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Based on role theory, this paper seeks to investigate the impact of HR devolution characteristics (number of devolved HR tasks), characteristics of the HR devolution context (level of support from the HR department, and presence of institutionalised incentives to perform the allotted HR tasks well), and personal characteristics of the front‐line managers (HR competency) on front‐line managers' perceptions of two HR role stressors, i.e. HR role ambiguity and HR role overload.

The paper uses a sample of 169 front‐line managers from 47 organisations. The results are based on two moderation regression analyses, taking into account the nested nature of the observations.

The results suggest that the execution of a high number of HR tasks does not lead to the occurrence of HR role stressors among front‐line managers. However, for the HR department it is important to create an appropriate environment in terms of giving HR support and advice to line managers, and training line managers regarding their HR competencies.

This research opens up interesting lines of inquiry regarding the conditions under which the partnership between the HR department and line management can be successful.

The paper provides HR practitioners with insights into the conditions needed to avoid perceptions of HR role stressors among front‐line managers.

The paper applies role theory in a new context, i.e. the HR role of front‐line managers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of role stressors (role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload) on change readiness and in turn their effects on the withdrawal process. In addition, it explores the moderating role of colleague support in the relationship between role stressors and change readiness.

Data were collected from health care workers (n=457) in a large Canadian hospital undergoing large scale change.

The results revealed that role ambiguity and role conflict had a significant negative association with change readiness. Change readiness was related to turnover intentions which was related to higher levels of absenteeism and actual turnover. Change readiness partially mediated the relationship between role ambiguity and turnover intentions but not for role conflict and role overload. Turnover intentions partially mediated the relationship between change readiness and actual turnover but not for absenteeism. Role conflict had a direct rather than an indirect effect via change readiness on turnover intentions. Finally, colleague support moderated the relationship between all three role stressors and change readiness.

Little is known about the limiting factors of change as well as the factors that protect against them. The authors identify role stressors as a limiting factor for change and highlight their impact on change readiness and the overall withdrawal process. The results, however, also show that some demands are more commonly experienced by health care workers thereby not posing a threat to their change readiness. Colleague support is identified as a coping mechanism for mitigating against the detrimental effects of role stressors.

Integrating relationship marketing and management research, the author explores internal selling (i.e., a salesperson’s internally focused efforts intended to identify, solicit, and use internal sales resources to support external selling activities) as a unique source of salespeople role stress and examine its contingent outcomes. The conceptual model suggests that internal selling as a job demand and stressor leads to increased salespeople role stress. However, a number of situational (i.e., selling organization market orientation, service climate, and seller–buyer relationship) and individual factors (i.e., networking ability and psychological capital of the salespeople) serve as job and personal resources to moderate the internal selling–outcome relationships, such that when such resources are adequate, internal selling will reduce role stress and increase sales performance. The author also examines situational (i.e., customer solutions offering and formalization of the selling organization) and individual (i.e., salespeople power and social status) antecedents of internal selling. The model provides useful insights and practical guidance for selling organizations to recognize mechanisms associated with internal selling in their organizations, and to intentionally design within organization support systems to enhance salespeople well being and enable them to participate effectively in the relational process of selling. The chapter stresses the need to develop context-specific stress models for different occupations and job roles.

Recent years have seen an explosion in the study of emotions in organizations, and although emotions play a central role in the job stress process, their role is largely neglected in empirical stressor–strain studies. Our chapter aims to build consensus in the literature by showing that discrete emotions provide a mechanism through which stressors exert their impact on well-being. By examining a larger domain of stressors, emotions, and well-being, we begin to develop and expand upon the nomological network of emotions. In an effort to build on the job demands–resources (JD-R) model, which includes both job demands (i.e., negative stimuli such as time pressure) and resources (i.e., positive stimuli such as autonomy), we include both negative and positive discrete emotions with the expectation that negative emotions will generally be linked to demands and positive emotions will be linked to resources. We also propose that there may be circumstances where demands trigger negative discrete emotions and lead to greater experienced strain, and conversely, where resources arouse positive discrete emotions, which would positively affect well-being. The model in our chapter sheds light on how discrete emotions have different antecedents (i.e., job demands and resources) and outcomes (e.g., satisfaction, burnout, performance), and as such, respond to calls for research on this topic. Our findings will be of particular interest to organizations where employees can be trained to manage their emotions to reduce the strain associated with job stressors.

Research examining the experiences of women in the workplace has, to a large extent, neglected the unique stressors pregnant employees may experience. Stress during pregnancy has been shown consistently to lead to detrimental consequences for the mother and her baby. Using job stress theories, we develop an expanded theoretical model of experienced stress during pregnancy and the potential detrimental health outcomes for the mother and her baby. Our theoretical model includes factors from multiple levels (i.e., individual, interpersonal, sociocultural, and community) and the role they play on the health and well-being of the pregnant employee and her baby. In order to gain a deeper understanding of job stress during pregnancy, we examine three pregnancy-specific organizational stressors (i.e., perceived pregnancy discrimination, pregnancy disclosure, and identity-role conflict) that are unique to pregnant employees. These stressors are argued to be over and above the normal job stressors experienced and they are proposed to result in elevated levels of experienced stress leading to detrimental health outcomes for the mother and baby. The role of resilience resources and learning in reducing some of the negative outcomes from job stressors is also explored.

This chapter discusses how the control and strategic management of resources plays a role in the occupational stress process. Building upon prior resource theories of stress, the idea is developed that control of external and internal resources, and not resource acquisition or maintenance, is a vital element that contributes to a strain response to workplace demands. This can occur at the level of objective resources (resources needed to cope with demands), and it can occur at the level of perceived resources (the individual’s perception of resource control). The chapter also discusses the importance of resource management strategies that individuals engage in, as well as both internal and external resource management resources. Several common stressors are discussed in resource control terms, and the role of power and politics in strategic resource management is discussed.

Research on perceptions of organizational politics has mostly explored the negative aspects and detrimental outcomes for organizations and employees. Responding to recent calls in the literature for a more balanced treatment, we expand on how positive and negative organizational politics perceptions are perceived as stressors and affect employee outcomes through their influence on the social environment. We propose that employees appraise positive and negative organization politics perceptions as either challenge or hindrance stressors, to which they respond with engagement and disengagement as problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies. Specifically, employees who appraise the negative politics perceptions as a hindrance, use both problem- and emotion-focused coping, which entails one of three strategies: (1) decreasing their engagement, (2) narrowing the focus of their engagement, or (3) disengaging. Although these strategies result in negative outcomes for the organization, employees’ coping leads to their positive well-being. In contrast, employees appraising positive politics perceptions as a challenge stressor use problem-focused coping, which involves increasing their engagement to reap the perceived benefits of a positive political environment. Yet, positive politics perceptions may also be appraised as a hindrance stressor in certain situations, and, therefore lead employees to apply emotion-focused coping wherein they use a disengagement strategy. By disengaging, they deal with the negative effects of politics perceptions, resulting in positive well-being. Thus, our framework suggests an unexpected twist to the stress process of politics perceptions as a strain-provoking component of employee work environments.

This study aims to investigate the theoretical relationships between job stressors, psychological stress and coping strategies in the context of the global travel and tourism crisis faced by the airline industry.

An online cross-sectional survey was designed to obtain empirical data from airline employees in South Korea and Hong Kong. A total of 366 airline employees participated in the survey through convenience sampling method.

The structural equation modeling findings indicated that work schedule and demand; job insecurity and financial concerns; and role conflict played a significant role in creating psychological stress, which, in turn, determined emotion-oriented coping. The influence of the identified job stressors on psychological stress was significantly different between South Korean and Hong Kong airline employees.

The study demonstrates ways in which airline employees react to stressful work circumstances to avoid loss of resources. Furthermore, it highlights the role that psychological stress plays in influencing airline employees to direct attention to emotion-oriented coping mechanisms.

In view of the immense impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global airline industry, this study expands the role of job stressors in a peculiar and unprecedented work environment in the airline industry and accentuates the varying effects job stress may have on coping strategies from the perspective of airline employees in an Asian culture.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of total quality management (TQM) practices on role stressors in Iranian manufacturing SMEs in order to determine the relationship between the multidimensionality of TQM practices and role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload.

Questionnaires are administrated to 410 employees of 100 different manufacturing SMEs in Iran.

The results support important negative association among some of TQM practices (such as employee involvement, information analysis, process management, supplier management, strategic planning and customer focus) and role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload. By utilizing multiple regression analysis, information analysis, supplier management, employee involvement, process management, customer focus, strategic planning are found to have significant and negative relationship with role stressors. Leadership and human resource focus are found to have significant and positive relationship with role stressors.

This model is perfect for practical usage by SME managers to estimate the perceptions of role stressors of employees in TQM oriented firms. The findings recommend that manufacturing should look into ways of improving the major roles of TQM practices in order to decrease the negative role stressors of employees.

TQM practices emerge to be related to role stressors (role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload), attending to an obvious noticeable gap in the previous studies of TQM and the psychological welfare of employees.