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Occupational stress and the role of the family and other non-work activities continue to be an important area of research for organizational scientists. In our sixth volume of Research in Occupational Stress and Well Being, we offer seven intriguing chapters that examine several key issues in work and non-work stress research. The theme for this volume is exploring the work and non-work interface.

Karasek's (1979) job demands-control model is one of the most widely studied models of occupational stress (de Lange, Taris, Kompier, Houtman, & Bongers, 2003). The key idea behind the job demands-control model is that control buffers the impact of job demands on strain and can help enhance employees’ job satisfaction with the opportunity to engage in challenging tasks and learn new skills (Karasek, 1979). Most research on the job demands-control has been inconsistent (de Lange et al., 2003; Van Der Deof & Maes, 1999), and the main reasons cited for this inconsistency are that different variables have been used to measure demands, control, and strain, not enough longitudinal research has been done, and the model does not take workers’ individual characteristics into account (Van Der Deof & Maes, 1999). To address these concerns, expansions have been made on the model such as integrating resources, self-efficacy, active coping, and social support into the model (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001b; Johnson & Hall, 1988; Demerouti, Bakker, de Jonge, Janssen, & Schaufeli, 2001a; Landsbergis, Schnall, Deitz, Friedman, & Pickering, 1992). However, researchers have only been partially successful, and therefore, to continue reducing inconstencies, we recommend using longitudinal designs, both objective and subjective measures, a higher sample size, and a careful consideration of the types of demands and control that best match each other theoretically.

The goal of this chapter is to present new ways of conceptualizing family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB), and to present a multilevel model reviewing variables that are linked to this construct. We begin the chapter with an overview of the U.S. labor market's rising work–family demands, followed by our multilevel conceptual model of the pathways between FSSB and health, safety, work, and family outcomes for employees. A detailed discussion of the critical role of FSSB is then provided, followed by a discussion of the outcome relationships for employees. We then present our work on the conceptual development of FSSB, drawing from the literature and from focus group data. We end the chapter with a discussion of the practical implications related to our model and conceptual development of FSSB, as well as a discussion of implications for future research.

The preponderance of studies that rely on self-report for both independent (e.g. stressors) and dependent (e.g. well-being) variables is often deplored, as it creates problems of common method variance, which may lead to inflated, or even spurious, correlations and predictions. It is sometimes suggested that alternative measures should yield more “objective” information on the phenomena under investigation. We discuss this issue with regard to: (a) observational measures of working conditions; (b) physiological measures of strain; and (c) event-based “self-observation” on a micro-level. We argue that these methods are not necessarily “objective.” Like self-report, they are influenced by a plethora of factors; and measurement artifacts can easily be produced. All this can make their interpretation quite difficult, and the conclusion that lack of convergence with self-report automatically invalidates self-report is not necessarily warranted. Especially with regard to physiological measures, one has to keep in mind that they refer to a different response level that follows its own laws and is only loosely coupled with psychological responses. Therefore, replacement is not a promising way to get more reliable estimates of stressor-strain relationships. We argue instead that each method contains both substantive and error variance, and that a combination of various methods seems more auspicious. After discussing advantages and pitfalls of observational, physiological, and self-observational measures, respectively, we report empirical examples from our own research on each of these methods, which are meant to illustrate both the advantages and the problems associated with them. They strengthen the overall conclusion that there is no “substitute” for self-report (which often is necessary to be able to interpret data from other methods, most notably physiological ones). They also illustrate that collecting such data is quite cumbersome, and that a number of conditions have to be carefully considered before using them, and we report some problems we encountered in this research. Altogether, we conclude that self-report measures, if carefully constructed, are better than their reputation, but that the optimal way is to complement them with other measures.

The field of work stress continues to stimulate exciting and path-breaking research that examines how our work lives affect our health, happiness, and well being. Regardless of the specific discipline, we have the common goal of trying to understand how the workplace affects our mental and physical health. In spite of the diversity of questions, theories, and methodologies that characterize our research programs, we share the desire to explain and understand the dynamics of occupational stress and well being.

The quest to understand the experience of stress and how it affects our mental and physical well being continues to fill volumes of journals and books. Despite this fecundity we seem to be no closer to a comprehensive theory of the stress process, or even a common definition of what it is, than we were twenty years ago. This is true for the subfield of occupational stress as well. Thus arises the inchoate suspicion that all is not well in our field. Our view is more sanguine than some, however. We are quick to concede that there is not a useful comprehensive theory of work stress, but we also hasten to add that this is not a critical lack. We prefer to think of the study of work stress and well being as defining a constellation of theories and models that each attacks a meaningful process or phenomenon. In this sense, the term stress serves as a general rubric for a diverse set of research questions (and their associated theories) concerning workplace experiences, individuals’ reactions to those experiences, and workers’ well being in all its various manifestations. The field of work stress excites many of us because of the incredible diversity of disciplines that have entered the fray, each of them attacking the question of how our work lives determine our health, and using the unique theoretical perspectives and methods of their discipline. In this sense, we are all united in our interest in trying to understand how what happens in the workplace affects our mental and physical health, in spite of the range of specific questions, theories, and methodologies that characterize our research programs.