Relationship Between Job Demand Stressors

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Research Proposal

“The relationship between job demand stressors, service recovery performance and job outcomes in insurance sector of Pakistan â€" an empirical investigation”

Presented to: Miss Mehrukh Javaid

Saad Mazhar

Contents

Introduction

The precise research question of my research is “Finding the relationship between job demand stressors, service recovery performance and job outcomes in insurance sector of Pakistan â€" an empirical investigation”

For this purpose I have set up a two way model, one linking service recovery performance with the three types of job demand stressors, and the second model studying the impact of service recovery performance on job satisfaction & organizational commitment.

The reason is of my research is that, now enterprises must consider customer service more seriously in order to compete in an open marketplace and this is an enormous challenge for managers, due to their limited experience in being governed by customer and market-based values rather than those of public policy makers, and especially as customers become more sophisticated in their demands and in their reactions to service quality. In addition, ‘‘confronting the uncertainties of greater competition than they have known in the past, is apt to be at least temporarily threatening and disruptive to the employees of these public and private service organizations.”

The research model will examine the process through which perceptions of management and their work environment in terms of job demand stressors influence service recovery performance and how service recovery performance leads to different outcomes, namely organizational commitment and job satisfaction.

I will be carrying my research in the insurance industry because it is in a service sector and in this customer service is very vital, because the managers are selling the insurance companies in the form of displaying themselves. So no matter what ambiguity the managers are under, they always have to perform well under stress to capture new or recover and existing customer. So it is suggested that an examination of the relationship between job demand stressors and service recovery performance in this context is timely and my research addresses this rare topic

Literature Review

(Meurs, Gallagher, Perrewé-2010)

The beneficial role of political skill in stress reactions and performance evaluations has been demonstrated in a substantial amount of empirical research. Most of the research, however, has focused on self-perceptions of political skill. This study examines the differential moderating effects of self- vs. other-rated political skill in the conflict â€" emotional burnout and performance relationships, using two samples including non-academic staff employees of a large university (N = 839) and a variety of office and retail employees from an automotive organization (N = 142). We argue that self-reported political skill moderates the relationship between conflict and a self-reported strain-related outcome that is important to the individual (i.e., emotional burnout), but that supervisor-rated political skill does not moderate this relationship. Further, we argue that supervisor-rated political skill moderates the relationship between conflict and an outcome important to the supervisor and the organization (i.e., job performance), but that self-reported political skill does not moderate this relationship. Findings partially support our hypotheses as both self and supervisor- rated political skill neutralized the negative effects of conflict on burnout, but only supervisor-rated political skill neutralized the negative effects of conflict on performance. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from the non-academic staff employees of a large university located in the southeastern United States. 3272 persons were requested via e-mail to participate in a voluntary survey, and 839 responded by completing the survey. 73.4% of the respondents were female, and the average age was 42.08 years with an average tenure with the organization of 7 years and 6 months. Employees voluntarily provided the name of their supervisor in the survey.

This study examines the differential moderating effects of self- vs. other-rated political skill in the conflict-emotional burnout and performance relationships. Political skill is an important social construct in the organizational sciences, with the potential to affect a number of important workplace behaviors and attitudes. Significant advancements in the evolution of the political skill construct, differential impacts of self- vs. other-rated political skill, and how it operates in the workplace, are contingent upon sound empirical work to appropriately test specific aspects of the political skill construct and its operationalization.

(Ford-2012)

Drawing from theory on met expectations, personâ€"environment fit, and social information processing, misfit between the pressure and autonomy experienced by workers and that which would be expected given their occupational roles was examined as a predictor of job satisfaction, perceived support, and depression. Results from a nationally (U.S.) representative sample using response surface methods indicate that job pressure had much stronger effects on job satisfaction, perceived support, and depression when it exceeded the pressure that would be expected given the occupational role's norms for time pressure and critical decision-making demands. When pressure fell short of occupational norms, effects were much weaker and in some cases reversed. Satisfaction was also highest and depression lowest when the autonomy was at or slightly above the norms for autonomy for one's occupational role.

These results have implications for job design, realistic job previews, and the use of norms.

To test this study's hypotheses, a large, heterogeneous sample of workers was needed that drew from a variety of occupations and organizations. Given this need, data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) were analyzed. The NSCW examined a sample that is representative of the employed workforce in the United States and offers a useful variety and range of job and occupational attributes for testing this study's hypotheses. For this study, individuals who were working at least 15 h per week and considered themselves to be working on a full-time basis were included. In total, 2809 of the participants met these criteria. Of these, 49.2% were women, 82.3% were non-Hispanic White, 8.0% non-Hispanic Black, 5.2% Hispanic, and 4.6% of another race. Forty-six percent of the sample had at least a 4-year college degree, while the average age of respondents was 46.6 and they worked an average of 44.8 h per week.

This study is an examination of the fit between one's job attributes and those that would be expected given one's occupational role. Results indicate that when job pressure exceeds that which would be expected given an occupational role's typical time pressure and criticality, satisfaction and perceived support decreases while depression increases, whereas these effects are much weaker or slightly reversed when job pressure is below occupational norms. Similar findings were found for autonomy, with satisfaction highest when autonomy was at or slightly exceeded occupational norms but decreasing when autonomy far exceeded those same norms. Organizations may consider such information when structuring works roles and socializing newcomers in order to ensure they meet the abilities, interests, and values of workers. Knowledge about jobâ€"occupation fit may also help researchers further their understanding about variability in stress reactions across different types of occupations.

(Harris, Artis, Walters, & Licata, 2006).

In the recent economic times, especially in the service industry, hiring of such service personnel is required, who can satisfy customer needs while using least of the organizations resources. Hence the “Do more with less”, is a critical term prevailing in business world. For understanding this phenomenon and its implications, the authors of this article have tried to examine both, the relation existing and impact of following: role stressors on job resourcefulness, and job resourcefulness on job satisfaction. Their research has to find validity in the previously hypothesized relationships between role stressors, job resourcefulness, and job outcomes. They have two research questions to answer, first, “How does role ambiguity and conflict affect job resourcefulness?” second, “What is the influence of job resourcefulness on job satisfaction and intentions to leave the service firm?”

Coming towards their methodology, they selected retail insurance sector â€" a large insurance companies in southeastern United States. Executive interviews were carried out on the upper hierarchal managers, to know what impacts the operating efficiency of their insurance companies, the most. A survey, which contained measures vital to the study along with unrelated concepts, were administered to insurance companies employees on all levels. The surveys were returned directly to the researchers via U.S. mail. Respondents were assured of both the secrecy and inscrutability of their responses. In all, 200 surveys were distributed and 140 returned in usable form for a response rate of 70%.The average age of the respondents was 38 years and the average tenure with the insurance companies was 5 years. The sample consisted of 87% female respondents and 13% male respondents. They have stated eight hypothesis relating the following variables amongst each other, namely, Job resourcefulness, Conscientiousness, Openness, Role ambiguity, Role conflict, Customer orientation, Job satisfaction and Intentions to leave. Regression and correlation analysis have been carried out to test the legitimacy of these hypotheses.

The significance results of the study reveal that role ambiguity and conflict both negatively influence job resourcefulness. This analysis exposed that the effects of all other predictors fall below significance when job satisfaction was included, suggesting that the effects of these constructs on intentions to leave are fully mediated by job satisfaction.

The gap discussed Future research that utilizes measures taken from multiple sources (e.g., supervisor ratings of resourcefulness, objective measures) is suggested.

Under the discussion future expansion of research has been stated. Future work should explore other services settings (e.g: food). Other work environments should be considered. The impact of different organizational cultures, such as adaption of different leadership style, should be studied in relation to job satisfaction and intention to leave job. Also, since the focus is on two type of personality variables, additional personality traits should be considered in future work. Future research should be more customer-oriented.

(Bowling, 2007).

The job satisfaction and performance relationship has been studied in numerous studies, making it the holy grail of business psychology, but this study does not take this into account. A meta-analytic research methodology has been used to suggest that the satisfaction-performance relation is spurious in nature. The purpose of this research is to, “Examine this spuriousness explanation using meta-analytic data, that is to understand, whether employee personality contributes to a spurious relationship between job satisfaction and job performance?”

The author formed six hypothesis to be tested for validity, which included the testing of relation between, Five-factor model, core self evaluations and domain specific personality traits with job performance. The methodology was a complex step by step procedure. It started off with thorough study of previously published meta analyses, then the original meta analyses were administered to examine relation between OBSE, WLOC, job satisfaction and job performance. Next the search of literature, between 1967-2006, was carried out thorough the PsychINFO database. Next the meta-analytic method was applied which included sample-weighted mean correlations with reliability tests for the predictor variables, were calculated. In the end the path analysis through LISREL was used to test the spuriousness of the hypothesis.

For result, this research clearly signifies, that the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance is largely spurious. It is hoped that these findings will help put to rest much of the hearsay that a causal relationship exists between job satisfaction and job performance.

Future research should examine the possibility of situational factors such as job characteristic, leadership style, organizational culture etc, to play an important role along the employee personality, for efficient job performance.

Future researches on the spuriousness hypothesis should also consider the level of measurement of satisfaction and performance. In all of the current analyses satisfaction and performance were assessed at the individual level so it should be extended to the organizational-level performance and answer the question of spuriousness on an organizational-level amongst them.

(Aghdasi, Kiamaneshb, & Ebrahimb, 2011).

This research has been carried out to investigate the direct and indirect impact of emotional intelligence on occupational stress, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The three main questions that arise under the research framework were following, Question 1: Does emotional intelligence, with mediatory role of occupational stress, have an indirect effect on job satisfaction? Question 2: Does emotional intelligence, with mediatory role of job satisfaction, have an indirect effect on organizational commitment? Question 3: Does occupational stress, with mediatory role of job satisfaction, have an indirect effect on organizational commitment?

The authors have proposed six hypothesis, relating emotional intelligence, the exogenous variable with the three endogenous variables. The sample taken for this study encompassed 234 employees who were working full time in the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology in Iran for at least one year and it was a heterogeneous sample in terms of employee or situational characteristics. The sample was chosen through random sampling and proportional stratified sampling. The variables measured in this study included emotional intelligence, occupational stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Emotional intelligence was measured by the trait meta mood scale (TTMS). Occupational stress was measured through the scale of woke stressors developed by Askari Bigdeli. Job satisfaction was measured through Job-descriptive index (JDI). And in the end organizational commitment was measured through Organizational commitment questionnaire (OCQ).

The result was quite unexpected. The key variable, i.e. emotional intelligence, was indicated to have no significant direct and indirect effects on other variables in the model. Therefore, modification indices were used, and emotional intelligence was omitted in the research model. The role of occupational stress was changed into an independent exogenous variable in the modified model, and the three variables enjoyed a significant relation among each other.

This research does not contrary the result of previous researches on the relation between the variables of their model, because the extent of the climate and condition of the organization investigated in the study can vary from previous researches hence giving a total different result.

In future the research topic can be carried out in a better way if the following gaps are covered. First the employees answered four questionnaires in a limited time, which can make them tiresome, so to avert from this problem, the researchers should make their goals of the study clear and try to motivate their sample partakers. The colleague related parts of the questionnaire might have made the sample conservative. Gender can also be used a moderator variable and be carried out through an experimental research design, when this research is to be replicated for any private organization.

(Haq, 2011).

This research examines the speculative model that links interpersonal conflict, perception of organizational politics, and job outcomes. The author basically wants to investigate and find a possible relationship between these two important variables, and to investigate the conflict-politics outcome, for how the two constructs have significant impact on attitude and behaviors such as job stress, intention to quit, interpersonal and organizational workplace deviance.

To set its research framework, that eventually led to formulation of the research model, the author has stated eight hypothesis relating the variables amongst each other. For the research methodology, a survey was carried out in six organizations, ranging from SMEs to entrepreneurial business. 350 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 264 were used for statistical analysis. Respondents include employees working in upper management, middle management, and lower management. The qualification of respondents ranged from high school to post-graduate. 81% of respondents were male and 19% are female. For measuring organizational politics, a 12 item scale of organizational politics was used. For measuring interpersonal conflicts, 4 items scale by (Spector & Jex 1998). For measuring workplace deviance, 14 items scale by (Aquino, Lewis & Bradfield, 1999), was used for interpersonal and organizational workplace deviance. 6 items were used to measure interpersonal deviance. Job stress was measured by 13 items scale by (Parker & Decotiis, 1983). In the end the intention to quit was measured by a 3 item scale by (Vigoda, 2000). All these variables were taken on a 5 point likert-scale. Organization type and job nature play the role of control variables.

The results of Anova, regression and correlation analysis for testing the validity of all the hypothesis, resulted in the following significant results. Interpersonal conflict positively affects perception of organizational politics and perception of organizational politics mediates the relationship between interpersonal conflict and job stress. Perception of organizational politics also mediates the relationship between interpersonal conflict and intention to quit. Additionally interpersonal conflict is also positively related to interpersonal and organizational workplace deviance, and perception of organizational politics significantly related to workplace deviance.

For future research, this model should be tested with other outcomes such as job creativity, workplace violation, burnout, organizational cultures etc, because the model of this study is based on conflict-politics repercussion only. A new view to look at the impact of politics on top hierarchical level can also be studied in further research. Besides, a possible moderating variable regarding conflict- politics should be investigated with implication in different cultures.

(Mazaheri, DebraZ.Basil, VenkataYanamandram, & ZoltanDaroczi, 2011).

This research examines customer satisfaction with service recovery through the lens of a conflict management framework, specifically assessing the role of pre-existing attitude in determining customer response to service failure.

Two scenario based studies were used, having different target markets. Under study 1, participants were undergraduate students recruited through an announcement in various undergraduate classes at a mid-sized university in western North America. In exchange for their participation they were entered into a draw for one of several $10 gift certificates. Two hundred thirty students participated. Questionnaires were distributed randomly. Participants were 49% male. The age bracket was ranging between 19-40 years and the average age was 23.3 years. This study utilized a 3 â€" conflict management style (avoiding, competitive, cooperative) and 3 â€" service performance (fail to meet expectations, meet expectations, exceed expectations). The independent variables was conflict management style whose impact was to be studied on the dependent variables, customer satisfaction. The results of the ANCOVA did not suggest a significant interaction between conflict management style and performance outcome

Under Study 2, the majority of the participants were undergraduate students, with some university staff participating as well. Participants were recruited for this on-line study through an announcement on the website of a mid-sized university in western North America. Participants were recruited for the study through an announcement on the notice portion of the western North American university’s website home page. Participants were entered in a draw for $50. 35% of participants were male .The age bracket was ranging between 18-57 years, and the average age was 24.9 years. This study utilized a 3 â€" conflict management style (cooperative, competitive, avoiding), 2 â€" service performance (exceed expectations, fail to meet expectations), and 2 â€" pre-existing attitude (positive, negative).The relation between these variables was studied. The results show that in a conflict situation, customers are more satisfied with a cooperative style rather than avoiding or competitive styles.

For the implication of this research the researches should include measures of interactional, distributive, and procedural justice to further clarify their relationships with regard to the effects of pre-existing attitudes and conflict management style on satisfaction because currently the research focused on Conflict Management Theory. They should seek to replicate the research using field work rather than a laboratory experiment. Field work could potentially take the form of surveys or depth interviews following service encounters.

This paper analyses the effects of inter-sender role conflicts experienced by managers of International Joint Ventures (IJVs) on their individual job satisfaction and job stress. It then relates the level of IJV managers’ job satisfaction and job stress to the performance of the IJV. We empirically test these relationships using data gathered through a questionnaire survey carried out among general managers of German-Indian joint ventures. The findings show that managers experiencing a high level of role conflict also report lower job satisfaction and higher job stress of IJV managers. High job stress of IJV managers is related low performance of IJVs, while there is no statistically significant relationship between IJV managers’ job satisfaction and IJV performance. Thus, IJV managers’ job stress mediates the relation between inters ender role conflict and IJV performance. We discuss the implications of these results for research on, and the management of IJVs.

The findings support our first hypothesis according to which role conflicts are negatively associated with the level of IJVGMs’ job satisfaction. This is in line with empirical results of studies that have analyzed the consequences of role conflicts in different contexts. Additionally, our results show that role conflicts are positively related to the job stress perceived by an IJVGM (Hypothesis 2). Thus, the negative effects of role conflicts have to be borne in mind when assigning managers to IJVs and managing IJVs. If possible, role conflicts should be avoided by the role senders, i.e. the IJV partner firms. This requires partner firms to be aware of the other sides’ interests through increased communication with the other side, which in turn can be expected to lead to the creation of mutual trust and the abandonment of potential hidden agendas.

Methodology

Research Type

The research type which we will be conducting is an empirical study. Empirical study is that type of study which tests the validity of the proposed hypothesis.

Data Type and Research Period

The type of data that is used in this research is both qualitative and quantitative in nature. Qualitative data is concerned with descriptions, where as quantitative is concerned with catering numerical data.

This research will be conducted in a time period of eight months starting from September, 2012 to April, 2013.

Research Hypothesis

: There will be a negative relationship between role conflict and service recovery performance

: There will be a negative relationship between role ambiguity and service recovery performance

: There will be a negative relationship between role overload and FLE service recovery performance

: There will be a positive relationship between service recovery performance and their job satisfaction

: There will be a positive relationship between service recovery performance and their organizational commitment

Theoretical Framework and Variables under consideration

Independent variables

Dependant Variable

Relationship

References

Role Conflict

Service Recovery Performance

-

Singh et al. (1996).

Role Overload

Service Recovery Performance

-

Ford-2012

Role Ambiguity

Service Recovery Performance

-

Beehr et al. (1976).

Service Recovery Performance

Organizational Commitment

+

Mowday et al. (1979).

Service Recovery Performance

Job Satisfaction

+

Source: Babin and Boles (1998).

Role Conflict: Role conflict characterizes the difference, perceived by an employee,

between job expectations conveyed by multiple sources

Role Ambiguity: Role ambiguity is defined as a stressful condition caused by an employee’s confusion concerning expectations of what his or her job responsibilities are

Role Over-load: Role overload describes an inappropriately onerous magnitude of role requirements

Job Satisfaction: Job satisfaction is defined as ‘‘the pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job as achieving or facilitating the achievement of one’s job values

Organizational Commitment: Organizational commitment is defined as the relative

strength of a person’s identification with and involvement in an organisation

Service Recovery Performance: refers to the actions that a service provider takes to respond to service failures

Methodology

The research population for my research is the insurance sector of Pakistan. The potential insurance companies under my target research market are namely: EFE life insurance, Adam jee, State life. My respondents will be managerial employees from these companies, irrespective of what their post is.

The survey design being used by me is questionnaires, which would be filled by the respondents of age 25 +. The survey tool used has been taken from the base article for my research.

Sample size for my research is 150 managerial employees. The reason of choosing such a sample size, is that I want to ensure at least 95% response rate.

The sampling technique which I will be using is convenient and random sampling as I myself will be visiting the insurance companiess, meeting respondents and carrying out my survey

After data gathering, the data is going to be entered into mathematical and statistical software, on which different regressions will able to run in order to checked the validity of the five proposed hypothesis.