimism (components of PsyCap) in the work stress and quality of work life relationship as well as explore the mediating role of work stress in the PsyCap and QWL relationship in order to extend the boundaries of the study of PsyCap and work stress in a Ghanaian organizational setting.

Efficacy stemming from the social cognitive theory and extended to work is one’s belief about his or her abilities to galvanize the needed motivation and cognize resources that are necessary to carry out a specific assignment within a defined context successfully (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). The resilient component of psychological capital refers to “a class of phenomena characterized by patterns of positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity or risk,” that makes people able to bounce back effectively from adversity (Masten & Reed, 2002, p. 75). The ability to bounce back is the difference between people who recover properly from difficulties and those crushed and are unable to forge on after difficulties (Block & Kremen, 1996). As noted by Richardson (2002) resilient individuals are those who are able resurge psychologically to previous levels or beyond previous levels.

WORK STRESS THEORY An influential theory in research about work and work stress, the Job Demand-Control (JDC) model identifies two critical aspects of the job within the work context: job demands and job control (Karasek, 1979). To Karasek (1979), job demands refer to the amount of work executed by an employee (work load). The job control dimension also called the decision latitude of the JDC refers to an employee’s ability and capacity to have control on his or her work demands. Decision latitude also consists of two components: skill discretion and decision authority. The fundamentals of Karasek’s (1979) JDC model is that the demands from a job and the control an employee has over the job interact to produce a variety of psychosocial job experiences for the employee and this is dependent on the strengths of the demands from a job and job control. Thus to the JDC model, a possession of decision latitude over the demands of a job will reduce an employee’s experience of stress and still surge learning, whereas psychological demands increase the experience of stress from work and ability to learn.

QWL Theory Walton (1975) conceptualized quality of work life to consist of eight dimensions spanning from adequate and fair compensation to the progress capabilities of the employee. To Walton (1974) employees’ perception of these dimensions at their work place reflects their QWL. These dimensions are adequate and fair compensation; safe and healthy environment; development of human capacities; growth and security; social integrative constitutionalism; the total life space and social relevance. As noted, employees are said to be experiencing a better quality of work life if the work environment satisfy’s these eight dimensions (Walton, 1975).

Psychological Capital Theories The concept of positive psychology is rooted in Seligman’s (1998) proposal that much focus should be concentrated on the good aspects of people rather than their negatives. Crucial to positive psychology is psychological capital, a construct composed of four sub constructs; hope, optimism, efficacy and resilience. Hope a construct in positive psychology and mostly thought of as an “empowering way of thinking” has its theoretical support from Snyder’s (1994, p.2) research. Snyder (1994) who formulated the theory of hope dwelled on the premised that human beings by nature have an innate desire to achieve something. Snyder (2000) posited that hope was made up of willpower and waypower. People with high hope are individuals who have the needed

PsyCap as a Mediator in the QWL-Work Stress Relationship, Work Stress as a Mediator in the PsyCapQWL Relationship Mortazavi, Yazdi, Amini (2012) in a study found that PsyCap factors such as self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency impact on QWL. Nguyen and Nguyen (2011) in a study found that PsyCap has positive impacts on QWL. Work stress has been found to have a significant effect on quality of work life. Bolharie et al. (2012) in a study reported a negative relationship between work stress and QWL. Charu (2013) investigated the effect of work stress stress on quality of work life in 203 associates of the Information Technology (IT) and found that higher stress of the associates led to them experiencing poorer quality of work life. Even though the 351


Hypothesis 4: Work stress will significantly mediate the relationship between psychological capital and quality of work life of employees.

relationship between work stress and QWL has been upheld, the question unanswered by Bolhari et al. (2012) and Charu (2013) is whether the relationship will be the same in the possession of PsyCap by the employee.

MATERIALS AND METHODS Research Design This study’s design was a cross-sectional survey design. The cross-sectional survey is non-experimental and collects data from different groups respondents at the same time. This design was used because this study aimed at recording needed information about participants.

Riolli, Savicki and Richards (2012) examined the impact of PsyCap on the wellbeing of undergraduates during an academic semester. The results from analyzed data revealed that PsyCap mediated the relationships between stress and indices of psychological as well as physical wellbeing of students. The results further showed PsyCap buffered the effect of stress so that the negative outcomes associated with stress were reduced significantly. In the case of Satisfaction with Life, PsyCap augmented a positive psychological outcome. Kinman and Grant (2010) have found that resilience fully mediates the negative association between emotional intelligence and psychological distress, highlighting the importance of inter- and intra-individual emotional competencies in promoting resilience and enhancing well-being. Morgan and Baron (2011) have also reported that parental efficacy to partially mediates the relationship between kids challenging behaviors on psychological wellbeing of carers by reducing the negative consequences of challenging behavior on psychological wellbeing of carers. Rustøen, Cooper and Miaskowski (2010) have also reported that hope fully mediated the psychological distress-health status relationship as well as partially mediated the relationship between psychological distress and life satisfaction. Avey, Luthans and Jensen (2009) study found that PsyCap was significantly and negatively related to employee turnover intentions as well as job search behaviors. Results further revealed that symptoms of stress mediated partially the PsyCap and job search behaviors relationship. Again, employees’ stress symptoms were found to partially mediate the relationship between their PsyCap and intentions to quit.

Participants In all 290 employees from the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) Head office participated in this study. They were made up of 164 (56.55%) males and 126 (43.55%) females. The ages of participants ranged from 22 years to 58 years with a mean age of 33.77 (SD = 9.24). Out of the 290 employees who participated in this study, 120 (41.38%) and 170 (58.62%) were drawn from the manufacturing sector and service sector respectively. Measures Psychological Capital: This was measured using the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ) developed by Luthans, Youssef and Avolio (2007) with a strong internal reliability of 0.92. The PCQ is made up of 24 items with items 1-6 on the scale measuring efficacy (α = 0.75). Items 7-12 measures hope (α = 0.72). Items 13-18 and 19-24 measure resilience (α = 0.71) and optimism (α = 0.74) respectively. Examples of items in the PCQ include “There are lots of ways around any problem” and “I can think of many ways to reach my current goals”. Responses to the PCQ are anchored on a 6- point scale ranging 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Higher scores on the PCQ reflects better PsyCap. Work Stress: This was measured using the Job-related Tension Index (JRTI) by Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek and Rosenthal (1964). The JRTI is a fifteen (15) item scale with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.75 designed to measure employee perceptions and frequency and extent of stressful events of job stress and overload. Sample items include; “Feeling that your job tends to interfere with your family life” and Feeling that you may not be liked and accepted by the people you work with”. The Jobrelated Tension Index was answered on 6- point likert scale format with responses ranging from ‘Never’ to ‘Everyday’. These responses were scored in an ascending order from 1 to 6. Higher scores on the JRTI reflects a more work stressed employee.

Based on this reviewed literature, the following hypotheses were formulated; Hypothesis 1: Work stress will have a significant negative relationship with quality of work life. Hypothesis 2: Psychological capital will relate positively with quality of work life. Hypothesis 3: Psychological Capital will significantly mediate the relationship between work stress and quality of work life. Specifically; 3a. Efficacy will significantly mediate the relationship between work stress and quality of work life. 3b. Hope will significantly mediate the relationship between work stress and quality of work life. 3c. Resilience will significantly mediate the relationship between work stress and quality of work life. 3d. Optimism will significantly mediate the relationship between work stress and quality of work life.

Quality of Work Life: Data on Quality of Work Life was gathered using the Quality of Work Life Scale developed originally by Hackman and Lawler (1971) with a cronbach’s alpha of 0.68. The scale is a ten (10) item scale and reflects the respondents’ perception of Quality of Work Life in terms of opportunities for developing their capacities, safe and healthy working 352


environment, opportunity for growth, job security, communication, rules and procedures, satisfaction with salary increases, being fairly paid for the job, income, fringe benefit packages. Sample items included “I am satisfied with the service’s health and safety policy” and “My job is relatively secured”. The scale was answered on a 5-point likert scale from ‘Strongly disagree’ scored as 1 to ‘Strongly agree’ scored as five. Higher scores on the scale reflects better quality of work life.

RESULTS Descriptive Statistics Table 1.1: Descriptive Statistics and Reliability Analysis of the Variables in the Study (N = 290). Variable Work stress Quality of work life Psychological capital Efficacy Hope Resilience Optimism

Procedure Introductory letters were presented to the selected organizations to inform them about the study and also seek their permission to use their employees for the study. With permission and consent of management of these organizations granted, employees in these organizations were informed about the details and purpose of this study and asked to voluntarily consent to taking part in the study. Consented participants were assured of their confidentiality regarding the answers they provide after which were administered to participants. It must be stated that the ethics outlined by the American Psychological Association in reference to the conduct of research and the use human beings as participants were fully adhered to.

Min 17 12

Max 88 48

Mean 56.88 28.86

SD 1.65 9.32

Skewness -.30 .41

Kurtosis -.65 -.74

Cronbach’s α .89 .88

39

139

78.87

2.32

.64

.65

.82

3 6 8 4

41 42 48 38

18.43 20.48 21.87 17.96

7.46 7.64 7.3 6.81

.60 .70 .43 .59

-.22 -.12 .12 -.23

.78 .71 .68 .71

Note: PWB = Psychological wellbeing, Min = Minimum, Max = Maximum. Table 1.1 above shows preliminary results to guarantee the use of some statistical test. Results from Table 1.1 above shows that employees in the studied organizations were experiencing high work stress (Mean = 56.88, SD = 1.65) as well as better quality of work life (Mean = 28.99, SD=1.86). Finally, participants on the whole were experiencing better psychological capital (Mean = 78.71, SD=2.32). Pearson Correlation Among Variables Multi-Collinearity and correlation among studied variables were also tested using the Pearson r test and the results are displayed in Table 1.2 below.

Table 1.2 Pearson Correlations for the Studied Variables Variable 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. **

Age Tenure Work stress QWL PsyCap Efficacy Hope Resilience Optimism

1 -

2 .63** -

3 .01 .02 -

4 -.03 -.03 -.66** -

5 .00 .04 -.81** .58** -

6 -.05 .00 -.68** .48** .82** -

7 .00 .02 -.61** .37** .79** .59** -

08 .03 .05 -.61** .51** .76** .51** .41** -

9 .01 .04 -.67** .51** .78** .57** .48** .51 -

Significant at .01 level, *Significant at .05 level life. This hypothesis was tested using the Pearson Product Moment Correlations (See Table 1.2 for results). The results as shown in Table 1.2 indicated a significant strong negative relationship between work stress and quality of work life (r = -.66, n = 290, p < .01). Therefore the hypothesis that work stress will have a significant negative relationship with quality of work life was supported. This finding means that, as employees experience increasing work stress, their quality of work life reduces.

As shown in Table 1.2, it can be seen that work stress related negatively and strongly with QWL (r=-.66, p